Post #1: The Painting
I own a vintage home goods store in Portland, Maine. One day, during the heart of the pandemic, I asked my sister if she wanted to go sourcing. For me, “sourcing” is an exercise in driving around (sometimes near and sometimes very far), to check out flea markets, lower-end antique outfits, estate and yard sales.
I had a spot in mind that day, a reasonably-priced antique shop just north of the city in which I had worked until recently. A month prior, I had resigned from my job as an administrator at a local private college to pursue my business full-time.
We set out on the road. As we approached the spot, I saw it was unexpectedly closed. Disappointed, I turned to Molly. She suggested we change course and hit a, somewhat nearby, flea market-type shop that our family has been visiting for years (we come from a long line of thrifters). I hesitated and then adjusted our destination in Google Maps.
When we arrived, I glided through the rooms, picking up a few pieces to sell in my shop. This particular store is a “group” shop, meaning that dealers rent out booths within the larger space to sell their wares. Toward the end, we came across a large oil painting in an old frame, leaning against a now-defunct plastic NASCAR sign. It was a child in a white gown holding a cat and it cost $20. At that moment, I knew the following: it was stunningly beautiful, it was old, and it was worth more than its price tag.
I bought it and casually placed it in the back of my small SUV. It wasn’t until days later, while unloading my car to research, price, and position the newly sourced pieces in my shop, that I noticed a name and date carved into the back of the wood frame: “Kyohei Inukai, 1921.”
At first Google search, some information about Inukai (1886-1954) came up, but the majority of what I found focused on his son Earle Goodenow (1913-1985), who actually worked under the pseudonym, “Kyohei Inukai” and was an artist, too. Diving deeper, I discovered a New York Times piece from 2011, in the “Antiques” section, which featured an art collector, Miyoko Davey, who had purchased Inukai’s archive from a descendent in the late 1990’s. I searched for more information about Davey and found that she and her late husband had established a philanthropic foundation, to which a phone number was publicly attached.
Beyond eager, I called the number, fully expecting to leave a voice message. To my surprise, someone answered and when I asked if I could speak with Miyoko Davey, they replied, “this is Miyoko.” I awkwardly blurted out something to the effect of, “my name is Abigail, I live in Maine, and I think I found a painting by Kyohei Inukai.” Understandably skeptical, Davey asked where I had found it, why I believed it to be one of Inukai’s works, and how I had come to locate her. Then, she asked me to email her a photo of the painting, which I did right away.
Within minutes, I heard the ping of a new email. Davey confirmed the painting was, indeed, Inukai’s. She was also able to tell me that it was a portrait of his son from his second marriage, “who died very young at 18 or 19 years old” of Tuberculosis. I knew from the NYT article that Davey had several photos (Inukai took and kept photographs of all his paintings) in her possession of “missing” paintings by the artist and had placed multiple advertisements in trade magazines, hoping to find them. I assumed this was how she immediately knew who the portrait depicted, but I was wrong, and more will come on that later.
Hanging up the phone with Ms. Davey, I felt that something big and important had happened. I knew it then and I marked it as such. I want to share, with you here in a series of blog posts, what I have learned about Kyohei Inukai’s remarkable life, from his memoir, “Confessions of a Heathen,” which Davey published, as well as from Davey herself (spoiler alert: we’ve since met). It’s a story that Davey has been telling and sharing for decades, however Inukai’s work remains largely unknown.
The next blog post in this series, “The Artist,” will be released on Sunday, May 7.
Related links (post #1):
The New York Times piece from 2011
Photograph of the painting leaning against a mantle.
Photograph of the back of the frame with “By Kyohei Inukai, 1921” carved into the wood.
