I have been enjoying spending time with my 96-year-old mother. She is still full of wonderful stories. Stories I’ve heard before that still make her smile as she tells it again and stories that I’ve never heard.
This story I heard from both my father and mother and every time I hear it, it makes me smile.
My father’s early influences were Charlie Bowling, Otis Dozier and Jerry Bywaters but particularly Otis. Even as a mature artist my father one time told me that he felt all his landscapes looked as if Otis painted them. Then he discovered Raphael Soyer. My mother said that he had seen images of his work in Life Magazine, in a story about artist who were painting real people, people from the street. I remember my father saying it was like a revelation to him.
First time my father flew to New York City it was with Jerry Bywaters, whom he was now working for at the Dallas Museum of Fine Arts. Jerry knew that my father was enthralled with Soyer’s work, so Jerry took my father to Soyer’s studio where he got to meet him. Soyer gave my father a beautiful pencil and wash drawing of a couple in bed. It’s inscribed, “To Barney Delabano in Friendship, 1960 Raphael Soyer.
One day my mother was on the phone, with one of her friends and fellow Baby-Sitting Club Member. Back in the 1960’s suburban woman banded together to help each other out so they could go shopping, run errands, go to the doctor.
I was a toddler and I was coming down the hall while my mother was on the phone. The Raphael Soyer hung by the phone. I stopped and pointed at it and said Da-De and just kept toddling down the hallway. My mom thought it was funny and told her friend on the other end of the phone conversation.
The woman’s reply was precious, “Barbara, all the woman in the Baby-Sitting Club thought that was Barney as well.”
