FORGERIES??? No. It’s just my TEMPLE DE MEMOIR.

Having spent most of my life indulging myself in various aspects of art: the making of it, the caring for it, the interpreting of it in studio, , museum or school and markedly aware of all of arts many styles , voices and faces, the idea of having a museum of my own did not seem too outrageous a preoccupation.

When , with the execution of Robespierre and the end of the French revolution’s phase of outright vandalism of any art work associated with the ancien regime (both secular and religious), the Directoire, in the voice of Francois de Neufchateau, Minister of thte Interior, announced the formation of a Temple de Memoir, which would end the vandalism and thereafter preserve for the education and enlightenment of the body politic the great works of the past no matter what the subject matter or previous association. Thus the beginning, with the gathering up of Napoleonic spoils , the foundation of the National State Museums of France in Paris and the Provinces and, therewith, the foundation of the modern public museum.

SO... I have my Temple of Memory. I have painted a number of images in styles belonging to different periods and places. Not forgeries. These are works that (as I say in my advertisement) are by non-existent artists of non- existent subjects.

Have I lost you? Let’s have a look at the paintings.
(See thumbnails below this text)

And then, even while creating these images, I began speculating as to who the artist might be, what was his relationship to the subject and finally, what happened to the painting itself (its provenance): in other words, the whole baggage of art historical authorship. "One does not just drink fine wine. One must talk about it." Thusly, each of these works has acquired not only the golden frame of nobility but also the vestaments of scholarship!