The Unsigned Masterpiece

Born in 1880 in Long Island, Paul Jerome Barry discovered a passion for painting at an early age. As his parents were rather well to do and open-minded, they let him follow his inclination, and he Studied Fine Arts in 1902 at the Chase School in New York, under two renowned painters of the time, namely William M. Chase and Robert Henri. Robert Henri’s teachings and experience gave him the urge to go to France, where everything was happening at the time. He moved to Paris in 1903, at 23 years of age.

Everything was new and wonderful to Paul, Paris was everything he had hoped for and more, it was buzzing with the excitement of the new century and the avant-garde of art was making bold strides. One of the first French painters he met there was Narcisse Guilbert from Rouen, in Normandy. He was a handsome and elegant man with a bright palette who was two years his senior. Paul was impressed with Narcisse’s work and learned that the all of the Painters from the Rouen Fine Arts School were considered as rebels, and that the school was led by artists that rejected the artistic conventions of the time. All of this pleased Paul. Narcisse invited him to take a trip to Normandy with him, and so it was that Paul found himself in Honfleur, in the bording house of Mme Simone Barbeau in September 1903.

Simone’s husband André was a sailor, and went on long trips, usually for at least three or four months. He was hard working and realistic. Simone kept the boarding house, and had gained a steady clientele from the artists who came to Honfleur. She would rent for a day, a week, a month, or longer. She was known to everyone in town and her house almost always had a few painters living in it. André thought that painting wasn’t a man’s job, or a real job, but didn’t mind painters as clients, as long as they paid their room and board.

André and Simone had only one child, Lucas, born in 1891. Lucas was a handsome and likable boy with a constant smile who laughed often, but he worried his parents. As a baby, and then through the passing years, Lucas didn’t speak at all. He simply refused to utter a word, and he was distant, as if dreaming all of the time. He was able to do tasks, and he apparently understood everything when spoken to, and so he helped his mother with all of her work. While he laughed often, sometimes his parents wondered what he was laughing at. Because of his strangeness and communication difficulties, André and Simone decided that it was better that he not go to school, to not be singled out and picked on by the other kids. He surprised them one day at 6 years of age, when he came to them with a simple question, written with charcoal on a small piece of paper with perfect grammar and spelling. He was just asking for a pencil and some paper to draw on. He started communicating with them only by writing, and they discovered that he had learned to read and write by himself, using whatever he could find to read. From then on, they gave him pencils and paper and he started scribbling, but his scribbles were not haphazard, although they looked as such to his parents. They were very intricate and complicated, and he would get completely engrossed in them, ignoring everything that was happening around him. His father always threw them out, complaining about the waste of paper, but never scolded or punished Lucas. To André, it was just more proof that his son was not normal, but he was God-fearing, and believed that the difference of his son was the will of God.

When Paul Barry and Narcisse Guilbert checked into Simone’s boarding house for a two month stay, Lucas was 12. André was gone out to sea and wouldn’t be returning for some time. The two painters took an immediate liking to the boy, and Lucas seemed to like them a lot as well. They were talking together early one night over a bottle of Muscadet, as they did often, and the subject of Lucas came up.

“What do you think about Lucas?” Paul asked his friend.

“Strange boy, but nice. I like him. He always smiles, he never complains, and he keeps the rooms really clean. Too bad he’s mute.”

“I really like him too. Have you seen his drawings?”

“You mean his scribbles?”

“I think that they’re more than that, they’re loaded with feeling.”

“Really? I hadn’t paid much attention.”

Paul called out “Lucas! Can you come upstairs?”

Lucas came quickly and knocked on the door.

“You can come in Lucas.”

The boy smiled at them timidly and waited patiently for Paul to say what he wanted.

“Don’t worry, it’s not about your work, everything is perfect, we were just wondering if you could show us some of your drawings.”

Lucas nodded his head, left, and returned with a handful of his intricate penciled compositions.

“Thank you. Can you stay a few minutes Lucas? We’d like to take a good look at them.” Paul took them and showed them to his friend.

“You see what I mean now? Can you feel all of the emotion wrapped up in these drawings?”

“What of it? Yes, it’s interesting, but crazy.”

“I think he’s on to something.”

“Like what? I don’t follow you.”

Paul turned to Lucas now. “Lucas, how would you like to paint something? I’ll give you everything you need. ”

Lucas’s eyes lit up and his face beamed at the proposition. He had seen many painters come and go in his house, but none had ever offered to let him use their paints before. He was overwhelmed with joy, still, not a word. He nodded his head and Paul patted him on the shoulder. Paul had a lot of paint and supplies with him, so he put together a basic paint set, with essential colors, a palette, a palette knife, one old beat up paintbrush, and a medium sized pre-stretched and primed canvas.

For the next 2 months Lucas was completely absorbed in his new pastime. Simone had trouble getting him away from his painting and his work was suffering from it, making her work harder. Narcisse didn’t see any point in the experiment, but Paul was very interested in the result. The boy’s use of color was something indefinable, his brush strokes were those of a maestro, even if he had never held a paintbrush before. Paul was amazed at the result the child obtained with only one skimpy old brush and just a few tubes of paint.

The experiment was bound to come to an end, and that it did with the return of André. André was furious at Paul for having made his son idle, and no one except Paul saw the magnificence of the masterpiece that Lucas had created. To everyone else it was just random color, like childish scribbles. André threw out his boarder, and told him to take his paints back, along with his son’s painting. Paul packed up, took the boy’s unsigned painting with his own finished and unfinished canvases, and went back to Paris.

In Paris, Paul put Lucas Barbeau’s painting on an easel in his studio and studied it, admiring it. He started to try to achieve the same result in his own painting. He wasn’t happy with the results though, and his peers didn’t see anything exceptional in his work either. Still, he strove diligently…tying to reach the expert level of Barbeau’s painting. It became an obsession to him. He never let anyone enter his studio, his private space, for fear that someone would discover the boy’s painting. Over the years he progressed, slowly, finally exhibiting in galleries and in the Paris Salons and he even started gaining a modest following and selling some of his pieces. Abstract expressionism was coming into vogue with the work of Paul Klee and Wassily Kandinsky, and Paul’s unique abstract style, secretly inspired by that of Lucas Barbeau, fit in well with the trends of the time in Paris. 

Paul Barry was far from satisfied. How could it be that a 12-year-old, with his first, and one and only painting, and without any instruction whatsoever in the arts, could produce such a wonder? Whereas he, who had been painting since he was a child, had been to Art School, had frequented and studied with master painters, knew all of the techniques and theories…couldn’t produce such a marvelous work of art. Paul started to nose-dive into a depression; he was never happy with his paintings and destroyed most of them. He fell deep into debt and was constantly drunk. One day he could take it no more. His unattained obsession got the better of him and he took his life in 1913, ten years after having arrived in Paris. Still a young man, at only 33, he drowned himself in the Seine. In an effort to recuperate some of his debts, a bailiff went with Paul Barry’s art dealer to his studio and had everything evaluated. The art dealer, seeing Lucas Barbeau’s masterpiece, immediately realized its value. As it was unsigned, other experts were consulted about the painting. All of the specialists agreed, it was indeed a true masterpiece, and they all had the same position about who the master was. It seemed to be obvious that Paul Barry had finally achieved his ambition, as the progression of his work for the last decade clearly showed. The decision of the experts was unanimous, and the work of art was attributed to Paul Jerome Barry. It was put up for auction and sold to a private collector. Paul’s debts were covered, and the rest was wired to his parents in Long Island, who never doubted that the painting was not the work of their son.