A Bicycle Built for Two
Within all of us harbors another person, perhaps someone we would like to meet, perhaps not. The ego versus the alter ego. The yin and the yang. Good versus evil. But the alter ego, unlike natural opposition, does not automatically translate into negativity. It can be quite good, depending upon the personality. The intensity of Jekyll and Hyde is tempered by the illusions of Walter Mitty. The Old Man'll get us through...pocketa-pocketa-pocketa. It is a peculiar psychiatric fate. Which way it turns is a constant internal struggle. Take this young couple: they meet, they fall in love, and they live happily ever after. Fairy tale formula. It is not for everyone but you probably know a couple like this. The world appears to revolve around them. There is something more to their relation- ship than simply holding hands and exchanging smiles. Their lives move in sync like the wheels
Three Comrades, oil on canvas, by Carl Knop, 24" x 30"
on a tandem bike, soaring together as two birds in flight. No cue cards required. What separates them from others? What is their secret? Could their enhanced relationship be the result of compatible alter egos? Two personalities mesh, but what are the chances two alter egos tango? Buried memories resurface in our gallery this week, begging answers to these questions. A long-forgotten relationship, dormant for years, beckons us. Some people believe the dead can't speak. How wrong this assumption. They speak loud and clear. All one need do is listen.
Spinning a Yarn
The Fleisher brothers were nineteenth century merchants, establishing one of America's first worsted wool mills in southwest Philadelphia. Along their family's path of success, second generation Samuel Fleisher, a graduate of the Wharton School, believed their employees would be better served through enrichment beyond the factory gate. Borrowing an idea from his sister Helen, Samuel opened a neighborhood art center in 1898 for them and their extended families, especially the children. As the art center's popularity grew, so too did the facilities. By 1922, Samuel purchased the Episcopal Church of the Evangelist and converted the property into a home for his personal art collection, classrooms, and, with addition of a Steinway piano, a concert
Winter Fields, oil on canvas, Carl Knop, Abstract Expressionism 22" x 32"
hall. He named his center The Sanctuary. It would become fertile ground for young minds, reaching far beyond his original intent. Upon Samuel's death in 1944, the key to his institution was handed to the Philadelphia Museum of Art. The program still thrives to this day.
Brush Strokes
Enter two young students, both alike in artistic curiosity. America was enjoying the post-World War II expansion and opportunities were unlimited, including time for an art education. Somewhere between the easels and engravings, these two students met. Together they enjoyed their classes and each other at Fleisher. A small dab of oil here, a drip of watercolor there, and soon they were sharing a canvas. Theirs was an ideal world, surrounded with color and creativity, dreaming and experimenting, simply living and loving. The Land of the Lotus Eaters. Marriage was the natural progression. These idyllic years would remain forever imbedded in their minds and on their canvases, their alter egos firmly entwined. Reality always arrives on time. Life requires basic necessities, like eating. He would eventually secure a job with Dupont in Delaware, but surprisingly, their search for a home led them northward from Philadelphia to Central Bucks County. Here they found their sense of place, a setting as closely akin to the Elysian Fields of Fleisher. They discovered something else. Brown Bros. A smorgasbord of art and humanities. A virtual feast for their intellect. Weekly trails of humanity are here to explore and acquire. The couple planted their garden and their roots in Bucks County until the day they departed this mortal plane.
Circus performer, oil on canvas, Louise Nard (Knop) 28" x 20"
In the corner of the garage was a stack of unframed oil paintings, supporting one another, their only line of defense against time. Dusty, forgotten, the canvases had been sitting well over fifty years, never once complaining, just waiting. They had never been offered for sale. They couldn't be. Their value was far beyond commercial, strictly personal. Here was the rosetta stone to a life loved beyond the mainstream, when time afforded those fleeting seconds to bathe in the light of shared emotions, anchors amid the mayhem, the world of the alter ego.
Oil on canvas, Carl Knop, 30" x 36". We are humans trapped in the times we live, moved by forces beyond our control. This is an example of Abstract Expressionism with the added touch of Surrealism. Styles in the post war movement.
John Lennon included the perfect line in his Double Fantasy album: Life is what happens to you when you're busy making other plans. How well understood in the auction world. But reality certainly does arrive on time.