I need more.
I rub my eyes and take a sip from my water bottle as I mull it over, then I open a new browser tab. I need to circle back to the beginning—finding the self-portrait. I type “The Four lost portrait” into the search bar, hoping that its reappearance has already been covered in the media somewhere, and immediately spot an article inThe Blackwood Gazette, a small local paper.
I skim it. It’s basic enough, detailing that Michael Keller found the painting at Professor Williams’s estate sale (no mention of me, which annoys me a bit) and it went on display at the Heywood Gallery immediately after. The, quite frankly, eye-watering estimated value is briefly mentioned, but it’s the allusion to “the painting’s dark history” that catches my attention. There’s no further detail, but if it’s cited here and also in that article Professor Williams kept a copy of, then theremustbe more on the internet. I just have to dig for it. I search the term the journalist used about its “dark history,” and my eyes grow wide when a whole page of Deddit articles load. Why didn’t I think of looking here before? It’s the home of internet sleuths. I really haven’t been firing on all cylinders since Monday night.
I scroll eagerly, dismissing anything that mentions the word “curse”—ugh—and click on one that looks promising.
Deddit
13/12/2023
d/UnsolvedMysteries
artymarty_47:Do you think the portraits known as The Four were really painted by a serial killer?
I saw these paintings when I was visiting Blackwood University in the fall and decided to write a paper on them for my art history class. I ended up going down a rabbit hole but couldn’t find much about the artist, apart from some stuff about his own self-portrait going missing and being cursed, yada yada. But there was one book I found in the library that discusses blood and hair mixed in with the paint. When I looked into this further, I found an article about the painter possibly killing his models! Has anyone come across this before? Surely if it’s true he’d have been a serial killer, as there are four known paintings?
Callmemoko: I haven’t heard that, but those paintings are creepy AF.
Donttalktome12: Yeah, something about the eyes. They look in genuine pain.
Potatolover2004: Sign of a good artist? Just because he painted them looking like they were in pain doesn’t mean they really were, does it?
artymarty_47: I suppose not. It was the mention of blood and hair that intrigued me (in a not gross way, obviously). Why/how would someone do that?
Donttalktome12: Yeah, that is weird. Some artists do go to extremes for their art, I guess.
Potatolover2004: That really is extreme, though. Are you sure you read it right? What was the book?
artymarty_47:Tracing Provenanceby Philomena Huxtable. My notes say it was published in 1985, but that might just have been the edition I was reading? It comes up if you search the title online, but it seems to be out of print and only available in libraries.
I stop scrolling and immediately navigate to the library catalogue, typing in the title with shaking hands. The conversation between Dad and the appraiser replays in my head as the computer directs me to the shelf whereTracing Provenanceis.It’s the disturbing anomalies I’m really looking for…
The book is here.
SEVENTEEN
Even though my parents broughtme here all the time when I was younger, I never really appreciated how gorgeous Blackwood Library is. Dad always used to tell me that it’s one of the oldest in the world, but as a kid I preferred the bright primary colors of the public library near my school, because they had seemingly unlimited copies of Isadora Moon and Beast Quest. Blackwood just had boring grown-up books that smelled funny.
I take my time walking through the stacks, marveling at all the intricate details, like the end panels of each shelf. The thick wood is old and blackened, ancient even, and the top of each panel extends up past even the tallest books. They are carved into ornate points and decorated with reliefs of small animals and bearded human faces surrounded by leaves, every shelf a small work of art. The letters of the alphabet are stenciled directly onto the wood in gold leaf, too—there are no laminated signs here.
I consult my phone and continue to look for the shelf where I’ll find 709.04HUX, trailing my fingers along the wood and wondering when people stopped making everyday objects so beautiful. I finally reach the section I’m looking for and realize I’ve ended up quite far from the main desk. It’s quiet here, a bit eerie,and much colder than the front of the library. I rub my bare arms for warmth as I enter the stacks.
I’m immediately swallowed by shadows as the shelves tower above me, and I try to ignore visions of coming across another dead body. It’s so secluded, it would be an ideal place for the killerto claim another victim. A barrage of thoughts runs through my head. Would anyone hear a scuffle back here? If someone was waiting at the other end of the stack, would I even know? Would I feel a presence before they attacked, or would it be a total surprise? I pick up my pace, trying to ignore the cloud of fear threatening to envelop me.
I scan shelves rapidly until I find the right one. I finally spot the book, a slim white volume with a yellowing spine, and pluck it from the shelf before scurrying back into the main part of the library. I head back to my computer desk and sit down, opening the cover so I can scan the contents page. There’s nothing obvious related to The Four, but there are several chapters split into time periods, so I take a chance and flip to the one that covers1911.
Nothing.
I rack my brain for any information Dad might have told me and remember he mentioned that the paintings resurfaced in the eighties, but no one was sure where they’d been between then and the initial sale. That seems worthy enough to make it into a book titledTracing Provenance, so I thumb through the pages, getting worryingly close to the end before I reach one that makes me stop.
There they are.
I look at the now-familiar portraits and recognize the photo as the same one used in the newspaper article on my murder board. This book was published in 1985, so it must be from when they were loaned to the National Portrait Gallery a few years before that. I scan the page, which is only a few paragraphs long, but it’s strange enough to make me want to photocopy it.
Artist unknown, ?–1911
Some of the most prominent works of the Expressionist movement are the portraits known as The Four. They have been shrouded in mystery since they were discovered alongside the body of the artist in an abandoned property on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, New York, in July 1911. The artist had been dead for several days and had also painted a macabre self-portrait that was found with the four unframed canvases.