Thursday, March 23, 1995
Tales of the Booksellers Row VI - Mr Kline
LOOKING AHEAD by Wally Dobelis
A collector/dealer whom one would often see on Saturdays and late weekdays at Weiser's Bookstore on Broadway was the mysterious Mr. Kline, a short elderly stoutish gent, bent forward and peering through a magnifying glass in an art book, muttering. Mr Kline had a loft on the East side of Union Square, in which he and his brother, whom no one had ever met, manufactured leather goods. The purse-making was relegated to one long wooden table with some machinery. I once actually saw an older woman stitching at the table. Otherwise the loft was filled with stacks of paintings on their edges along the walls, statues big and small on antique tables, old glass-door bookcases filled with objets d'art and decaying art reference books in five languages. And old frames, lots of them.
"Look, I want your opinion on a painting I bought last week, I think it is a Pisarro," he would say, and I would obediently trot along to the loft, hoping that some unexpected treasure might reveal itself by serendipity, besides the spurious Pisarro.
On one such occasion Mr Kline started telling tales about an unknown Leonardo da Vinci drawing of Isabelle d'Este, and ended up digging into a trunk and unweiling a Renaissance drawing with the unmistakable features of that beautiful lady. "Look, look, look," he would open an old monograph and show the versions of the sketch in the Louvre and the Uffici Galleries. It was definitely a master drawing, after the Louvre, and when I pointed out the tracing pinholes in the paper, he shouted: "Look, they all did that, even Leonardo, to make sure that the copy was exactly like the original!" He then commissioned me to research the piece at the NYPublic Library for him, claiming failing eyesight. I did that gladly, because the posssibility of unearthing a lost Leonardo was thrilling. In the Art Room indeed there were references to more than one copy of the drawing, including one that might have gone astray during World War One. When I brought back the news to Mr Kline, he thanked me perfunctorily and gave me a gift of some lithographs as a reward. The Leonardo was never mentioned again. Some years later, upon my inquiry, he told me that he no longer had it. However, during the intervening years Mr Kline showed unmistakable signs of prosperity. He gave away all his wild thrift-shop neckties, - I took some, as a good will gesture - and would travel to Biarritz and the Riviera, seemingly whenever it pleased him. He had acquired a lady-friend, a woman of a certain age, whom I would automatically address as Madame whenever we met on the street. She was not a bookstore frequenter.
Whenever we entered his loft, Mr Kline would take off his coat and don a paint-covered artist's smock, then pick up a painting that he was currently "sophisticating," and go to work. He was a crude restorer, and would clean and warnish paintings without much regard to damage. He would also reframe them, and seal the backs of the paintings. "Look, look, a Sargent!" he would shout, showing me an early XX Century flashily stroked portrait, bought at a small country auction sale. When I would suggest, with ill-concealed scepticism, that it was more like a Boldini, he would smile: "That's wonderful!" and consider the possibility. One great name or another, all his paintings were wonderful. His enthusiasm was contagious, and never flagged. Every disappointment, every painting dumped or auctioned off at a low price was superseded by a new find, a new hope of a discovery. And they were there.
One day he invited me in and unwrapped an interesting package of Renaissance-looking green papers, masterly fantasy drawings of people and scenes. "Look, look, a Piranesi suite!" I was stunned and had no words. "I shall sell it to Brooklyn Museum, they are goood!" The drawings were indeed museum quality, though whether by the great etcher of the XVIII Century I could not judge. That too was the last time the etchings were seen and talked about. "Theyr'e gone," the usually talkative Mr Kline stated, when I later inquired about their authentication.
Kline alerted me about a dealer of remainder books, particularly strong in art books, the Metropolitan Book Store an 23rd St., across the street from the insurance giant. He used this store it as his library, silently browsing for hours. I was impressed when, upon walking in for the first time, I heard the owners, a husband and wife and another relative, discuss the qualities of Canaletto vs. Guardi, the XVIII Cent. Venetian landscape artists, then much seen in reproductions. They obviously had more than a nodding acquantainceship with the arts. Kline had me also search for some books for him, particularly a set of a German four-volume art encyclopedia. The books were not to be found; I tried Hacker, Weyhe and Wittenborn, the big specialists, of which only Hacker survives. Wittenborn's owner was Gabriel Austin, whom I knew as an information librarian at the New York Public Library, answering the phone inquiries in Room 316a. I held him in high esteem because of his encyclopedic knowlwdge, he could answer arcane inquiries without touching a reference book. He eventually moved to the Parke-Bernet (pronounced Bernet, not Bernay) auction house, now Sothebys, then took over the big art book store on the Upper East Side.
Anyway, eventually I found a set of the art books by advertising in the trade paper, the Antiquarian Bookman. It was in the hands of a part-time dealer in Brooklyn. When I came to the dealer's rooms, a small apartment, he dug the the set out, from under his bed. In the same place he also had a Benezit, the then eight-volume French encyclopedia of artists, which he offered to me at cost. I bought for myself and it ended up under my bed for a while.
It was not TB, maier?graef 4v
The finding of the art reference books gave Klein great joy. There was apparently a reproduction of a painting he had, and he gave the set as authentication to the buyer of the art. I never found out what great treasure exchanged hands this time, it may have been a German Expressionist, a Kirschner or a Schmidt-Rothluff.
Mr. Kline is no longer with us, I gave his wide ties to a thrift shop. Today they probably adorn the neck of a fancier of Jerry Garcia. And my photocopies and research notes on the beautiful Isabelle d'Este are gone, victims of a Spring cleaning years ago.
A collector/dealer whom one would often see on Saturdays and late weekdays at Weiser's Bookstore on Broadway was the mysterious Mr. Kline, a short elderly stoutish gent, bent forward and peering through a magnifying glass in an art book, muttering. Mr Kline had a loft on the East side of Union Square, in which he and his brother, whom no one had ever met, manufactured leather goods. The purse-making was relegated to one long wooden table with some machinery. I once actually saw an older woman stitching at the table. Otherwise the loft was filled with stacks of paintings on their edges along the walls, statues big and small on antique tables, old glass-door bookcases filled with objets d'art and decaying art reference books in five languages. And old frames, lots of them.
"Look, I want your opinion on a painting I bought last week, I think it is a Pisarro," he would say, and I would obediently trot along to the loft, hoping that some unexpected treasure might reveal itself by serendipity, besides the spurious Pisarro.
On one such occasion Mr Kline started telling tales about an unknown Leonardo da Vinci drawing of Isabelle d'Este, and ended up digging into a trunk and unweiling a Renaissance drawing with the unmistakable features of that beautiful lady. "Look, look, look," he would open an old monograph and show the versions of the sketch in the Louvre and the Uffici Galleries. It was definitely a master drawing, after the Louvre, and when I pointed out the tracing pinholes in the paper, he shouted: "Look, they all did that, even Leonardo, to make sure that the copy was exactly like the original!" He then commissioned me to research the piece at the NYPublic Library for him, claiming failing eyesight. I did that gladly, because the posssibility of unearthing a lost Leonardo was thrilling. In the Art Room indeed there were references to more than one copy of the drawing, including one that might have gone astray during World War One. When I brought back the news to Mr Kline, he thanked me perfunctorily and gave me a gift of some lithographs as a reward. The Leonardo was never mentioned again. Some years later, upon my inquiry, he told me that he no longer had it. However, during the intervening years Mr Kline showed unmistakable signs of prosperity. He gave away all his wild thrift-shop neckties, - I took some, as a good will gesture - and would travel to Biarritz and the Riviera, seemingly whenever it pleased him. He had acquired a lady-friend, a woman of a certain age, whom I would automatically address as Madame whenever we met on the street. She was not a bookstore frequenter.
Whenever we entered his loft, Mr Kline would take off his coat and don a paint-covered artist's smock, then pick up a painting that he was currently "sophisticating," and go to work. He was a crude restorer, and would clean and warnish paintings without much regard to damage. He would also reframe them, and seal the backs of the paintings. "Look, look, a Sargent!" he would shout, showing me an early XX Century flashily stroked portrait, bought at a small country auction sale. When I would suggest, with ill-concealed scepticism, that it was more like a Boldini, he would smile: "That's wonderful!" and consider the possibility. One great name or another, all his paintings were wonderful. His enthusiasm was contagious, and never flagged. Every disappointment, every painting dumped or auctioned off at a low price was superseded by a new find, a new hope of a discovery. And they were there.
One day he invited me in and unwrapped an interesting package of Renaissance-looking green papers, masterly fantasy drawings of people and scenes. "Look, look, a Piranesi suite!" I was stunned and had no words. "I shall sell it to Brooklyn Museum, they are goood!" The drawings were indeed museum quality, though whether by the great etcher of the XVIII Century I could not judge. That too was the last time the etchings were seen and talked about. "Theyr'e gone," the usually talkative Mr Kline stated, when I later inquired about their authentication.
Kline alerted me about a dealer of remainder books, particularly strong in art books, the Metropolitan Book Store an 23rd St., across the street from the insurance giant. He used this store it as his library, silently browsing for hours. I was impressed when, upon walking in for the first time, I heard the owners, a husband and wife and another relative, discuss the qualities of Canaletto vs. Guardi, the XVIII Cent. Venetian landscape artists, then much seen in reproductions. They obviously had more than a nodding acquantainceship with the arts. Kline had me also search for some books for him, particularly a set of a German four-volume art encyclopedia. The books were not to be found; I tried Hacker, Weyhe and Wittenborn, the big specialists, of which only Hacker survives. Wittenborn's owner was Gabriel Austin, whom I knew as an information librarian at the New York Public Library, answering the phone inquiries in Room 316a. I held him in high esteem because of his encyclopedic knowlwdge, he could answer arcane inquiries without touching a reference book. He eventually moved to the Parke-Bernet (pronounced Bernet, not Bernay) auction house, now Sothebys, then took over the big art book store on the Upper East Side.
Anyway, eventually I found a set of the art books by advertising in the trade paper, the Antiquarian Bookman. It was in the hands of a part-time dealer in Brooklyn. When I came to the dealer's rooms, a small apartment, he dug the the set out, from under his bed. In the same place he also had a Benezit, the then eight-volume French encyclopedia of artists, which he offered to me at cost. I bought for myself and it ended up under my bed for a while.
It was not TB, maier?graef 4v
The finding of the art reference books gave Klein great joy. There was apparently a reproduction of a painting he had, and he gave the set as authentication to the buyer of the art. I never found out what great treasure exchanged hands this time, it may have been a German Expressionist, a Kirschner or a Schmidt-Rothluff.
Mr. Kline is no longer with us, I gave his wide ties to a thrift shop. Today they probably adorn the neck of a fancier of Jerry Garcia. And my photocopies and research notes on the beautiful Isabelle d'Este are gone, victims of a Spring cleaning years ago.
# posted by Wally Dobelis @ 1:57 PM 
