In 1946, giants were practicing their art in Paris. From time to time, Tony caught glimpses of Pablo Picasso, and one day Tony and a friend saw Marc Chagall, a large, flamboyant man in his fifties, with a wild mop of hair just beginning to turn gray. Chagall was seated at a table across the café, in earnest conversation with a group of people.
“We’re lucky to see him,” Tony’s friend whispered. “He comes to Paris very seldom. His home is at Vence, near the Mediterranean coast.”
There was Max Ernst sipping an aperitif at a sidewalk café, and the great Alberto Giacometti walking down the Rue de Ri-voli, looking like one of his own sculptures, tall and thin and gnarled. Tony was surprised to note he was clubfooted. Tony met Hans Belmer, who was making a name for himself with erotic paintings of young girls turning into dismembered dolls. But perhaps Tony’s most exciting moment came when he was introduced to Braque. The artist was cordial, but Tony was tongue-tied.
The future geniuses haunted the new art galleries, studying their competition. The Drouant-David Gallery was exhibiting an unknown young artist named Bernard Buffet, who had studied at the École des Beaux-Arts, and Soutine, Utrillo and Dufy. The students congregated at the Salon d’Automne and the Charpentier Gallery and Mlle. Roussa’s Gallery on the Rue de Seine, and spent their spare time gossiping about their successful rivals.
The first time Kate saw Tony’s apartment, she was stunned. She wisely made no comment, but she thought, Bloody hell! How can a son of mine live in this dreary closet? Aloud she said, “It has great charm, Tony. I don’t see a refrigerator. Where do you keep your food?”
“Out on the w-windowsill.”
Kate walked over to the window, opened it and selected an apple from the sill outside. “I’m not eating one of your subjects, am I?”
Tony laughed. “N-no, Mother.”
Kate took a bite. “Now,” she demanded, “tell me about your painting.”
“There’s n-not much to t-tell yet,” Tony confessed. “We’re just doing d-drawings this year.”
“Do you like this Maître Cantal?”
“He’s m-marvelous. The important question is whether he l-likes me. Only about one-third of the class is going to m-make it to next year.”
Not once did Kate mention Tony’s joining the company.
Maître Cantal was not a man to lavish praise. The biggest compliment Tony would get would be a grudging, “I suppose I’ve seen worse,” or, “I’m almost beginning to see underneath.”
At the end of the school term, Tony was among the eight advanced to the second-year class. To celebrate, Tony and the other relieved students went to a nightclub in Montmartre, got drunk and spent the night with some young English women who were on a tour of France.
When school started again, Tony began to work with oils and live models. It was like being released from kindergarten. After one year of sketching parts of anatomy, Tony felt he knew every muscle, nerve and gland in the human body. That wasn’t drawing—it was copying. Now, with a paintbrush in his hand and a live model in front of him, Tony began to create. Even Maître Cantal was impressed.
“You have the feel,” he said grudgingly. “Now we must work on the technique.”
There were about a dozen models who sat for classes at the school. The ones Maître Cantal used most frequently were Carlos, a young man working his way through medical school; Annette, a short, buxom brunette with a clump of red pubic hair and an acne-scarred back; and Dominique Masson, a beautiful, young, willowy blonde with delicate cheekbones and deep-green eyes. Dominique also posed for several well-known painters. She was everyone’s favorite. Every day after class the male students would gather around her, trying to make a date.
“I never mix pleasure with business,” she told them. “Anyway,” she teased, “it would not be fair. You have all seen what I have to offer. How do I know what you have to offer?”
And the ribald conversation would go on. But Dominique never went out with anyone at the school.
Late one afternoon when all the other students had left and Tony was finishing a painting of Dominique, she came up behind him unexpectedly. “My nose is too long.”