February 23, 2020

Artists that never existed

Nat tate

In the 50s, a mysterious abstract expressionist painter lived in New York : Nat Tate (1928–1960), the perfect and romantic example of a bohemian, alcoholic, suicidal and insecure artist, who ended up neglecting most of his work before destroying him.

According to his biographer, Nathwell "Nat" Tate was a highly respected figure at the New York school, a cult artist who influenced his contemporaries ( Pollock, Rothko ...) but was virtually unknown to the general public.

A recurring motive in Tate's works was to paint bridges, a theme apparently inspired by Hart Crane's poetry .

As is often the case with insecure and misunderstood geniuses, Tate was already an intractable alcoholic at the end of his life . After a trip to Europe in 1959, where he met Braque, he was overwhelmed by the quality of art he saw there and when he returned home he felt a scammer and decided to destroy all his work (he got it with about 99% of his job).

Emulating the death of Hart Crane, Tate eventually committed suicide convinced of being a scammer on January 12, 1960, jumping off the Staten Island ferry.

A heartbreaking story, right ...?

Well, it's a lie. Everything emerges as a book-made joke, a fictional biography of writer William Boyd.

Jusep Torres Campalans

Jusep Torres Campalans (1886–1957) was the third most important Cubist painter, along with Braque and Picasso. Son of Catalan countrymen, he emigrates to Paris in the era of avant-garde and befriends artists like Pablo Picasso, Amedeo Modigliani or Piet Mondrian.

Max Aub was also in contact with the painter, and in fact he is the main source to know his life, since he wrote a biography of the artist after meeting him in his exile in Chiapas.

Described "Catalanista up to the hilt" and "anti-bourgeois anarchist", in addition to a fervent Catholic, Aub says that Campalans dressed like a worker and always wore the same worn-out corduroy suit and a perpetual turtleneck.

Party animal until dawn, he lived the avant-garde Parisian night together with his many friends, although it is known that he despised Juan Gris first, perhaps for being his main competition in the position of third cubist.

With Picasso he lived an intense friendship that went back to the painter's Barcelona years. At that time Jusep confessed to the painter that he had only seen naked women in photographs. Picasso invited him in Barcelona to a “brothel on the street of Avinyó”, becoming his sexual sponsor and future artistic mentor.

As a result of this friendship, several portraits of his friend remained for the story.

Campalans paints for eight intense years in that effervescent Paris, but suddenly abandons and for no apparent reason the art (coincides all with the outbreak of the Great War). It is suggested that he became aware that he would never have the genius to which he aspired and decides to go astray in the mountains of Chiapas, Mexico, where he ends his days isolated.

Avant-garde personalities, documents and catalogs proved the existence of the mysterious artist. People like Guillaume Apollinaire, Gertrude Stein or Max Aub attested that Campanals not only existed, but could be fundamental to the process of creating the first Cubist works.

But in 1958 it is discovered that Torres Campalans was actually a hoax. Aub himself explains that his novel, although it seemed a real biography (testimonies, photographs - the one above is a photomontage -, reproductions of his works ...), was basically a joke.

Even so, Max Aub's book is considered a valuable testimony today about avant-garde movements.