From Seven to Seventy: Memories of a Painter and a Yankee

by Edward Simmons

After the decorators had been chosen for the work in the Appellate Court, the chief justice asked me to bring in some of my former contracts that he might see the form and make one for us to sign more or less like them. Then, later, he asked me to make one which I thought would serve. As the question was then vitally at issue about the copyright, I slipped in a small clause—“artist to retain the copyright.” It came back to me blue-penciled, so I saw it would be no use. Later, the chief justice gave a talk at a lunch to which I was invited, and remarked that Mr. Simmons was “not only an able painter, but a keen lawyer.” If it had not been for an accident, he would not have noticed a certain line that I had put into my contract, and I would have obtained a decision of the Appellate Court for nothing. That line would have established a precedent for the state of New York, and from that time all artists would have had and owned their copyrights.

James Lord was the architect of the Appellate Court. There was great trouble because he signed out the triptych to three men when it should have been given to one. He evidently wanted to give everyone a chance, for in the other part of the building he gave one frieze to five men. Our triptych was done by Blashfield, Walker, and myself. We were to do Justice in three forms, and as the work of Blashfield and myself was more nearly alike, we put Walker in the middle. I waited until Blashfield had determined the composition, the color scheme, and even until he had actually painted his background, and then, as far as I could, I followed him. After the canvases were completed and on the wall, I found that my two figures of small boys in the foreground were not in the right place, so I painted them out and moved them up four inches higher. Blashfield went even farther. He took out a woman’s figure with her back turned and changed her completely, because he did not think she agreed with the general composition of the three. These changes were very difficult, as they were done under a different light, in a different place from the original work, and, of necessity (as the building was then in use), without the assistance of models.

A remark of Richard Canfield’s on my panel is worth quoting. I have, in the foreground, a symbolism of a child pushing away the nose of a vulpine animal with his right hand, to protect a rabbit at his left. The great gambler said:

“By George! Simmons, I did not know you had so much intelligence as that. That symbolism of yours is very apt: Crime, Ignorance, and Stupidity. Is that what the Appellate Court stands for?”

At my first interview with Canfield I got a taste of the man I was to deal with. Clarence Luce was the architect who made the gambling house on Forty-fourth Street, next to Delmonico’s, and he came to me with a proposition to decorate it, saying that I was to talk the matter over with Mr. Canfield himself. I, of course, decided he would know nothing of art and it would be rather trying. I was mistaken. A short, fattish, powerful man greeted me and said, only:

“I want your best work. You know what that is and I shall know it when I see it. We’ll talk the money over later.”

This did not seem extraordinary to me at the time. Sad experience has since taught me to do nothing without a contract, but I have always found that with men of the character of Richard Canfield, nothing of the sort is necessary. In working for John Dunston, proprietor of the famous “Jack’s” Restaurant, I would paint a panel in my studio, take it down to the room, and put it upon the wall, go directly to the office and get my money—no criticism of my work and no arguments—just a man’s word, and as to the artistic part of it, he considered my judgment better than his.

Like Napoleon, when Canfield wanted anything done, he employed the best men and told them to go ahead. He became a great friend of Whistler’s and has written one of the most interesting accounts of the painter that I have read. Whistler painted Canfield’s portrait and doubtless found him a congenial companion—as who would not? He knew life, he knew human nature, he was an expert on guns and firearms and had killed his man or I miss my guess; and yet I must say that Richard Canfield was a man in every sense of the word and as much a gentleman as one who lives outside the law can be. He was the god of all the smaller gamblers and had helped more than one over the rough spots.

The house where fortunes were made and lost is standing to-day, and from the outside resembles nothing more than the ordinary, narrow, three- or four-story, brownstone dwelling place. In Canfield’s time, Clarence Luce had managed to transform the interior until it was quite a gem in its way. Entering by the big swing door, one stepped into a small vestibule done in Numidian marble. In the ceiling were five rhomboidal panels of thin jade behind which were lights casting a soft glow, Oriental in its effect (one might imagine it to be Cleopatra’s bedroom), and giving a thrill of mystery right at the start.

Before one was a solemn door and the usual grill with a bell. Upon ringing, a huge negro peeked through, and one was admitted if one were a friend. Behind this was a reception room, and here I painted Pandora and her box with a great smoke, interspersed with figures, coming out of it; while over the mantel of the room behind were Hospitality and her attendants. The gambling room was on the next floor, and on the newel post of the stairway was a charming little reproduction of the “Bacchante” by Frederick MacMonnies, of which Anders Zorn said to me: