Friends newsletter #9 Dec 2012 Registered charity no. 1063357 Registered in England & Wales with company no. 03306866 Contact friends@lenkiewiczfoundation.org Latest news at www.lenkiewiczfoundation.org Robert Lenkiewicz was in many respects a genuinely extraordinary person, epitomiz- ing the “larger than life” stereotype. In spite of this, or perhaps because of it, he was prone to myth-making and exaggeration. One myth he promoted was that he had pro- duced over 10,000 paintings. This figure has been doubted by many. The exhibition lists for his Projects total over 1200 works (Projects 1–21; excluding those for which figures are lacking: 10, 11, 13, 18, 20): impressive in itself but far from Robert’s fig- ure. I will here present an estimate of Robert’s production, based on my database of his works. This database includes the majority of Robert’s works ever sold at auc- tion, many private collections, and many of the remaining works in The Lenkiewicz Foundation. There are several obstacles that make all attempts at such estimates provisional. For example, what did Robert mean by “painting”? In many Project exhibitions, Robert included both oils, watercolours and drawings. The Project exhibition lists give titles but only occasionally the medium. Sometimes the asking price is an indication of the medium, but unless the actual work can be identified, the identification of medi- um is tentative. By far the most important problem is the correct identification of the works. The Project material can frequently be identified through the subject and style, but it is often impossible to identify the painting or other work in the exhibition list from the title alone. Sometimes Robert wrote titles on the reverse of the canvas (not always accurately: even the sitter was occasionally misidenti- fied); sometimes a label gives the title, but often there is no such information. Another complicating factor is the fre- quent re-use of paintings in later exhibitions. From some Projects, few or no paintings were re-used (for example, in Mental Handicap only no.72 was re-used (in Project 15, no.26), whereas from others up to every third painting occurs also in another Project exhibition list (e.g., Project 16: 17 out of 49 identified). Some paintings were exhibited in three different Projects (e.g. Project 14, no. 58: The Resurrection of Mary, also in Projects 15 and 16; Project 8, no.3: Man eating his heart and entrails, also in Projects 12 and 15; Project 12 no.16: Man in a knot by the straight back of a woman, also in Projects 14 and 16). A painting could even be used in exhibitions eight years apart (Death presenting Peace to the Maiden in Projects 2 and 15). The result is that less than 500 of the 2000 works (mostly oil paintings but also some watercolours and a few drawings) in the database have been identified in the Project exhibition lists. A further 250 oil paintings belong to these Projects but cannot be iden- tified in the lists. To these may be added over 500 paintings unambiguously belong- ing to Projects 18 and 20, for which no com- plete lists exist. Robert’s production includes some cate- gories apart from Project work. Oil paintings produced before Vagrancy, often listed as “Early Work”, number some 150 entries in the database. There are over 500 non- Project oil paintings, and some 80 further oil paintings are probably also non-Project works. If these numbers are an indication of Robert’s total production, one may try to extrapolate the figures. Of the approximately 1,200 works given in the exhibitions lists (with the exceptions given above), some 700 are present in the database (mostly oils but also watercolours and drawings). That means 58%. Extrapolating to estimate the total number of such works produced by Robert (mainly oil paintings), one arrives at roughly 3,500. This figure cannot be taken at face value. There are so many uncertainties that the actual figure may be markedly smaller or larger. What is certain, however, is that Robert did not produce 10,000 oil paintings. If watercolours and mixed media are includ- ed, some 1,000 works can be added to the total (the database includes some 300 project watercolours and 250 non-Project watercolours and very few mixed media works). If we assume that Robert’s definition of “paintings” included both oils (and acrylic, house paint, etc) and watercolours (plus gouache, cryla, etc), his production seems to total no more than 5,000 paintings. In addition, the database includes about 2,500 drawings. If we use the 58% figure for extrapolation, we may assume that Robert produced well over 4,000 drawings. Since the survival rate of drawings is certainly much lower than that for oils, the figure is likely to be considerably higher. In addition to the works already in the public domain, there are, according to The Lenkiewicz Foundation, about 250 illustra- tions within the artist’s diaries, which span the years 1974–2002. Then there are the “relationship notebooks”, which includes Mary: Aesthetic Notes (which alone has more than 180 images). Much of this archive has yet to be catalogued but early estimates put the number of illustrations between 500 and 600. Finally, we must count the work in the Project Notebooks – 400 illustrations, not including the Mary material plus sundry other illustrated note- books, like the cartoonish “Pnoob Anecdotes”. Adding up all we know, and what we can assume, about Robert’s production, it appears that he did indeed produce 10,000 individual pieces of art. This is a truly stag- gering amount, and the consequences for those caring for his legacy are enormous. My database apparently includes less than half of the estimated amount of Robert’s total output. It is thus terribly incomplete, but not hopelessly so. Even in its present state of partial completeness, it has proven to be extremely efficient in the quest to reconstruct the various Projects, especially as exhibited. As a means to fol- low works of Robert on the art market, it is unsurpassed. As a potential starting point for a catalogue raisonnée, it is, if I may say so, unrivalled. It may even have a potential as a basis for a system of authentication of works ascribed to Robert. All these aspects are properties that should be considered when building the definitive catalogue of Robert’s works. After many years of legal delays, TLF can now finally access Robert’s preserved documentation of his work. This includes diaries, Project Notebooks and exhibition albums, including a large amount of photos. TLF were kind enough to provide me with digital copies of the exhibition photo-albums to help fill in many of the gaps in my knowledge – I may therefore be one of only a handful of people other than visitors to each Project exhibition to have an inkling of what those exhibitions must have looked like. The archive material will enable TLF to begin the process of creating the definitive catalogue(s) of Robert’s work. The first, and most promising, embryo can already be found on Flickr (http://www.flickr.com/ photos/robertlenkiewicz/sets/). The amount of work involved in properly cataloguing even the presently known works of Robert may, however, exceed the resourc- es currently available within TLF. I will con- tinue to put information from my database at TLF’s disposal, and it is my hope that others will aid TLF through submitting imag- es and information about works in their possession. If we all cooperate, we can cre- ate a lasting legacy of the creator of 10,000 works of art: Robert Lenkiewicz. THE MYTH OF THE 10,000 Lenkiewicz enthusiast LARS RAMSKOLD, who lives and works in Sweden, has for several years been compiling a database of known Lenkiewicz works. Guided by the galleries on The Lenkiewicz Book Project website (which Lars now administers), auction catalogues, published exhibition lists, books and direct evidence from sitters and associates of the artist, he has patiently amassed what must be the most comprehensive overview of the painter’s oeuvre. As The Lenkiewicz Foundation prepares to embark on an ambitious online catalogue of Lenkiewicz’s work, it asked Lars to survey the current state of knowledge about the artist’s work.