I became a collector of John Rogers Group Statuary on my birthday: January 17, 2007. Within 4 months, I had opened a museum dedicated to John Rogers statuary,
otherwise known as "groups", which are his unique contribution to the world of art. How the heck did that happen? I'm a stained glass, wrought iron gate, architectural antiques man. Then again, people often refer to my 5-acre antique shop (The Last Unicorn) as something of a museum. There is method in the madness if you'll allow me explain.
A veteran (meaning olde-fashioned) antiques dealer, I was in Richmond, Virginia on my way to visit my daughter in Maryland. Innocently enough, I stopped in at an architectural antique enterprise to see what I could see.
All antique dealers (except the Ebay crowd), routinely visit other shops and dealers on their vacations. Eager to get some rest and reprieve from the search-and-sell nature of the business, antique dealers relax by visiting other antique dealers to brag and complain. It is a bizarre ritual like that no other business. Dealers spend money they have squirreled away for the vacation that they can ill afford in the first place. If this is not addictive behavior, what is?
Minding my own business, poking through piles of Civil War memorabilia (antique wars never end, they grow more expensive…), I happened upon a dilapidated cardboard box with the exposed remains of a ceramic statuary eyeing me. “What detail,” I thought, “wonder what this is?” “How much, to me?” I queried the savvy old dealer, who knew me like a poker player.
“That’s a John Rogers,” he responded knowingly. “$300!”
No more questions….
On the way out of the anqtiquedom, truck over-packed and me broke-as-a-snake , I tried again. “How about $250?” I queried casually. “I’ll put the $300 on your I.O.U.” he smiled as he loaded the damn thing into the front seat by the wooden Indian thing.
At my daughter’s house, I unloaded the statuary and finally examined it. Under layers of dust I found a most detailed statuary depicting two men obviously arguing as a lady in a Victorian dress stood firmly between them, her hand over the mouth of one while still grasping a dainty fan. One gent, in spite of a bandaged gout foot had spilled his liquor goblet in obvious fury with the other combatant who had speared his derby hat with his umbrella. These gents were mad, enraged!
Under the dust, I located the reason for the fervor. The statuary was titled: Politics. Meanwhile, the daughter had Googled John Rogers while I located some paint and glue so my 10-year old Granddaughter Taylor and I could make some artful repairs to the John Rogers statuary.
“Stop!” my daughter called out. “Better come look at this….” She dutifully copied a dozen pages of photos, depictions and descriptions of Roger’s work.
John Rogers, I quickly learned, was “the People’s Sculptor” of the 1800’s, often referred to as “The Norman Rockwell of the period: 1860-1890.”
The statuary I had before me was produced in 1888 and was now valued at about $1,200. The details of the 1888 presidential election educated the new owner (me) as I read a truly amazing (and thoroughly documented) history of this artist and his achievements.
During the next 120 days I became a dedicated collector of the John Rogers statuary amassing 50 groups. (And driving nearly 10,000 miles in the process.)
This is the trustory (*) of that adventure which led to the creation of the only John Rogers museum in the Southern States of the USA.
(*) Gaines Steer is the author of A Story Worth Tellin’”: a documented memoir. Unicorn Press 2006 (Details available at The Last Unicorn.com. The term” trustory” has been coined by the author to describe his unique style of combining feature writing and storytelling. (book review available on website)
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