One little bit of art history concerns Robert and Tom of Finland. Tom had a show at the Robert Samuels Gallery. Many of the original drawings of Tom’s were "stolen,” or so the story goes, a truck transporting the art was stolen and the art inside taken with the truck.
The gallery had a silent partner, Mr. Mapplethorpe who was also a big collector of Tom's work. Several years after the show, I happened upon a treasure trove of Tom's missing work in a back room at Mapplethorpe’s.
About 2003, Durk Dehner, who is head of the Tom of Finland Foundation, was at my house in Chicago. I was showing him my images of Robert, Tom, himself and me back in our younger days. We got to some images from that show, Durk wondered out loud, ?What ever happened to the art??
I was glad to bring some closure to an interesting art heist.
Before I got sober, Robert and I would roam the nocturnal hide-aways of fun city, getting into all sorts of trouble. Fortunately for my alcoholic blackouts, some of our adventures are erased from time and space.
I edited Robert's first attempt at a commercial portfolio, and his earliest assignments were for me in Moviegoer Magazine. I always thought he would shoot strong images of the celebrities I needed.
In between assignments, I also found myself paying his phone bills, getting his electricity turned on, and teaching him how to check-in at hotels.
After I got sober, we continued to work together, but from a distance. I found myself becoming his enabler; I made several attempts to clean him up, but always failed. He would just laugh at my foolish notions.