Cartoonist Donald Trachte bought a painting from then neighbor Norman Rockwell, for $900, in 1960. At some point, he made a copy of the painting, displayed the forgery, and hid the original behind a secret door, disguised to look like a wall. Presumably this was to keep it from a soon to be ex-wife.
I go through moods with Rockwell, waffling between awed admiration of his technique and rendering, and cursing his crass commercialism, typically rosey-lensed view of Americana, and his illustrative methods which have virtually guaranteed his works will be restorative nightmares for generations of art conservators. With that caveat, this is a nice painting, and coming from 1954, I think it is sadly indicative of the shift in American culture from rural blue collar to urban white collar. Kind of ironic that this painting should end up being a father's bequest to his sons.
The painting recently sold at Sotheby's in NYC for $15.4 million, the highest ever paid for a Rockwell. Gee, I hope Mr. Rockwell's kids have a few canvases tucked away, as well....
In April, David and Donald Trachte Jnr noticed a strange gap in the wall of a room in their late father's house.They gave it a shove and the wall slid open to reveal the real Rockwell along with other paintings.
Mr Trachte apparently kept the switch a secret, and his sons believe he made the copy to prevent his wife - whom he divorced in the early 1970s - from claiming the 1954 work.
"I think he just wanted to tuck these in the wall for his kids," Donald Trachte Jnr said at the time of the discovery.
Experts and Mr Trachte's family were confused by apparent inconsistencies between a version of the painting which appeared on the cover of The Saturday Evening Post in 1954, and the canvas they assumed was the original.
Poor preservation and sloppy restoration work were blamed until the discovery of the real painting solved the mystery.
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