Over twenty-five years ago, between July 27 and August 2, 1998, Jean Metzinger’s early 20th century cubist painting, “Man with a Pipe,” also known as “Portrait of an American Smoking,” disappeared in transit while on loan from Lawrence University in Appleton, Wisconsin.
A Little History About Where the Theft Happened
Lawrence University, a private liberal arts college and conservatory of music in Appleton, Wisconsin, was founded in 1847 after Amos A. Lawrence pledged $10,000 to endow a school in the Wisconsin Territory. Amos Lawrence, born in Boston, Massachusetts in 1814, was an 1835 graduate of Harvard College. After graduation, he entered into business as a commission merchant, selling textiles (mostly cotton) that were manufactured in New England. Eventually, he became the owner of Ipswich Mills, the largest producer of knit goods in the United States. Lawrence was well known as a philanthropist. In addition to endowing Lawrence University, Lawrence later financed the founding of the University of Kansas in Lawrence, Kansas, a town named for him. His farm outside Boston became the campus for Boston College and he provided money for Williams College in Massachusetts.
Lawrence also was a staunch Abolitionist, a cause he took up in 1854 in the aftermath of the Anthony Burns affair. Robert K. Sutton, a former chief historian for the National Park Service, wrote about this period of Lawrence’s life in a 2017 article for Smithsonian Magazine, “The Wealthy Activist Who Helped Turn ‘Bleeding Kansas’ Free.” According to Sutton, on May 24, 1854, Anthony Burns, a young escaped slave from Virginia, was captured in Boston on his way home from work at a men’s clothing store. Burns’ capture and arrest was a cause celèbre in Boston. Thousands of Bostonians attempted to break him out of jail, and Boston lawyers took up his case pro bono, but to no avail. Burns was returned to slavery in Virginia. According to Lawrence, as a result of this horrific incident, he and others “went to bed one night old-fashioned, conservative, Compromise Union Whigs and waked up stark mad Abolitionists.”
Lawrence became the treasurer of the Emigrant Aid Society, an organization founded to encourage the emigration of antislavery settlers to Kansas, hoping to make that territory a free state, and he contributed his own funds to this cause. In recognition of his contributions, those first Kansas pioneers named their community Lawrence in his honor. Lawrence also donated Sharps rifles, the most advanced firearms of the time, to abolitionists in Kansas, shipping them as “books” and “primers.” In 1862, at the beginning of the Civil War, with authorization from the governor of Massachusetts, Lawrence raised a Union battalion of cavalry – the 2nd Massachusetts Cavalry.
After the $10,000 endowment was made by Amos Lawrence, the Wisconsin Territory granted a charter to Lawrence Institute on January 15, 1847. The name of the school was changed to Lawrence University when classes first started in November 1849. Lawrence University was the second college in the United States to be founded as a coeducational institution, with both men and women enrolled in the university when the first classes began. The Lawrence Conservatory of Music, part of Lawrence University, was founded in 1874. The name changed to Lawrence College in 1913, emphasizing the small size and liberal arts focus of the institution, but then reverted to its former name of Lawrence University in 1964 when it merged with Milwaukee-Downer College.
The Wriston Art Galleries, part of Lawrence University’s Wriston Art Center, houses the university’s art collection of more than 6,000 objects, many of which were gifts from alumni and friends of the institution. One of those gifts was Jean Metzinger’s 1911-1912 painting, “Man with a Pipe,” which was donated to the university’s art collection by Howard Green.
How the Theft Happened
Very little is known about the missing Metzinger’s “Man with a Pipe,” other than it was on loan from Lawrence University’s Wriston Art Galleries when it disappeared while in transit in late July to early August 1998. In May 2015, an individual named Erik Solomonson wrote a blog post in which he explained why he had a side business as an investigator, stating that he had been a truck driver for an art shipping company and had been falsely blamed for the theft of the Metzinger painting. To this day, no information on the whereabouts of the Metzinger painting, or who took it, has been uncovered.
How to Identify This Missing Piece of History
Jean Metzinger’s cubist “Man with a Pipe” painted in 1911-1912, is an oil on canvas, measuring 36 ½ inches by 25 ¾ inches. It is signed “JMetzinger” on the lower right of the painting. This work represents, from multiple angles, a man in a jacket and tie, with his arms crossed and a pipe in his mouth, sitting at a table on which is a mug of beer, with two paintings in the background behind him.
“Man with a Pipe” (Portrait of an American Smoking) by Jean Metzinger, 1911-1912. From the collection of the Wriston Art Galleries, Lawrence University. Stolen in 1998 while on loan.
Why This Missing Piece of History is Important
Jean Metzinger was one of the leaders of the Cubist movement in the early 20th century with Albert Gleizes, he wrote “Du Cubisme,” the first treatise on Cubism and the only description of this movement written by the artists who helped to shape it. Metzinger, with other members of the Groupe de Puteaux, staged the first major Cubist exhibition at the Galerie La Boétie in Paris, in October 1912, helping to put Cubism at the forefront of the international art scene at the time. Metzinger is perhaps best known for his innovative use of “mobile perspective,” presenting simultaneous multiple views of his subject.
In 1913, Gimbel Brothers (“Gimbels”), an American department store, organized a traveling exhibition of Cubist works, which included Metzinger’s “Man with a Pipe,” as well as works by Albert Gleizes and Fernand Léger. The exhibition traveled to Milwaukee, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, New York City and Philadelphia. Gimbels sponsored the show in Milwaukee, New York and Philadelphia. The Pittsburgh show was hosted by Boggs & Buhl Department Store and its catalogue featured “Man with a Pipe” on the cover. Metzinger’s painting in the exhibition was singled out in a July 2013 article in The Brooklyn Daily Eagle, which asked: “Who is the American? Where is the rest of his face? Was it carved off in a duel at one of the foreign universities or did he dislike it and have it remodeled? Such are some of the questions being asked by those most interested—and the catalogue merely says “American Smoking.”
In 1956, “Man With a Pipe” was requested for touring by the American Federation of Arts via the U.S. State Department. The work was first sent to Sweden and then shown throughout western Europe on that tour. It was returned to Lawrence University in September 1957. The work continued to be loaned out until its disappearance in 1998.
What to Do if You Know Where This Missing Piece of History Is
If you recognize Jean Metzinger’s “Man with a Pipe,” have any information about it, or know its whereabouts, please call us at 1-202-240-2355 or send us an email at contact@arguscpc.com.