The Most Incredible Addition to My Friends and Family Art Collection
As a member of the Queen Anne Fortnightly study group for almost ten years I hosted many lunches for 24 ladies, planned quite a few parties and prepared about five presentations on a variety of topics. My favorite was choose a famous person to dine with which became Richard Olney Comes to Dinner at My House in March 2019, a very festive but fictitious event. He was my hero of food writing and living the best life you can. Although an author of several great cookbooks, he is probably most known for the Time Life series, The Good Cook Techniques and Recipes with 28 volumes of clear instructions on how to do everything in the kitchen (published in the US in 1969-70). This series is prized by culinary students and chefs and frequently plagiarized under the misguided sense the recipes are so old no one will notice. The recipes are so distinctive anyone who has read them would notice.
When he visited me for dinner where I made all his favorite things, described in the linked post above, he told me about working on The Good Cook series (very tiring, good money, never doing it again). He described why most don’t make it as professional wine tasters–don’t like spending the day in cold, dusty wine cellars spitting in a bucket 200 times and writing clearly about each of those spits. In his desire to be alone in the hills of Provence to paint, garden and cook, he had no running water or plumbing in his cottage. That still didn’t keep everyone away. He believed his wine cellar and his record collection lured people in to dance all night on his terrace overlooking the olive grove. Richard Olney was beloved by many including me.
Recently I received an extraordinary submission from my website which attracts salesmen of many varieties and a few marriage proposals. I read every one just in case it might be important. This one from an attorney in Providence RI made my heart pound.
“This is, no doubt, an unusual contact submission. My parents and I were friends with a woman in NY who had lived earlier in Britain and often traveled to Paris. In the 50's or early 60s she became friends with Beauford Delaney and with Richard Olney - whom you have written about on this blog. He had no descendants I am aware of. Our friend in NY also had no descendants, and so I inherited her belongings - full of interesting things, even though few have monetary value. One is a painting by Richard Olney. It is nothing special: a small painting of flowers. But it is signed "RO" in the lower right, and has his name written in her handwriting on the back. Now, the question is, whether you are aware of anyone who has collected memorabilia of Richard Olney, and who might be interested in the painting?”
I responded formally and at length with all sorts of ideas about relatives and people like Alice Waters but at the end I said, ME! I just happen to have an unusual collection of art by family and friends that this piece will fit right in and be cherished.
My new painting of Flowers by R.O. Two photos of Richard Olney at his cottage outside the village of Sollies-Toucas, close to Toulon and 30 minutes from Bandol in Provence. A portrait of James Baldwin by R.O. Part of the famous Good Cook series.
I am now indebted to Joan Sitwell who then took the painting to New York city where she lived on West 60th Street and had it framed by the esteemed House of Heydenryk with offices nearby and is still in business today for the finest museums and others who care about their framing. I will try to learn more about her and her envious lifestyle of the 50s and 60s. From what Richard wrote about his life in Paris then it was extremely lively and fun loving day and night.
I am forever grateful and indebted to the attorney, a noble human being who tracked me down through an internet search to try to find a friend of Richard Olney who would treasure a small painting of flowers. It found a home immediately at my house near the fireplace next to another rural painting where any visitor will see it first and I will study it every night when I sit on my loveseat at the golden hour to chat with my husband about the day.
Now that the Queen Anne Fortnightly papers will be archived at the University of Washington, we will all have more chances of being found by more researchers in the future. Isn’t that exciting?