34: The Woman with Fifty Faces w/ Jonathan Lackman & Zachary J. Pinson
This month, we chat with Jonathan Lackman and Zachary J Pinson to get all the details about the creation of The Woman with Fifty Faces - a new graphic, art historical novel from Fantagraphics that beautifully unpacks this maligned actress’ life.
Featured music: Soft and Furious "Game On" from the album 'Bae'
Unbeknownst to the Art Capital of the World, a new muse would soon set the late 20s Parisian scene abuzz with her arrival. Who was she? Famous German actress “Maria Lani”.
Through her dazzling and mysterious charm, she soon persuaded over fifty artists - like THE best painters - in Paris including Pierre Bonnard, Jean Cocteau, Marc Chagall, André Derain, Henri Matisse, Man Ray, Georges-Henri Rouault, Fernand Léger and Suzanne Valadon (to name a few) to depict her in paintings, photographs, and sculptures for an upcoming film, truly subverting the role of ‘muse’.
This really reminded us of our episode covering The Bel Ami International Art Competition where 11 artists competed to have their painting featured in a Hollywood movie.
San Francisco Examiner, Nov. 30th, 1930
Jacqueline Marval, “Maria Lani” c. 1929
Roman Kramsztyk, “Maria Lani” c. 1929.
The only problem was “Maria Lani” was a construct not a famous actor. She wasn’t even “Maria Lani” . . . so WHAT was she going to do with all of these artworks?
Well, we’ll never really know . . . she soon vanished along with said artworks and rumors quickly spread that she had made off with the works and sold them to gullible collectors in the United States.
Reader, you might be thinking “This is too WILD to be true” but this is not a Hollywood plot (although it almost was!) This is a real mystery that begs the question: was this the art heist of the century? Or was something else going on?
The mystery is still unraveling!
The Woman with Fifty Faces, while a fascinating work of art and history, also touches on the conversation around creative collaborations.
The book was an idea 10 years and 5,000 hours in the making - Maria Lani’s story finally came together from bits and pieces of info after years of Jonathan’s research then brought to life for our eyes by Zachary’s visual talent.
Jonathan, who wrote and researched, discusses how at times you have to let go and trust your creative partner and be open to where the adventure might take you.
A big part of why the novel took as long as it did is because it was all done by hand - pen to paper - (they counted over 1,000,000 strokes!) which became important to Zach and embracing the flow resulted in his style developing in a way he didn’t expect.
You can check out more of Zachary’s work here.
These are important lessons for us artists and advice that can really be applied to many aspects of our lives: we may have an idea but slowing down and embracing change may bring unexpected opportunities we never could have imagined.
We can totally relate to this as collaborators in the making of Art Slice, which is part of our art practice but this also extends into the studio for us.
Art was always meant to take time - none of your favorite artists rush(ed) to finish a piece or a series: they worked until they felt the work was ‘there’. We as artists, not social media or AI, define what WE consider as ‘finished’ (sometimes it’s ‘never’ lol).
So, slow down, take breaks and lose yourself in your art-making! You’ll never get this time back and sometimes our creative ideas and desire to create fade away with stress but it’s never too late!
Support the show!
If you haven’t yet, please leave us a 5 star review on your pod player of choice so we can reach new listeners like you!
We would love your support on Patreon as those funds help support our research in the form of books and travel (it makes our visit to see some of these works in person possible!).
If you can’t swing that at the moment, you can also support us by purchasing some merch!
If you watched/listened, let us know your thoughts!
We will be back VERY soon with a full episode!
