I posted on Jack on April 10, six days after I met Belle Burch. She had not called me back, yet, to set up a meeting. Solomon had a large stable of artists, and may have influenced wealthy people to play in the Art Casino that was revealed in the Panama Papers. Rosemond Taylor and her uncle appear to be honest collectors, as do the Gettys. This is why Royal Rosamond Press has worked so hard to keep the Art World integral. Improved relations with my daughter and grandson, are a great help.
“U.S. officials revealed to NBC News that they have taken part in two global meetings about the Panama Papers to plan how to use the huge trove of leaked documents to catch criminals — and urged Americans to come clean now before illegal activity is discovered.”
Jon
Jack Solomon and Steven Speilberg were in a legal battle over a Norman Rockwell painting titled ‘Russian Schoolroom’ that was stolen by someone mixed up in the assassination of Martin Luther King.
I believe it was around 1980 that my late sister, Christine Rosamond Benton, began doing lithographs and showing them at the Circle Gallery that was located on Maiden Lane in San Francisco, and was owned by Jack Solomon. One of Rosamond’s biographers says she was thinking of going back with Circle Gallery just before she died in 1994. This appears to be the case, she having shows in Denver, New York, and other major cities. Stacy Pierrot says she came back to Carmel from one of these shows the day Christine drowned. At her funeral, Stacey approached my mother and I in the courtyard in front of the gallery, and told us Rosamond’s career was being revitalized by these shows. She then got down on one knee, took Rosemary’s hand, and made this plea;
“Don’t let the dream die!”
There now ensued a nightmarish fight over Rosamond’s creative legacy, and, the reopening of the Rosamond Gallery. I wondered what became of the deal with Circle Galleries. Why pay $5,000 dollars a month to rent this gallery (at the expense of my nieces) when Jack Solomon has gathered together his old stable of artists, and was back in business? In looking at the list of these artists, there is no mention of Rosamond. I wonder why?
Today I discovered Jack is dead. I had tried to contact him back in 1997, but he never returned my call. My aunt Lillian told me Jack and his wife had become her close friends. When I asked her to put me in touch with Jack, she changed the subject.
What I came to suspect was Christine committed suicide. Did Pierrot return to Carmel bringing bad news, such as, Jack let her boss go? Christine hated doing shows. Jack would want her at these shows. Did he conclude Pierrot was not a worthy replacement, and thus, my sister violated her contract? A week after her daughter drowned, Rosemary made one remark about this alleged accident;
“Like Virginia Wolfe, she walked into the water.”
The famed author put stones in her pocket and drowned herself. If Christine did the same, then Jack would not want this revealed because people would ask why? Fellow artists might rebel and leave enmass because Christine’s success is a litany of exploitation. Jack was running a high class art factory, and many famous artists knew it. They went along with this, breeding of sure winners, because they needed the money.
In 1974 Christine offered to teach me her style so I can be famous and rich, too. I turned this offer down because I wanted to be a real artist, verses a commercial artist. Christine them told me she does not feel like a real artist, and asked me to help her achieve this. However, the thuroghbred was out of the gate and winning another purse. Hence, it was hard to get a word out Rosamond about her success. At art shows, they lined up, and grilled her! They wanted simple answers to simple questions, and never got them.
Above is a serigraph by Rosamond titled ‘Lena and her Sisters’. Lena was our maid. This image looks like a Rockwell who rendered a Cold War scene that is susposed to be chilling. It depicts the forced worship of a Lenin, who has replaced the All American worship of Jesus, a Jew. Note the roses on the Lenin altar. Consider the Roza Mira prophecy.
Spielberg is a Jew who became famous for depicting the new middle class ambience from a child’s perspective. Steven is worth three billion dollars and has been knighted. Has Steven addressed the fact there are millions of blacks living in his American landscape, that millions believe don’t belong there? Steven does Lincoln – and washes his hands?
Note the girl in pigtails. Have we seen her before? Is Norman suggesting these is an American Schoolhouse – in dangers of being transformed by the Red Menace?
Well, thanks to Putin, the Cold War is back. Putin is a devout Christian, so gone is the bust of Lenin! Both Steven and Norman have employed their art to make propaganda which was the magical ingredient Jack Solomon used to make and break gifted people. Jack was a Capitalist that put Circle Galleries on the Stock Market. And then the Art Market crashed. There are stock actors. Slave owners treated their slaves like stock. Lenis was out to stop the exploitation of human beings. This black girl no longer has value to southern men who shame her and threaten her with violence because she wants to go to school.
When are the smoke and mirrors are gone, and the last of the rogue waves have had their way, the truth nears, and, indeed is here……Jack Solomon threw Rosamond away because she wasn’t selling anymore, wasn’t making money for him so he could pay off his debts he acquired via art speculating.
Christine Rosamond Benton, who is kin to John and Jessie Fremont who were backed by Radical Republicans, no longer had value. What is truly frightening, many southern men back Putin because he is a Christian, and, there are not black people in his landscapes. Not so in America! That Russian boy looking wistfully out the window, may want to be the President of Russian come day!
Consider the movie ‘Monuments Men’ and Rosamond’s autobiography that was disappeared. Was it a tell-all from a business perspective? What else was there really to talk about. Christine had an affair with a master printer.
Here is the video of my meeting with Belle, my new muse. What a thrill! You can not teach this thrill to others. You can’t corrupt real artists, and their loyal muses. Belle has restored me. She has given me new life. She has set me free! We are an American Adventure, and, a real Dream come true!
Jon Presco
Copyright 2014
https://rosamondpress.com/2015/12/17/44802/
https://rosamondpress.com/2014/04/10/jack-solomon-spielberg/
Solomon read the crawl in disbelief. “Russian Schoolroom” belonged to him when it was stolen.
Solomon is the owner of S2 Art Group, which is headquartered in Las Vegas. For years he was the exclusive lithographer for Rockwell, and for decades has collected original Rockwell paintings. One of those was “Russian Schoolroom,” a 1967 oil-on-canvas that depicts schoolkids seated at desks in a classroom staring at a bust of Vladimir Lenin. Solomon lent the painting to a gallery he owned, Circle Art Galleries in Clayton, Mo., for an exhibition of Rockwell lithographs and original paintings. The piece was stolen by “two guys,” as Solomon remembers, during the night of June 25, 1973. “Russian Schoolroom” was the only piece taken during the heist.
“I owned several Rockwell paintings at the time, and I was trying to give a boost to the show at that gallery,” Solomon said Wednesday morning. “This was 34 years ago. Talk about a cold case.”
The painting’s history is somewhat foggy. According to published reports, it went underground for about 15 years after the night it was stolen. Spielberg, who the FBI said is an innocent buyer, purchased the piece from New York art dealer Judy Goffman Cutler in 1989. He did not realize it had been pilfered until a member of his staff spotted the image last week on an FBI Web site displaying stolen artwork.
Spielberg has since turned the painting over to federal authorities but, as Solomon noted, the legendary director would like to have the painting as his own. Spielberg is one of the country’s foremost Rockwell collectors and is a founder of the Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge, Mass.
Solomon estimates the current value of the painting, which at the time of its theft was about $25,000, is in the millions. Over the past few days he has been in contact with the FBI, which is trying to track down the thieves, and with Spielberg’s representatives. “It appears we’ll work it out quietly between us,” Solomon said. “I have no problem at all with Steven Spielberg. He’s one of my idols.”
Posted August 21, 2012 – 2:37am
Gallery founder dies at 83
Art dealer and entrepreneur Jack Solomon, whose S2 Art Group became a fixture in Las Vegas’ downtown Arts District, died Saturday in a local hospice because of complications from prostate cancer. He was 83.
Although Solomon spent almost 10 years fighting prostate cancer and other health problems – including heart surgery a few years ago – he “was at home almost to the very end,” according to daughter Alisa Solomon, who noted her father’s determination to remain active and involved despite his illness.
Solomon and his wife, Carolyn, moved from Chicago to Las Vegas in 2001, bringing with them the S2 Art Group and Jack Gallery, which they launched in 1996.
For a decade, their offices and studio – featuring rare, century-old lithography presses made in Paris – stood as an Arts District anchor on Charleston Boulevard; the S2 Art Center is now on South Valley View Boulevard.
Before founding the S2 Art Group and Jack Gallery, the Solomons operated Circle Fine Art Corp., a national network of 38 galleries that specialized in limited-edition fine art graphics, which they operated until 1993.
Solomon spent more than five decades producing, publishing and selling fine art prints, representing a wide range of art, from the Americana of Norman Rockwell and the art deco of Erte to the op art of Victor Vasarely and the vibrant energy of LeRoy Neiman, who used to visit Solomon at S2’s Arts District location.
Solomon was born Oct. 25, 1928, in Omaha, Neb. He earned cum laude bachelor of science and bachelor of laws degrees from the University of Nebraska, where he was a champion debater and wrote musical revues. Solomon later attended the University of Michigan School of Law, where he earned a master of laws degree.
Solomon began his legal career with a Chicago corporate firm and rose to become a senior managing partner of a firm specializing in art and entertainment law, where his high-profile clients included Gloria Swanson, George Raft and Margaret O’Brien.
Also in Chicago, Solomon founded Piper’s Alley Corp., helping to redevelop the city’s Old Town neighborhood with the Victorian-themed shopping center.
With his wife, Carolyn, and daughter, Alisa Solomon of New York City, Solomon is survived by daughters Debby Simon of Overland Park, Kan., and Rena Solomon of Evanston, Ill.; son Michael Solomon of Ann Arbor, Mich.; and three grandchildren.
Services will be held at 10 a.m. Thursday at Shalom Memorial Park in Chicago; details of a planned Las Vegas memorial have not yet been determined. The family requested contributions to The Hope Foundation (www.thehopefoundation.org), which conducts clinical trials to treat and combat cancer, or to the Epilepsy Therapy Project (www.epilepsy.com).
Contact reporter Carol Cling at ccling@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0272.
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