Wrapped Icons in Cloth. Years Later Art Revealed


The gauze-wrapped building rose above the East Village like a bandaged wound. It was May 1979, and artist Francis Hines had covered an abandoned five-story apartment building with 3,500 yards of white cloth, loosely sealing the inside of discarded drug needles and crumbling walls.

A friend of Mr. Hines’s at the time said the soft, undulating installation brought “life, beauty and possibility” to the East Village, an emblem of civic neglect at the time.

Mr. Hines received a pinch of critical acclaim for draping this and other New York City structures, including the Washington Arch, before he disappeared from the art world. He died in 2016 at the age of 96.

His work was rediscovered a year later by Jared Whipple of Connecticut, who found hundreds of pictures of Mr. Hines in a landfill and has since made it his mission to give Mr. Hines the attention he thinks the artist deserves.

Over the past five years, Mr. Whipple, 40, has studied Mr. Hines’ diaries, corresponded with friends and relatives of the artist, and extracted archival footage. His work as a self-taught Hines scholar will reach a milestone this week when some of the paintings found in the landfill are displayed for sale.

solo exhibition opens on thursday It will be accompanied by a smaller presentation at the Hollis Taggart gallery in Southport, Conn., and New York.

Mr. Hines’ escape from obscurity began in September 2017 when he was invited to a ruined barn by a friend who was hired to clean him up and who knew that Mr. Whipple liked to recover discarded materials.

In an outside dump, he found neat piles of hundreds of canvases wrapped in heavy plastic, and thought it was a hobbyist’s work.

“Once we started opening them up, we realized there might be more,” said Mr. Whipple.

Mr Whipple, a mechanic who also does building maintenance for churches, said he was drawn to the brightly colored depictions of smashed cars and car parts. He decided to move the collection to his warehouse, where he spent more than a decade building an indoor skate park.

Mr. Whipple learned the artist’s identity after finding one of the paintings signed with his full name, Francis Mattson Hines. An online search led Mr. Whipple to a self-published book by Mr. Hines’ wife, Sondra Hines, about her husband’s best-known work: the Washington Arch installation. In 1980, he used 8,000 yards of white polyester to wrap the arch as part of a New York University fundraiser to restore the monument.

In a video provided by Mr. Whipple, Grace Glueck, a former New York Times art reporter and critic, praised the installation.

“I think he’s very handsome, and as I told you before, I find anything that covers Washington Square Arch, which I’ve always found incredibly ugly, attractive.”

Working as a commercial illustrator, Mr. Hines continued to sculpt, paint and sketch after the major installation, but did not receive significant attention from gallerists.

Over the decades, Mr. Whipple said he would send his finished work to a barn in Watertown, Conn., which he rented for storage and used as his main studio in the 1970s.

Over the last ten years, the barn owners have repeatedly asked Mr Hines to move the art, as they want to sell the property.

He never did. Instead, he let the preserved art pile up under dirt, filth, and animal excrement, leaving the project for another day or another person. After Mr. Hines died, his family took what was most important to them, leaving behind the treasure Mr. Whipple had found.

Mr. Whipple has an insatiable appetite for information about the artist and contacted friends and colleagues who shared photos, videos and letters. Mr. Whipple spent two years searching for photographer Ken Hellberg, who had let him search his basement for 35-millimeter slides of Mr. Hines’ work.

The 78-year-old Rev. Alan Johnson said in a phone call that he was grateful for Mr. Whipple’s discovery and persistence.

Mr. Johnson was an official of the United Church Board of Homeland Ministries, which sponsored the East Village project in 1979, and He gave an interview to The Times On this subject in 1979:

“Francis Hines chose a part of the city that was in trouble and brought something of life, beauty and possibility to it,” said Mr Johnson.

He and Mr Hines would share their successes and sorrows over single malt whiskey at the White Horse Tavern and would make trips to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which Mr Johnson said was one of the few places Mr Hines would visit north of 14th Street. in Manhattan. The artist always insisted that they only visit the African art wing.

“He’d go down and look at the artifacts, these beautiful bowls and paintings, and he’d say, ‘People made this with their hands and made something functional and useful,'” said Mr Johnson.

Mr Johnson said Sondra Hines, who died in 2013, would appreciate her husband’s work gaining new recognition. In a catalog of her work, Mr. Hines wrote in dedication to Sondra: “Without her talents and her devoted work, much of what I have would never have seen the light of day.”

Mr. Johnson said Mr. Whipple’s friend was an ideal guardian of his art because he approached projects in a practical and hands-on style that was in keeping with Mr. Hines’ philosophy of “art is solving problems”.

In a statement provided by Mr. Whipple, Mr. Hines’ son, Jonathan Hines, said it was “destined” for someone outside of the art world to discover his father’s art and that it would not have happened had he decided to pursue the art. instead of throwing it away.

“The bottom line is that my father gets the recognition he deserves,” said Mr Hines.

The new interest in Mr. Hines’ art drew comparisons to the work of Bulgarian-born artist Christo, who, along with his wife and collaborator Jeanne-Claude, used fabric to cover and create structures. Arc de triomphe. Christo – using only his first name – died in 2020.

The Connecticut gallery, which will be showcasing the work of Mr. Hines starting this week, specializes in bringing attention to lost and forgotten art. The owner of the gallery, Hollis Taggart, was introduced to the Hines collection by art historian Peter Hastings Falk.

Mr. Taggart said he was surprised at how Mr Hines used pastels on the ship and then wrapped the paintings in a fabric he had never seen before.

“There’s a huge interest in alternative media in today’s contemporary market, you see a lot of works made of fabrics, ceramics, installations, wall hangings, things like that,” said Mr. Taggart. “What he does with fabric in his paintings fits with what many artists do today using alternative mediums.”

Mr. Taggart said around 30 of Mr. Hines’ works will be on display next week, including paintings, drawings and a sculpture. He said prices will start at $5,000 to $8,000 for works on paper, $20,000 to $35,000 for wrapped paintings, and $55,000 for sculpture.

Most of the profits from the sales will go to Mr. Whipple, who says he plans to use it to refurbish his warehouse in Waterbury, Conn., where he showcases the work of Mr Hines and local artists.

The exhibition may seem like the culmination of the Francis Hines project, but Mr Whipple said it is just one step further in his task of gaining recognition for the artist.

He is also working on a documentary about Mr. Hines and hopes to display the artist’s work in a major New York City museum.

Mr Whipple and Mr Johnson acknowledged that Mr Hines was a man of the age and did not share any concerns about his legacy.

in an interview with Times in 1979After Mr. Hines set fire to his East Village facility and devoured a piece of tulle, he made it clear that he was not worthy of his work.

“Whatever happens, happens,” said Mr. Hines. “It’s almost part of the process. Your work is exposed to all sorts of things, including weather and vandalism.”



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