Work Text:
Ari Cohen created a painting in 1939 of his friends after a night out and his daughter gave it to the museum after his death. The Museum had hung the panting in the hallway outside the bathrooms. Over time, the painting became one of the more popular pieces despite the relative obscurity of the painter.
Cohen wasn’t a particular famous painter – he’d made a stab of making a career at art but then there was a war and when he came back from the Pacific, he had a wife and kid and car sales was a far more stable source of income than art commissions in 1946.
But he never gave it up entirely, keeping a small studio from himself, even if was in the corner of the basement. He became a beloved art teacher in retirement and head of a local Hartford arts organization and a long-time Board of Trustees member of the Museum’s board. So the Museum was very happy to take the painting as a gift from Lilian Cohen Moskowitz after Ari passed. A small token of appreciation for Cohen’s civic contributions. The American Art curator though could see immediately the appeal of the painting so he had been glad Lilian had offered this painting, not one of the interminable flower bouquets Ari had preferred in his later days.
The painting was an actual masterpiece of character depiction and would have been famous had the artist been been known or produced more like it. The subject appeared to be six friends from Ari’s circle when he’d been living in Williamsburg Brooklyn after they returned to Ari’s apartment after a night out. Except that their clothes were ripped, torn and covered in what looked to be blood stains. They were sitting on chairs or standing up, one man sat with his head in his hand and an another man was clutching a stack of folded paper. The poster held by a third man hinted at the events before the moment captured in the painting – it advertised a gathering of the German American Bund. Another man, on the edge of the group, was on the phone and animated gesturing. A woman was setting out cookies and coffee on a table.
The person who really stood out was the tall thin man in the back of the room, not exactly in the center of the piece and standing next to the man with the poster. He appeared severely underweight even for ‘39, looked to have gotten the worst of the fight with his blond hair messed up and he had the start of a black eye. His worn shirt was torn, and the collar open, his tie long gone in whatever had happened, a suspender was slipping off his shoulder. But it was the fierceness in his eyes that drew the attention. He hadn’t backed down from whatever had happened and he still had fight in him, while all the other men were exhausted, nursing their wounds and contemplating the consequences of the fight.
The current American Art curator, Annalise Grier had met so many school groups over the past twelve years and she had had answered so many questions about the painting, “My Friends, Summer 1939” and in particular, who was the blond man. “We don’t know much about Steve Rogers – he had met Cohen at Pratt and they were roommates at the time of the painting. He was also an artist, like all the people in the painting. Cohen lost contact with him just before the war.”
Lilian had donated her father’s papers to the state historical society. The processed papers had a single folder of material related to the painting – the original photograph Cohen had snapped when the group had finally bailed out from the police station and was the basis for the painting and letters from the people in the painting. So they knew who everyone was. Two of the friends didn’t come back Europe, the woman married the man with the poster and they taught art in the New York schools. The man on the phone – Stan Altman – went on to be a well respected fashion photographer. And then there was Steve Rogers. The history society folder contained three letters from Steve, including one that talked about the events in the painting.
The story was simple – they had all gone out that night to celebrate Cohen’s birthday and they ran in to some members of the German American Bund also out celebrating a friend’s birthday and putting up posters for their next rally. There was a fight – one could read between the lines to see that Steve might have had a large part in starting it – and they all ended up arrested. Cohen’s sister helped bail them out and they had gone back to her apartment.
No one had really investigated more into the painting. They knew the circumstances of the painting and the identity of the people in it. It was a masterful painting created by a local artist and no one cared enough to do an actual scholarly paper or more research into it.
Until the Brookly Art Museum wanted to borrow the painting for an exhibit about local artists before WWII. The main interest was because of Stan Altman who had lived in Park Slope for most of his life. Terry Walsh from Brooklyn Art showed up to inspect the painting before they signed the loan papers.
They stood in the empty gallery as Annalise gave him the history of the painting. “It’s a favorite here,” she explained. “So while we’re happy to lend it, we’ll need it back before the school field trips start.”
“We can figure something out.” Terry leaned in closer to the painting. “Wow. I’d knew about the painting from an article on Altman – but I didn’t know that Steve Rogers was in this.”
“You know him?”
“He’s a minor significant local artist – if that makes sense – we have a few of his pieces in the museum. City scenes mostly. If he had more training or more practice, he would have been very very good.”
“He was roommates with Cohen at the time –”
“And he lived with Altman before his disappeared. All we know is that he told Altman he had a job and was moving out. Altman always assumed that he went to California or something and the war happened and they naturally lost touch.”
“Huh.” Annalise regarded the painting again. “Anything more?”
Terry shrugged. “I’m hoping to find more as I put this exhibit together. One of my interns is drafting the biographies of all the artists in the exhibit but Rogers remains the most elusive.”
“I’m sure that this isn’t the most representative image of him.”
Terry laughed. “Actually, he looks like that in all three photos we have. Except for the scholarship one. He won a scholarship to Pratt by the way.”
The painting went down I-95 for a short vacation at the Brooklyn Museum after the museum lawyer negotiated additional insurance due to the New York supervillain presence. Annalise followed a few weeks later for the opening reception.
During the reception, Terry steered her over to the painting. “We’re calling this section a Circle of Friends.” There were selection of photographs by Altman, a couple of small paintings by Cohen and five pen-and-ink drawings by Rogers.
Rogers’ work actually stood out from the rest in the technical accomplished and emotional delivery. Terry hadn’t been underestimating the man’s potential talent. “Wonder why we didn’t hear more from him,” she said to Terry.
“Art’s a hard business.”
As they talked, a person took a photo on their phone of the painting. Terry whipped around and said, “Hey don’t do that.”
The young woman held up her hands and said, “I didn’t mean any harm.” Then she drifted away into the rest of the growing crowd.
The rest of the reception was uneventful and Annalise didn’t give another thought to the reception. Well, not for a week. Until she ran across an article explaining the latest meme. The meme in this case was based on Cohen’s painting with a comment along the lines of Fight the Nazis Like This Guy – this guy being Steve Rogers from Cohen’s painting.
The painting was suddenly everywhere on the internet. Terry apologized and said that their lawyers had tried to stop it considering Annalise’s museum’s copyright and their loan contract. “Apparently there were other images of the painting online already,” Terry added. “And my director wants to know if we can now do a licensing agreement for the painting.”
“What for?”
“T-shirts – Fight the Nazis seems to be very popular saying and he’s thinking we could move some t-shirts with the painting on it. Got to take advantage of it going viral.”
“To be fair, Steve Rogers does look like he’s ready to fight some Nazis in that painting – I’ll see what we can do but we’ll expect some part of the profits.”
All in all, lending out the painting had been a roaring success for both museums. Terry emailed her updates and the latest memes. “It distracts from the Avengers versus the villain fights,” Terry joked.
Then Terry called her very early a month later. “Have you seen the Times?”
“I haven’t seen the weather outside yet,” she said. “It’s like 6 am.”
“I’ll send you the article – I swear I had no idea or I would have said something sooner.”
“What?”
“Just check your email. I’ll stay on the line.”
Annalise was barely awake as she opened her laptop to get to her work email. Then she bolted wide-awake as the article appeared on her screen. “Captain America, Always Fighting Nazis,” the headline screamed at her as she looked at a current picture of Steve Rogers next to a meme of Steve Rogers from the painting. She gasped.
“I KNOW,” Terry exclaimed on the other side of the phone.
“How did they know?”
“I never connected the artist Steve to Captain America Steve. I know we didn’t know Captain America’s name until he was revived.”
“The news broke when you were talking to me about the exhibit.” Annalise kept staring at the photographs.
“Now we know why Rogers disappeared.”
A month later, Terry called her and asked, “Hey, can you come down for a special tour of the exhibit?” he asked.
“Sure. I’ll make the time. But why me?”
“I think you’ll appreciate meeting the VIPs,” Terry said mysteriously. “And it’s work-related.”
Terry didn’t explain much when she got to Brooklyn. “This whole VIP visit is supposed to be very secret – I got permission to bring you because I’d have to tell you anyway,” he said as they waited for their visitors.
Then two tall men – one blond and the other dark haired with a mustache, both seemingly familiar but Annalise couldn’t place where or why – arrived with the museum director.
“And this is our curator – Terry Walsh,” the director replied. He appeared to be somewhat star-struck.
“This is Annalise Grier from Connecticut. Glad to meet you – ?” Terry said as he reached out to shake the VIPs’s hands.
“Tony Stark,” the dark-haired man said. “Steve Rogers,” the other man announced.
The pieces clicked together for Annalise. A special tour for Tony Stark the very wealthy CEO of Stark Industries and sponsor of the Avengers and Captain America of the Avengers. He was here to see the painting.
“Would you like to see the whole exhibit or just –”
“The whole exhibit would be great,” Steve replied.
Terry lead the tour through the exhibit and about a third of the way in, they reached the Stan Alrman section with the Ari Cohen painting. Steve stopped and studied the painting. “Cohen spent a lot of time on this – I keep asking why, it was just the group of us after a fight. He’d been getting into floral arrangements so this wasn’t his usual subject.”
“You know this painting?” Annalise asked before she could stop herself. Of course he knew the painting. He was in it.
“I watched him work on it for two months – it’s honestly the best thing I’ve seen him do. He looked at the photograph he’d taken of us then said to that he could do better. That the photograph didn’t do the night justice.” Steve smiled fondly. “He was as beaten up as the rest of us. I wish he’d painted himself in. Altman – look at that. He was always taking photographs, guess it paid off for him. So how did this end up in a museum?”
“Ari Cohen’s daughter gave it to us,” Annalise explained. “It’s really favorite at our museum.”
Tony slapped Steve on the back. “See, you wouldn’t have know about this if I hadn’t gotten you the t-shirt.”
“You bought one of our t-shirts?” the director asked.
“Yeah, he even wears it.” Tony showed them the photo on his phone of Steve in a t-shirt with Steve from the painting with the logo Born to Fight Nazis. Steve blushed. “So why not take him to see the original?”
“We can get you more,” the director offered.
After the tour was over, Terry turned to Annalise and said, “That made my day.”
“Made our year,” Annalise corrected him.
“I can put up the new exhibit labels now that it’s been confirmed that he is in that painting,” he added.
“I have to hang that painting anywhere but outside the first floor bathrooms now,” Annalise said. “You know what though? I would really love to have a copy of that photo of Captain America wearing that t-shirt.”
“It would be perfect for the exhibit.”