The Mystery of Robert Melvin Decker: American Artist by Harry Haberman It is the fate of the artist, with an occasional exception, not to receive recognition during his life-time. The fortunes of a few sometimes improve after they die and one or two may achieve recognition and even fame. But it is the height of irony for an artist to be successful and famous during his lifetime and then to be completely forgotten shortly after death. Robert M. Decker has suffered such a fate. Decker was born in Troy, New York, June 8, 1847, and died of heart failure at nearby Melrose, N.Y. October 27, 1921. He was then carried back to the city of his birth to be buried with little ceremony in the Oakwood Cemetery.[1] He lies in the extensive plot of his wifes wealthy family, his grave noted only by a small footstone indistinguishable from others in a field of similar stones. The stone is engraved with nothing more than his name and the years of birth and death. [2]So is this American artist, described after his death as Brooklyns most distinguished artist [3]buried, uncelebrated and unrecognized. Barbara Decker Wood, Deckers granddaughter, in an interview, described him as highly acerbic and uncompromising in his relations with people. As she put it, He was very sarcastic; that was, I think, the main thing I remember about him, that he was very sarcastic. But with her he was very gentle and as a little girl, she said, she loved to sit on his lap. [4] He was a handsome man, well-built, with a substantial moustache and, in his mid-fifties, a full head of greying hair.[5] Because of his great wit he was always fun to be with, despite his sarcasm. His mother died while he was still a child, and according to Barbara, when his father, a furniture manufacturer, remarried, Deckers stepmother was a holy terror and she mistreated him as a boy, so he had a very unhappy childhood and youth . . . He had a horrible stepmother, really terrible. I think she was very jealous that he wasnt her son. He had little formal education and was not even a high school graduate. He had a very minor education in school, but he read copiously in every subject.[6] When asked whether it was true, as reported in certain biographical material,[7] that Robert Decker was a direct descendant of Joshua Reynolds she said it was true, but, as she laughingly put it, I think it was the wrong side of the blanket. There were two main branches of the Decker line, one German and one English. Their forbears were English.[8] Decker was about thirty-seven when he married Emma Haner, age twenty-eight. Emma was rich. If being rich is a virtue, that, according to Barbara Wood, was apparently Emmas main virtue. It was not a happy marriage. They didnt get along at all. I knew that even as a child. I once asked grandmother Decker why she didnt get a divorce. `One doesnt get a divorce, she told me, haughtily. Emma died at age 84, having survived her husband by nineteen years.[9]
Posted on: Sun, 02 Nov 2014 16:39:44 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015