There is a strange, inverted homage to Derwatt, a
non-existent artist, by the author Patricia Highsmith. The subject is a
recurring theme featuring in four of the five Ripley novels, published from 1970
To 1991. I have consolidated the information on Derwatt and his works (and those
of the forger, Bernard Tufts) in the hope that someone will try to paint them.
In Patricia Highsmith’s novel, The
Talented Mr Ripley, made famous as a film, the eponymous hero is a young man
from a modest background who murders his way to comfort, having become aware of
the attractions of a life of leisure.
The author’s subsequent output included several novels featuring Ripley in later
life, now married to Heloise, and living in France (Ripley Under Ground,
Ripley’s Game, The Boy Who Followed Ripley, and Ripley Under Water). A
recurring subject in these novels is the artist Derwatt and his works. Derwatt
committed suicide in Greece, but in order to continue to benefit from his
success, Ripley and several of Derwatt’s friends maintained a fiction that he
was still alive and painting as a recluse in South America. Excellent forgeries
were produced by Derwatt’s friend Bernard Tufts to keep the market alive and
then unsuccessfully by Steuerman.
I intend to outline the details of
Derwatt and his painting as given in the novels, and encourage the creation of
facsimiles of the works. Full details of the novels referenced are in the
subsidiary pages. Below are summaries of the plots and a distillation of the
life and work of Derwatt and his 'school'.
In Ripley Under Ground (1970) a Derwatt
exhibition coincides with suspicions of forgery by an American collector,
Murchison. Ripley travels to London to impersonate Derwatt, invites Murchison
back to France where he kills him (brained with a wine bottle in his cellar).
Bernard Tufts no longer wants to paint the forgeries: he visits Ripley and helps
to dispose of Murchison’s body, eventually kills himself and Ripley uses parts
of his body to fake Derwatt's death.
In
Ripley’s Game (1974), the references are fairly sparse, the story
concentrating on his friend (a Derwatt owner) Reeves’ problems with mafia
infiltration of his business, the successful but unrewarding assassination of
some mafia figures (partially by an acquaintance, Jonathan) and Ripley’s
eventual escape from suspicion and blame.
In The Boy Who Followed Ripley
(1980), a young American, Frank Pierson (aka Billy Rollins and Ben Andrews), who
killed his plutocrat father, visited Ripley before being kidnapped, rescued by
Tom, and then killing himself by jumping from the same cliff he launched his
father’s wheelchair over. There are numerous references to Tom’s Derwatts, to
Reeves’, and to Frank’s father’s Derwatt.
In Ripley Under Water, (1991) the last of the
Ripley novels, published in 1991. An inquisitive American couple, the Pritchards,
take up residence in Villeperce. David Pritchard is a trouble-maker of
independent wealth whose hobby is to make others uncomfortable. He makes veiled
threats of investigations and disclosure of Tom Ripley's past, following an
indirect acquaintance with both Cynthia (the late forger Bernard Tuft's
girlfriend) and Mrs Murchison (widowed by Tom by a bottle of claret to Mr
Murchison's head). Jeff and Ed from the Buckmaster Gallery get involved and,
while Héloïse holidays in North Africa, Pritchard finds Murchison's remains
(thrown in a canal by Tom and Bernard) and delivers them anonymously to Tom's
door. Tom and Ed return the canvas-wrapped skeleton to the Pritchard's pond, in
which they (the Pritchards) both flounder and drown. The book ends rather
abruptly, as did Ripley Under Ground: perhaps Highsmith's intention was to pick
up the story in the next Ripley novel (as Under Ground with The Boy Who
Followed), but she did not get the chance, she died in 1995.
So, what do we know?
Philip Derwatt [1]
was a moderately successful painter who committed suicide in Greece in his late
twenties [2a and
2b], or possibly at around forty.
There are probably
around one hundred Derwatts [3]
(including forgeries) and Tufts painted more
‘Derwatt’s than Derwatt had, probably 60%/40% [4].
Twenty-eight [5] were on show in the
exhibition described in Under Ground.
Men, little girls,
chairs, tables, strange things on fire, these still predominate
[K1]
[A] young painter
in London called Steuerman, who had been attempting Derwatt forgeries for them –
maybe five by now – but whose work could not hold a candle to that of the
dedicated Bernard Tufts [R1]
In detail
Man in
Chair
This was
a pinkish picture of a man in a chair, a man with several outlines, so it
seemed one was looking at the picture through someone else's distorting
eyeglasses. Some people said Derwatts hurt their eyes. But from a distance
of three or four yards, they didn't. This was not a genuine Derwatt, but an
early Bernard Tufts forgery. [all
at A1] the boy looked at the painting ‘Man in Chair’ over the
fireplace, then at the slightly smaller but genuine Derwatt called ‘The Red
Chairs’ [O1] Not a
Derwatt, Tom reminded himself, but a Bernard Tufts forgery called ‘Man in
Chair’ . It was reddish-brown with some yellow streaks, and like all
Derwatts, had multiple outlines, often with darker strokes, which some
people said gave them headaches; from a distance the images seemed lifelike,
even slightly moving. The man in the chair had a brownish, apelike face,
with an expression that could be described as thoughtful, but was by no
means defined by clear-cut features. It was the restless (even in a chair),
doubting, troubled mood of it which pleased Tom; that and the fact that it
was a phoney. It had a place of honour in his house.
[U1]
Red
Chairs
Two
little girls sat side by side, looking terrified, as if it were their first
day in school, or as if they were listening to something frightening in
church. 'The Red Chairs' was eight or nine years old. Behind the little
girls, wherever they were sitting, the whole place was on fire. Yellow and
red flames leapt about, hazed by touches of white, so that the fire didn't
immediately catch the attention of the beholder. But when it did, the
emotional effect was shattering. [all
at B1] The boy looked over his left
shoulder at the two little girls in the red chairs, flaming red fire behind
them, a picture that could certainly be called warm because of its subject
matter, but Tom know Frank meant a warmth of attitude on Derwatt’s part,
which showed in his repeated outlines of bodies and faces.
[Q1] The other Derwatt in the living-room was ‘The Red
Chairs’, another medium-large canvas, of two small girls about ten years
old, sitting on straight chairs in tense attitudes, with wide, frightened
eyes. Again the reddish-yellow outlines of chairs and figures were tripled
and quadrupled, and after a few seconds (Tom always thought, imagining a
first view) the viewer realised that the background could be flames, that
the chairs might be on fire. What was that picture worth now? A six-figure
sum in pounds, a high six-figure. Maybe more. It depended on who was
auctioning it. Tom’s insurer was always upping his two paintings. Tom had no
intention of selling them. [V1]
The
Clock
It's a
bluish-black clock held by … a little girl - who's facing the beholder … It
was a medium-sized Derwatt, perhaps two feet by three. [T]he clock was black
and purple. The brushstrokes and the colour resembled those of 'Man in
Chair' … A little girl in a pink-and-apple-green dress was holding the
clock, or rather resting her hand on it, as the clock was large and stood on
a table. [all
at F2]
Exhibition poster
the picture
reproduced in colour looked in the dim light dark purple or black and
somewhat resembled the raised top of a grand piano. A new Bernard Tufts
forgery, doubtless.[all at D1]
A mural
assignment had fallen through, and Derwatt had even finished the mural. The
judges turned it down because there were a couple of nudes in it. It was for
a post office somewhere. [M1]
? (owned
by Reeves)
‘Jonathan had realised that the painting over the fireplace, a pinkish scene
of a bed with an old person lying on it – male or female? – apparently
dying, really was a Derwatt’. [N1]
‘Tom saw that the pinkish Derwatt (genuine)
of a woman apparently dying in bed still hung over the fireplace.’
[S1]
The
Rainbow
Beige
colours below, and a rainbow mostly red above. All fuzzy and jagged. You
can’t tell what city it is, Mexico
or New York.’ Tom knew. A Bernard Tufts forgery. [P1]
‘The Rainbow’, a Bernard Tufts forgery. Tom
had never seen the painting, simply remembered its title from a Buckmaster
Gallery report to him on sales maybe four years ago. Tom recalled also
Frank’s description of it: beige below, being the tops of a city’s
buildings, and a mostly dark-reddish brown rainbow above with a little pale
green in it. All fuzzy and jagged, Frank had said. You can’t tell what city
it is,
Mexico or New York. And so it was, and well pulled off by Bernard, with dash
and assurance in that rainbow
[T1]
Cat in
Afternoon
pleased
Tom most, a warm reddish-brown and nearly abstract composition in which a
marmalade-and-white cat was not at once findable, a sleeping cat
[W1].
Station
Nowhere
a lovely
canvas of blue, brown, tan spots with a chalky but dirty-looking building in
the background, the railway station, presumably [X1].
Sisters
in an Argument
a
typical Derwatt, though to Tom a Bernard Tufts because of the date: a
portrait of two females facing each other, mouths open. Derwatt’s
multi-lined outlines conveyed a sense of activity, noise of voices, and the
dashes of red – a favourite devise of Derwatt and copied by Bernard Tufts –
suggested anger, maybe the scratching of fingernails and the blood therefrom.
[Y1]
Easel in
Studio
Ed
lifted a framed drawing which had been leaning, face inward, against his
chest of drawers. The conte and charcoal drawing showed vertical and
slanting lines that might have depicted an easel, and behind it a suggestion
of a figure just a bit taller than the easel. Was it a Tufts or a Derwatt?
‘Nice.’ Tom narrowed his eyes, opened them, advanced. ‘What’s it called?’
‘”Easel in Studio”.’ Ed replied. ‘I love the warm orangey-red . Just these
two lines to indicate the size of the room. Typical.’ He added, ‘I don’t
hang it all the time – just six months out of the year perhaps – so it’s
fresh to me. ’The drawing was nearly thirty inches high, maybe twenty broad,
in an appropriately grey and neutral frame. ‘Bernard’s?’ Tom asked. ‘It’s a
Derwatt. I bought it years ago – for absurdly little, I think about forty
pounds. Forgot where I found it! He did it in London.
Look at the hand.’ Ed extended his right hand in the same position towards
the painting. In the drawing, the right hand with an indication of a slender
brush in the fingers was extended. The painter was approaching the easel,
left foot delineated by a stroke of dark grey for the shoe sole.
[Z1]
3
drawings
Tom liked the first Nick pulled out, a sketch of a pigeon on a window sill,
which had a few of Derwatt’s extra outlines that suggested a shifting of the
alert bird. The paper, yellowish but originally off-white and of fair
quality, was nevertheless deteriorating at the edges, but Tom liked that.
The drawing was in charcoal and conte, under transparent plastic now. Tom
was looking at another in the portfolio, a busy restaurant interior, which
did not appeal to him, then a pair of trees and a bench in what looked like
a London park. No, the pigeon. [Z2]
