Noted Cartoonist Don Trachte, artist of the King Features syndicate cartoon strip Henry, kept a famous painting carefully hidden for decades. This story from 2006 was too good to let go, so I’ve reloaded it from the old blog.
The full story at The New York Times:
“For years, art experts have noted that the original copy of Norman Rockwell’s painting, “Breaking Home Ties,” appears to be lighter in color than the prints that appeared in the Saturday Evening Post in 1954. The discrepancy has long been blamed on an overly aggressive cleaning of the work. But now, the truth has come out: cartoonist Don Trachte, who owned the painting for years, apparently made a sophisticated copy in the 1970s and hid the original in a secret compartment in his Vermont home, in an effort to avoid losing the Rockwell in a bitter divorce. It wasn’t until last month that Trachte’s sons discovered the genuine article, right where their father had left it.”
One of the things I like most about this story is it shows cartoonists who work in simple lines often have extraordinary reserves of technical abilities unknown to their fans. Trachte was able to create a forgery of a Rockwell, and no one was the wiser.
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