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Rafael Leonardo Black, hermit and artist in Clinton Hill, Brooklyn, keeps all his tools in elbow’s reach in the studio where he lives. A coffee mug with nine No. 2 pencils, each razor-whetted to the sharpness of a spear. A single brand of tracing paper. Shelves of art books, surrealists mostly.
“There’s a saying: ‘Everybody writes poems at 15; real poets write them at 50,’ ” said Mr. Black, who draws miniature figures.
In a shoe box of clippings is a photograph of three beautiful women that he cut out of a Vogue magazine in 1968 and used for a drawing in 2005. The drawing was sold last month. For more than three decades, Mr. Black, 64, has made a portal to the world in dense, miniature renderings of ancient myth and modern figures: Frank Wills, the security guard who discovered the Watergate break-in; Shirley Temple as a sphinx; the head of the surrealist André Breton as the head of John the Baptist; Marianne Faithfull in multiple incarnations.
Until recently, few people ever saw his work because he had almost no visitors. He held paying jobs as a typist in a law firm, a salesman at Gimbels and then Macy’s, and as a secretary in a school. Most recently, he has worked mornings as a part-time receptionist in a hospital.
Day after day, year by year, he labored like a monk, the spearpoint of his pencils seeming to move one atom at a time into place on his gesso boards. Then he would be done: tiny human forms shaped into the Casa Batlo, a building by Antoni Gaudi in Barcelona. Or the history of Salome, the Judean princess, told with images and icons from cinema.
“I just never made the effort to sell it,” Mr. Black said. “I never expected to be able to make a living at it, but I’ve always done it since — well, I guess, since I’ve known my self.” Then last month, a Manhattan gallery owner, Francis M. Naumann, mounted “Insider Art,” an exhibition of 16 works by Mr. Black. Ten of them sold within days, at prices ranging from $16,000 to $28,000.
“People liked them, people who know art,” Mr. Black said. “It makes me very happy.” He said he lived precisely as he desired on about $300 a week from his hospital job. “Why do you ask?” he wondered. He has not traveled much beyond New York since he emigrated from Aruba in 1965 as a teenager. His studio is crowded by a bed, a work desk and a single chair. In theory, the art money gives him material options.
“I haven’t really thought about it,” Mr. Black said. “Mundane things, like a vacuum cleaner. I suppose I should perhaps go to Aruba for a visit, maybe travel a little bit, a brief trip to some place like Paris.” The money will not catapult him back to the life he led in the 1960s and 1970s, when he club-crawled across Max’s Kansas City and CBGB. He saw new, unknown performers like Jimi Hendrix, and the American debut of people like David Bowie. Making his way to SoHo in 1975, he shared a loft on the corner of Lafayette and Spring Streets.
In 1980, he found himself in a wearying dispute with his landlord. An aunt who lived near Pratt Institute in Brooklyn left him a studio. “I became something of the hermit that I am today,” Mr. Black said. “When someone visited, I told her what my new scene was, she said, ‘Oh, you’re kluizenaar.’ It’s Dutch for hermit.
“What I do is read and make my pictures. To rip off Max Ernst, you keep one eye on what’s going on outside, and one eye focused inside. Then you make things that say something to both.” Well past the usual age of discovery for an emerging artist, Mr. Black notes that he is not news to himself.
“People who become what are called artists don’t stop,” he said. “There’s a saying: ‘Everybody writes poems at 15; real poets write them at 50.’ ”
He was painting by the time his family moved to New York. At Columbia College, he met John Taylor, with whom he shared the joys of music in the 1960s.
Late last year, Mr. Taylor passed along Mr. Black’s number to another Columbia friend, Tej Hazarika, who publishes in the art world. Mr. Hazarika urged Tom Shannon, an artist and inventor, to look at the work. In turn, he brought it to Mr. Naumann’s attention.
“You have what Cézanne called ‘petite sensation,’ the little feelings you get from being alive in the world,” Mr. Black said. “You have to find a way to present that, however, whoever you are. I guess ‘style’ would be the word.
“If you are going to make a picture, you have to make something that’s in concert with the way the world operates,” he said. “There’s a line from the Lovin’ Spoonful: ‘You came upon a quiet day, and simply seemed to take your place.’ That’s how a real work of art should be in the system of things in the world.”
“There’s a saying: ‘Everybody writes poems at 15; real poets write them at 50,’ ” said Mr. Black, who draws miniature figures.
In a shoe box of clippings is a photograph of three beautiful women that he cut out of a Vogue magazine in 1968 and used for a drawing in 2005. The drawing was sold last month. For more than three decades, Mr. Black, 64, has made a portal to the world in dense, miniature renderings of ancient myth and modern figures: Frank Wills, the security guard who discovered the Watergate break-in; Shirley Temple as a sphinx; the head of the surrealist André Breton as the head of John the Baptist; Marianne Faithfull in multiple incarnations.
Until recently, few people ever saw his work because he had almost no visitors. He held paying jobs as a typist in a law firm, a salesman at Gimbels and then Macy’s, and as a secretary in a school. Most recently, he has worked mornings as a part-time receptionist in a hospital.
Day after day, year by year, he labored like a monk, the spearpoint of his pencils seeming to move one atom at a time into place on his gesso boards. Then he would be done: tiny human forms shaped into the Casa Batlo, a building by Antoni Gaudi in Barcelona. Or the history of Salome, the Judean princess, told with images and icons from cinema.
“I just never made the effort to sell it,” Mr. Black said. “I never expected to be able to make a living at it, but I’ve always done it since — well, I guess, since I’ve known my self.” Then last month, a Manhattan gallery owner, Francis M. Naumann, mounted “Insider Art,” an exhibition of 16 works by Mr. Black. Ten of them sold within days, at prices ranging from $16,000 to $28,000.
“People liked them, people who know art,” Mr. Black said. “It makes me very happy.” He said he lived precisely as he desired on about $300 a week from his hospital job. “Why do you ask?” he wondered. He has not traveled much beyond New York since he emigrated from Aruba in 1965 as a teenager. His studio is crowded by a bed, a work desk and a single chair. In theory, the art money gives him material options.
“I haven’t really thought about it,” Mr. Black said. “Mundane things, like a vacuum cleaner. I suppose I should perhaps go to Aruba for a visit, maybe travel a little bit, a brief trip to some place like Paris.” The money will not catapult him back to the life he led in the 1960s and 1970s, when he club-crawled across Max’s Kansas City and CBGB. He saw new, unknown performers like Jimi Hendrix, and the American debut of people like David Bowie. Making his way to SoHo in 1975, he shared a loft on the corner of Lafayette and Spring Streets.
In 1980, he found himself in a wearying dispute with his landlord. An aunt who lived near Pratt Institute in Brooklyn left him a studio. “I became something of the hermit that I am today,” Mr. Black said. “When someone visited, I told her what my new scene was, she said, ‘Oh, you’re kluizenaar.’ It’s Dutch for hermit.
“What I do is read and make my pictures. To rip off Max Ernst, you keep one eye on what’s going on outside, and one eye focused inside. Then you make things that say something to both.” Well past the usual age of discovery for an emerging artist, Mr. Black notes that he is not news to himself.
“People who become what are called artists don’t stop,” he said. “There’s a saying: ‘Everybody writes poems at 15; real poets write them at 50.’ ”
He was painting by the time his family moved to New York. At Columbia College, he met John Taylor, with whom he shared the joys of music in the 1960s.
Late last year, Mr. Taylor passed along Mr. Black’s number to another Columbia friend, Tej Hazarika, who publishes in the art world. Mr. Hazarika urged Tom Shannon, an artist and inventor, to look at the work. In turn, he brought it to Mr. Naumann’s attention.
“You have what Cézanne called ‘petite sensation,’ the little feelings you get from being alive in the world,” Mr. Black said. “You have to find a way to present that, however, whoever you are. I guess ‘style’ would be the word.
“If you are going to make a picture, you have to make something that’s in concert with the way the world operates,” he said. “There’s a line from the Lovin’ Spoonful: ‘You came upon a quiet day, and simply seemed to take your place.’ That’s how a real work of art should be in the system of things in the world.”
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