Brancusi and Holmes

Another narrow escape from the high life.

I once held an original Brancusi marble sculpture worth perhaps several million dollars! It wasn't my idea, really. The owner, a wealthy Romanian industrialist who had a huge collection of Brancusi's work (the first truly modern sculptor of the 20th century), wanted to mount a world-wide touring exhibition of the sculpture of Brancusi and Holmes (that'd be me). He was so tickled that I said yes that he forced me to hold this fragile marble sculpture for a picture! (The photo below is of him and another Brancusi narble that he actually dropped and broke! Here he's putting the pieces together to show me what it looked like. YIKES!)

He then flew me and my manager to Bucharest for a few days of high living while we drew up the contract for tours of Europe, the U.S. and Japan. I was thrilled to be included with Brancusi, one of my art heros!

But that was the end of it. The contract period came and went with nary a word. He may have been taken down in a corruption scandal in the Romanian government, but I never heard from him again... Life in the fast lane!