Mervin Jules attended Baltimore City College in 1930 and received a degree from the Maryland Institute of Fine and Applied Arts in 1934. The following year, he went to New York City and studied with Thomas Hart Benton at the Art Students League. Jules’s work was first exhibited in 1935. He was an artist-in-residence at Smith College from 1945 to 1946 and a professor from 1946 to 1969. In 1969, he became chairman of the art department at the City College of New York. In addition to teaching and exhibiting his work, Jules published articles about art. He had a studio in Provincetown, Massachusetts.

Lisa Crescenzo, Managing Director of Fine Art, sat down with J.J. Simon, grandson of Mervin Jules, to discuss the artist and his legacy. Below we share a selection of excerpts from the conversation.

Memories with Mervin Jules on the Cape

Mervin Jules, Homage to Van Gogh, color woodcut. At auction March 12. Estimate $1,000 to $1,500.

Lisa Crescenzo:
Did you ever meet him?

J.J. Simon:
Yeah, I spent a good bit of time with him. We would visit him in New York. He visited us several times in Virginia, which is where I grew up, but I spent a month every summer on the Cape with him until I was 12. I saw him working, I saw others and met other artists. I met Raphael Soyer. Soyer painted a portrait of my grandfather that’s in the National Gallery, and I would tell him that he was “doing it wrong.” I slept in my grandfather’s studio on the Cape, so I looked out onto the bay and I was in the room where he painted.

LC:
At what age did you understand that he was an artist and that what he did for work was maybe not the typical thing a young child learns a job is?

JJ:
I don’t know if there was ever a conscious understanding of it, but everybody around me kind of made art. My mom made art even though she was an attorney, but she wanted to be an artist. My grandfather talked her out of it, because he said, look, you can’t really make a living at it. And if you look at his life, he didn’t make a living as an artist. He made a living as an art professor, and then as an investor, he played the market and he was very good at it. He was an exceptionally brilliant person, a chess champion, he was going to the Peabody as a cellist, and then just switched the hat when they offered him a free education. It was like, well, I guess I’ll be a teacher. Up until that point, he hadn’t really been involved in art, but the interesting thing is I have his first painting and it’s from his childhood, so I have the first oil painting he ever did. And it’s supposedly very early, so I don’t know what the validity of that is in the interview. He just switched and went to school to make money.

LC:
Some people who are in the arts or who are creatives do a lot of different things, right?

JJ:
I would say he was an artistic genius. Basically, it didn’t really matter what the form was; if it interested him, he moved towards it.

Decoding An Artist’s Collection

LC:
Can you give me a sense of how many pieces your mother might have received as part of half of your grandfather and grandmother’s collection? How vast are we talking, like 100 pieces?

JJ:
At least.

LC:
Okay, so then between her [JJ’s mother] and her brother, it was a big grouping. And he had some named artists, probably some students, people he trained with.

JJ:
He would collect students’ work whom he saw, and he was like, “This person is going to be a really good artist.” Like the portrait artist I was telling you about, named James—He ended up taking care of Grandpa for several years. He lived with him while he was fading into Alzheimer’s. He was with him at the Cape the year he died. He painted a portrait of my grandfather while he was experiencing full-blown dementia. I’ve talked to James about it, and asked him about one of the paintings and he’s like, “Oh, I think I painted that when I was a student.” Grandpa bought from him because “This guy, he’s a hell of a painter.” Like, he is an excellent portrait artist. That’s kind of his gig.

I’m sure there were plenty of other ones and there, you know, this is the big challenge of what’s left among the things. It’s not the named artists. It’s more like: “What does that signature say? What is this? Who did this?”

LC:
And is there any way to find who it is? Yeah, that’s the problem. If there’s not someone who keeps records or notes, Google only takes you so far.

JJ:
And it’s horrible. It’s horrible! You can use any of the lenses: Google Lens, you can use the other AIs, and you can put the signature in, you can put the piece and they’ll be like, “it appears to say this. And it looks like it’s from this time frame.” I’m like, “That is totally wrong. No way.” It often does nothing for me, right? And God forbid it’s foreign.

LC:
He collected artists from outside of the U.S. too?

JJ:

Right, and Mom collected too, so now I have a piece that’s labeled on the back, “French Coastline.” It’s a beautiful thing. I can’t find it.

It’s like trying to find anything. Oh, the artist’s name was Jacques. Wow. Oh, there’s no date on it?

LC:
Welcome to my life.

Connections to Leonard Baskin

Mervin Jules, Guitar Players, oil on masonite. At auction March 12. Estimate $1,200 to $1,800.

JJ:
…Are you familiar with Leonard Baskin? … I love his style! Our house is filled with Baskins.

LC:
I think I prefer his sculpture over his prints. What was the connection between Baskin and your grandfather? Did they work together in Provincetown? Or at Smith?

JJ:
They knew each other well. I think it’s because Grandpa was the art professor, and then I’m pretty sure the Head of the Art Department at Smith College.

There is a story, as family stories go, when mom was growing up, he [Mervin] was at Smith. And he eventually became the Head of the Art Department. And my mom would get out of school, come to the college, and just go into the galleries, sit, and look at stuff. The story goes that somebody pointed out to him and said, “Look at her, look at what she’s doing, you know, she’s just taking it all in.” The art on display was changing all the time, so she would be able to, you know, experience this.

I would say when talking about those early pieces, where like, Mom’s doing these dragon drawings and things like that, they’re heavily influenced by Leonard [Baskin]. That style of simple pen and ink line.

[Leonard Baskin taught printmaking and sculpture at Smith College].

JJ:
He [Baskin] gifted Mom a drawing; I have it. It’s a pegasus, it’s a small, small pen and ink drawing, and it’s exceptional.

Mervin Jules & Robert Motherwell

Mervin Jules, Untitled (Connoisseurs), oil on massonite. At auction March. 12. Estimate $1,000 to $1,500.

LC:
With these circles of artists, I’m always so interested in these colonies, for example Provincetown, and other places on the East Coast. Tell me more about his time there.

JJ:
Have you been?

LC:
No, I have not.

JJ:
You need to go there.

LC:
He became very involved in the Provincetown Art Association.

[Mervin Jules was a member of the Provincetown Art Association starting in 1945.]

JJ:
Of course he was. The person who everybody knew.

My grandfather was best friends with Robert Motherwell. They were poker buddies. They all played. And I remember the poker games on the Cape. I didn’t know who these people were. I knew that they had candy, right? So have these big jars full of like gumdrops for me.

And, apparently, my grandfather was like an ace poker player. Like, he won way more than he lost.

LC:
Do artists play for money?

JJ:
Yeah, they play for money. And I think they played for art too.

So, here’s a Grandpa story. In the end, I don’t know what happened to this piece I am about to tell you about. Motherwell started making it with his abstract work, and he bought up everything he did that was representative. He went to everyone who had a piece by him that was representative.

And Grandpa had a drawing, a pencil drawing of a sunflower woman. So it was just like a very simple design, a head and sunflower petals. And it was signed, and probably signed and dedicated “for Jules” and whatever. And Motherwell was like, “I want it back.” Grandpa was like, “No.” And he was like, “I will give you anything. I’ll give you any other piece of art that I have right now for it.” And Grandpa was like, “No. I like it,” and also, “I know what you’re doing. And there will only be one.”

Then Mom had it, I don’t know where it went.

And, it funny because when we began looking at selling some stuff, no one wanted it, because it doesn’t work in any collection. Right?

LC:
He was just trying to change the market’s perspective on him, and he didn’t want it to exist anymore. He wanted it gone.

JJ:
Yeah. It’s a similar thing, with Baskin, you’ll never see a bad piece. That’s because he destroyed everything. Like, he destroyed anything he considered unworthy. He would not allow a piece that was not good to hit the market.