Robbins Report

I'll Report, YOU Decide...

    "To my knowledge there have never been any paintings missing"
      Mary LeClair quoted in Monday's Cape Cod Times

Another morning telephone request to E. Mark Zielinski to view and photograph the paintings in the vault went un-returned. By Peter Robbins

Emails and telephone calls, all direct my attention to the headline: Breaking News.  Huh.

After assuring everyone that I just want to find the art, I continued with some more research.  Wait a minute--just hold on one second!  How can she possibly say that?

Provincetown Historian and Assembly Member, George Bryant, wrote an essay in 1997 entitled, An Article on the History of the Donation of Artwork to the Barnstable County Hospital and the Recent Recovery of Some of Them. After reading it through, I am going to take the liberty of quoting from it.  It's amazing to say the least.  Mr. Bryant's quotes will be the heart of this story--and there are many more parts to come.

"As of last Friday, eight paintings and prints that appear to be from the 1941 donation have surfaced and five of those are signed. There are reports that one of the original lot of paintings is in Florida, which is, by any definition, quite remote from Barnstable County and its buildings."

"A week later one more of the original lot was found elsewhere and last Friday Mary LeClair and I returned to Pocasset where we found two more. It is quite possible that others will turn up." "As the Provincetown representative to the Barnstable County Legislature, the Assembly of Delegates, I wrote to the three Commissioners in the summer of 1991. Along with the letter, I sent a clipping from the Cape Cod Standard Times from 1941 with a reference to the donation and asked them to try and locate the artworks."

"This past November Mary LeClair was elected as a Commissioner after a long career as Treasurer and I suspected I had a new ally in the search for the paintings. Among her many volunteer activities, she has served as a trustee of a local art museum.  She immediately became interested and I turned over copies of the paperwork on the subject."

Rob O'Leary & Mary LeClair make an art tour 

"In March I accompanied Commissioners Rob O’Leary and Mary LeClair on a tour of the women’s building to view the paintings. It is a rather elaborate structure that was built in the 1920s to house the sheriff. On the way down the stairs to the basement where the painting were supposed to have been stored in a closet, the Special Sheriff told us that he had stopped maintenance personnel from taking the paintings to the dump a few days ago."

"Among those still missing are the Edwin Dickinson, Bruce McKain, John Whorf and Philip Malicoat.  The artwork in the original collections could be worth into the six figures in dollars.""We found five from the original donation piled on metal chairs in a room used by the inmates to manufacture wreaths from dried flowers."

"A week later one more of the original lot was found elsewhere and last Friday Mary LeClair and I returned to Pocasset where we found two more. It is quite possible that others will turn up."

"Among those still missing are the Edwin Dickinson, Bruce McKain, John Whorf and Philip Malicoat.  The artwork in the original collections could be worth into the six figures in dollars."

Now let's think about this for a minute.  I have , and am still not pointing fingers.  As a reader, you may logically ask, why not? The answer is simple, there is more to this story than meets the eye, but it will be reported.

What would Mercy Otis say? 

So when you read a breaking news headline that quotes a person in the know as saying, "To my knowledge there have never been any paintings missing" and you have documents in front of you that put a little different twist on it, I guess as a responsible person, it has to be reported.

How appropriate that the statues of James Otis and his sister Mercy Otis Warren adorn the front lawn of the building that houses the County Commissioners.  James Otis was one of the most passionate and effective protectors of American rights during the 1760s.  Four years before the Declaration of Independence in 1772, Sister Mercy  anonymously published The Adulateur, a satire that cast the governor as "Rapatio", a villain intent on raping the colony.

Read the three previous installments of the county art series:

• Rembrandts, they are not
• Rembrandts, they are not II
• What do the Gardner Museum heist & the Barnstable county art have in common?
  
• County list confirms paintings ARE missing!