Some of Janos Garbo's paintings have recently surfaced. Several have brought huge auction prices.

The above 2010 painting titled 'Flanders' brought a phenomenal $750,000 for the exceptional work that combines wit and irony to his now famous 'Museum Suite' series. Years after his death the art world has reconsidered the USA/Hungarian, who has managed to bring connoisseurship and eclecticism back into acceptance if not appreciation.

A receitly uncovered blog site has uncovered images of some unknown masterpieces: http://wwwdvortcsakinthestudioblogs.blogspot.com/2010/04/recent-paintings.html

Professor Peter Langerhans ‘The Final Report’

To: Probation Service Board

Restricted Incarceration Division

From: Doctor Ephram Srtook PHD Psychiatry

Harvard Clinical

Dear Sirs:

After three months evaluative council and exhaustive interviews with the subject using various subliminal techniques, the staff of Harvard Clinical of which I am Chief Interrogator, has offered this final report on the matter of the State of California vs. Peter Langerhans: to wit:

The subject seems to have mental and physical capacity within normal range of his age group. He is alert and capable of general responses to questions pertaining to his youth and years as Professor of Art History at The University of California. There is a threshold in his neurological reflexes past which an alternative reality (somewhat hallucinatory) that re-directs his limbic cortex (that is to say) his cognitive memory, onto a landscape of his own imagination. This is a landscape that attempts to re-create the years of his love and study of Baroque Art into a self-delusional tapestry of treachery and corruption into which he instills himself as a lone voice of reason amid a background of the machinations of war and the politics of the Renaissance. His frustrations as a result of being ignored (his fiction) create a violence hitherto unimagined in the ostensible measured behavior of the Professor.

The trigger that fires him into his alternative state (his causa sui reality) revolves around a relationship with one of his students, a Janos Garbo who attended his classes in 1956-57. A relationship that terminated with a minor wound to the students thigh from some sort of writing instrument inflicted by the Professor entering, for the first time, into his strange new world of deranged betrayal and Baroque imagery. Think for a moment of the image of the Beheading of John the Baptist painted by Caravaggio that now illuminates and informs a now paranoid mind.

We have a term for this type of schizoid personality, “Pseudo neural psychosis”,a pathological breakdown of certain neural transmitters through an irreversible atrophy of synaptic response in the lower limbic cortex as to render the subject incapable of differentiating his own from consensus reality.

Our conclusions hope to impose a de-criminalization overlay to the matter. We are of the opinion that Peter Langerhans acted without willful intent or knowledge of its consequences during the actions and consequences of his attack on the Judge.

Grumpy

Sometimes things have to be said.

Disinformation permeates what we have held to be reality to such a degree that one’s choice of fiction determines how one lives.

Integrity absent… your choice of news determines your ‘Reality’.

The person you trusted to be looking out for your interest has just accepted substantial remuneration for services rendered in a matter in opposition to yours. And this is a man you voted for because he promised to be on your side.

Mostly ignored is how government really works.

Our American government represents the most responsive, most compassionate government that money can buy. Come on guys, when Obama looked like a possible winner, GM, Westinghouse, Bank of America climbed on board. Big money poured into a campaign that had been financed by the lower middle class, dollar by dollar.

As it did before 2009, lobby money rules! MultiGlobal Corporations have democracy in a strangle hold.

Guess who made out during the big financial crisis? Ruben, Paulson, Gietner, Somers (the happy boys of Goldman-Sachs} Check their net worth before and after.

Guess what else? War is big business. As long as there is profit there will be more of it!

Real Democracy is about people who debate issues in order to arrive at a consensus. When was the last time your voice was heard by anyone who could make a difference.

My aphorism for the 21^st century” WHERE THERE IS OPPORTUNITY, THERE IS GRAFT.

Most of my friends are artists and we have long understood that the quality of our product is of no interest to those who act as ‘middlemen’ Quality has no bearing on what is promoted. There are many more artists than outlets. Middlemen can pick and choose what is shown and given status by superficial appraisal by “the validators”

The contemporary validator is not a connoisseur. A connoisseur is someone who has a background in looking and remembering. This is someone who could walk into a room full of Cézannes and have a reasonable notion which one was the superior. And could tell you why. This is a person who could look at a specific work of art and judge it by it’s own merit.

Who are the validators? Curators, writers, high-end collectors who collaborate with dealers to drive up prices with chandelier bids at auctions and other collusions.

These are newcomers to the world of art. Their education has more to do with Harvard business school than to the research at the Fogg.

Dying breed, the connoisseur. Dying breed the rich connoisseur, Dying breed, the rich connoisseur who finds interest in collecting.

If a High-end dealer, a writer, and a museum get together on a product (Artist), sales and assured fame are a given. Usually for short term. Turn- over is a necessary element in the profit scheme.

No matter what they say, the big world of corporate takeover of governments and the smaller world of Art takeover by business has one thing in common.

Janos’ Mother

Moments before dying the nurse gave her a dose of morphine to ease the transition. Janos stood by, holding her hand as the drug loosened the vestige of tension that held her frail flesh.

Her eyes met his and a tiny flicker of a smile came across her lips. The wrinkled hand withdrew from his, lifted above her chest came down with force on her heart. Twice and then again. “Stop” she commanded.

Rosalie Emanualina Vallone

As the youngest girl in a strict Sicilian family of five boys and three girls it was her charge to attend to her mother stricken with iron deficiency anemia and bed ridden. Rose was 13 when her mother died. Now she would attend the meals and care of her father and siblings. Their combined employment and income was sufficient to sustain the basic necessities of a large home in South Buffalo.

By 1935 the older brothers and one sister had married. Papa Vallone sold the house and bought a smaller one in the ‘suburbs’. The patriarch retired in 1937 and died soon after from a stroke while walking to get cigarettes. Brother Bernie took charge of the family. Rose got a job jerking sodas at a drug store chain and met her future husband who delivered ice cream on Tuesdays and Fridays.

For Janos, the only child of a Sicilian mother, whose life had centered on caring for others, unconditional love, was inevitable. Showered with affection from Rose, the boy was raised with a mother’s love and a father’s indifference.

Although her formal education ended in the sixth grade, she felt that the boy she called Gianni had a spark of something that needed to be recorded. On pink paper she typed a rudimentary biography that was found among her belongings after she died. They are included here intact. without edit or changes of any kind:

1940

One year old. Tho he couldn’t understand ,we would sit by the hours reading nursery ryhams. Come bed time as long as I would sing 3 songs, “ School days, Rock-a-by-baby, and than hum The Skater’s Waltz, He would go to sleep. At birth he wieghd 9 lbs. Height 27in. That’s apretty big baby for little me, So at one year old he was a big baby to hold.To top it off a livelyr baby There was none. He always wanted to dance There I was with Gianni bouncing up and down, up and down.

1940

At the age of 2 Gianni was the center of attraction for his brilliance and personality He carried a tune perfect, and knew the words to several songs, such as Chatanooga Chu-Chu. No baby talk for him, every word as clear as a bell.

1941

At the age of three his talent for music was improving. As long as he had the radio going and a ball in his hand he was happy. He could spell his name and reciet avery nursery rhym in the book. His favorit being “Taffy was a Welchmen”

1942

At the age of 4 he lived on La Force PL. the street his dad was born on. This was a tough year for Gianni. He got all of his chield hood sicknesses such as Mumps,meazels chickin pox And to top it off His tonsils were removed. Than he developed cronic appendicts.Dr.said he may outgrow them.

1943

Gianni started school in Sept. of this year. Lindberg Elementry School. Living on Nassau in Kenmore, N.Y. His playmate and school chum was Wilma?? His first day of school was a happy day for him. In fact I felt a little hurt because most of the kids were crying because their mothers left them. But not Gianni. He happily waved and said “ By momie see you later” and turned to one of the little girls to comfort her.

1944

Five years old, in first grade. His pal at the time was uncle John D. What times they had together. Gianni turned out to be a very poor eater. I had all I could do to get him to drink milk. His favorit lunch was creamed eggs on toast He was a great companion to me. He would wipe the dishes and together we would sing. His harmoney was perfect. He got pnumonia this year and was a very sick boy.

1945

Six years old and full of vim and viger. Good at his school work. Reading fairly well. Reading Comic’s was his favorit pass time. His hight was 53 in. and weighed 53 lbs. Getting better looking every year.

1946

Seven years old. We moved to Californi9a. A lot of changes for Gianni. He enterd 3^rd grade at Willard School, in San Gabriel he got his first byke. And He was getting aquainted with new friends. He liked California right from the start. It took him a year to get himself in cerculation and adjusted.

1947

At 8 years old and in the 4^th.Grade He made the Pee Wee base ball team. Of course he sat on the bench for several months. However he was so very happy thinking some day he would be on the field playing. He never failed attending a game, wether it was a practice or a real one.

Some tips

To my faithful readers (all six) and to the wayward fish that might find themselves caught in the net… I offer an explanation to the origin and nature to “My Blogg”.

My talented and wonderful daughter, “Wine and Words”, having enjoyed the world of blogging offered to set up a blogg site for me. Whereupon, I thought to myself “yes… now I can post new paintings since my web site operator is no longer able to post new work”.

Instead I found myself entering into a semi fictitious semi-autobiographical novel that pretends to be a blogg.

One may start from blogg #1 January 2010 titled “Paris in ‘63” or work backwards from here. It doesn’t matter as long as you keep in mind that all the pieces are part of a whole and that different characters are recalling past events concerning a painter named Garbo or are characters that are being asked about certain events that relate to Garbo.

A novel in the form of a blogg is a novel idea.

Miguel 2014

‘The myth that survives is called truth’

Miguel 2014

I came to the States from Guanajuato, Mexico on a teaching assistantship in the UC graduate program. My father’s success insured that there would be no monetary problems. My mother, an American ex patriot insured that I was bi-lingual.

I was assigned to assist a lower division painting class taught by Janos Garbo. It was 1988. Garbo had been asked to teach by the faculty that had denied him tenure ten years earlier. But being fired by the University meant he could paint full time and he soon became something of a celebrity in the art world with a series of paintings based on a post apocalyptic destruction and a rebirth of all life on earth not carbon based but as a result of the accumulation of radiation garbage that somehow organized itself into sentient playful ‘beings’. Sorry about the long sentence.

The anthropomorphized heaps of glowing garbage morphed into exquisite forms that fit in nicely with Garbo’s propensity for organic form. But his so called celebrity lost momentum when his friend and Art dealer ran off to Europe with a great deal of Garbo’s earnings.

Now in need of an ‘income’ he gladly accepted the one year teaching gig. This I learned later from others. Garbo and I spoke of other matters.

Within a few weeks I was indoctrinated into the bizarre quirky thinking that made up his view of things. Not that he offered up his philosophy. I had to argue with him to pull it out. He was uncomfortable talking about his “quiet world”.

I was somehow able to gain his confidence and his affection. Half the time he is serious but the other half is a romp.

He began by stating we had to know the limits of the seeker (man) before we could report his findings. And there he turned to Lau Tzu #1 it begins:

“ Existence is beyond the power of words”

And ends:” If words be needed wonder names them both. From wonder into wonder existence opens.”

Garbo felt that man’s searching for truth while it can be enjoyed for its own sake should not be considered as culminating in an ‘objective truth’ since it ultimately relies on words to define itself. He went farther:

“Real objective truth does not exist except as tautology. Every other utterance of fact is conditional.

Science is contemporary myth. If the myth is believed long enough it will be called truth. It may last as truth for a hundred years. Or a thousand. Until it spends out itself.

Reality is the consensus of myth.

Scientists are our storytellers. They spend years examining data from more and more powerful and sensitive instruments. These data lead them to speculate and conclude. Only to be overturned by a new set of speculations defined by words.”

Intuition and dreams were more useful and therefore more relevant. Garbo identified with the Hindu triad of realities:

1. Karma… an early variation of ‘as you sow so shall you reap'

2. Maya …. ‘ The surface of life is an illusion’

3.Lila…… ‘The play of the divine untiring unending cosmic dance by a grace born of infinite vitality and variety'

Garbo saw Lila as God’s play. He kept a kind of journal where the ideas he read or thought were printed out in a neat delicate script. Some poems too: Shakespeare, Hart Crane, William Blake, who he claimed as birth mate since they shared the same birthday.

Many years passed and we have become very close. Fate has granted that we live near enough to see each other from time… to visit each other’s studios and keep up with each other’s ideas on painting. Garbo is Godfather to my first-born. Her name not coincidentally is Maya. He is always yelling at me to stop painting like a ‘Mexican’. I don’t know if he is kidding or testing cause there is that twinkle in his eye.