Cheyney Fox Read Online Free PDF Page B

seaside atmosphere, that total absence of chic. That was its charm: trash on the outside, the promise of greatness behind a few firmly closed doors.
    From the moment she stepped into the small wooden house, she had the feeling she had stepped into one of his paintings. It had been white — crisp white walls everywhere — nearly bare of furniture, with pure and rich slashes of bright color strategically placed: a painted chair vibrating with one color while standing on bare boards painted of another. It had made the heart sing. A door, open — and where you could see through from one room to another, the space and everything within was used as a canvas. One painting, one chair, the sun streaming like a corn-yellow beam through the window.
    Cheyney had felt instantly enriched, refreshed, and joyful. An atmosphere, undefined, but magical — enfolded. She had dissolved into it, yet felt rooted to where she had stood listening to Hans Hofmann. He had been in a short-sleeved, open-necked shirt, of slate-gray cotton, worn over baggy, puddy-colored, wrinkled slacks, bare feet showing through the leather crisscrosses of his sandals. With his large, round face, and a receding hairline fringed with thick white hair, Hofmann had looked like a wise, indulgent granddaddy cum philosophy teacher lecturing art to the younger men in the room: the painters Rothko, Motherwell, the critic Greenberg, and Hofmann’s dealer, Sam Kootz.
    The open discussion that had reverberated between them had astounded Cheyney. She drank in their enthusiasm, their passion and belief in abstract expressionist painting. Here was an art that was as cerebral as it was visual as it was expressive. Provocative by its insistence on forcing, pushing, always pushing,the viewer to use his brain as well as his eyes and his heart and his soul. An art that triggered its viewer to experience his own abstract expressions buried deep within. This was no-easy-on-the-eyes folksy Norman Rockwell art. This was postwar American modern art taking wing.
    Cheyney had been taken to the Hofmann house by her host, Acton Pace, another abstract expressionist painter, a onetime lover, kindred spirit, and close friend. Acton saw more in Cheyney than just an intelligent, sensuously beautiful young woman passionately interested in art, who ran a fascinating gallery in the provinces. She combined in her personality both sexy lady and art dealer. The mix appealed to the artistic mind. Not only his. It gave her entry into houses and studios like Hofmann’s, and a stable of interesting lovers to choose from. But it also left Cheyney Fox with a confused picture of herself. She never knew quite how seriously she was being taken as non-woman, art dealer, gallery owner. In the fifties to be a non-woman woman in the business world was a prerequisite for success.
    Cheyney gave a sigh, less of anguish than of relief that she had done it, destroyed one life designed to make anyone but herself happy, in order to build another. She was here where she wanted to be. And, if it was scary — and it was, this beginning again — that was just because she had been for too long too weak to break out and fight for what she wanted.
    “So long, see you tomorrow.” Max broke into her admiring contemplation.
    “Yeah, see ya,” added Morris. “And don’t forget the hot bath and the schnapps.”
    “We’ll lock the door behind us,” said Max, as the pair walked away from her.
    “And turn off the light,” added Morris.
    They were halfway down the stairs when Cheyney rushed across the upper gallery to call down to Max and Morris, “Thanks again, for everything. See you tomorrow,” and flash them a smile.

Chapter 4
    A tap at the door, a voice way off in the distance. Cheyney struggled out of a deep sleep. It was like swimming against a fluffy, pink tide of candy floss. Exhausted, she felt herself slipping, slipping, back into a hazy mist somewhere between sleep and daydreaming.
    Grasp of a cool hand on her