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C h a p t e r 1 2 Clues to the Lost Paintings of Julian Onderdonk The hundreds of paintings Julian did under a pseudonym became lost paintings, orphans whose true parentage was unknown. These paintings slowly spread out across America and have been found from New York to California , Washington State to Washington, D.C., and Arizona to New Hampshire. There is no record that Julian ever revealed his hidden life as Chas. Turner or his business relationship with Charles E. Tunison to anyone outside his family. Certainly Gertrude must have known everything; Julian’s parents were also privy to the secret, as he wrote his mother about using Turner as a pseudonym. It is also likely that Julian’s sister Eleanor was aware of what was going on, at least after she visited Julian and his family in the summer of 1906 while they were living in the Dongan Hills. Eleanor was intensely proud and protective of Julian; she never married and had no offspring to whom she might have passed along family secrets. After their mother passed away, Eleanor became the guardian of the family papers until her own death. She is said to have gone through the family papers and removed anything she found unflattering to her family.1 Julian, although saddened by the loss of credit for hundreds of works he painted between the ages of twenty-two and twenty-seven, was not proud of the business dealings Tunsion had led him into. No doubt aware of this, Gertrude did not reveal what had transpired to anyone as far as we can tell. Julian’s family kept his secret well. Julian’s daughter, Adrienne, was six when she left New York, and his son, Robert Reed (known as Bob), was not born until the family returned to Texas and Julian was no longer painting as Chas. Turner. Although Julian left hints behind for his children to read, as far as we know he never stated explicitly that he was signing a pseudonym to the works Chas. Tunison was selling, so perhaps they never grasped the significance of the relationship the two men had. Adrienne had no children to whom she might have passed along knowledge or insight, there is no indication that Bob ever knew about Chas. Turner, and none of Bob’s three children, Julian’s grandchildren, were privy to the secret.2 Although his relationship with Tunison ended around 1908 or 1909, Julian realized later in life that any assessment of his oeuvre that left out the hundreds of paintings from his first flowering as a painter would be woefully incomplete. He seems to have wanted to reclaim the works he had signed Chas. Turner. For his children, Julian wrote “A Short Account of the experiences I had with Chas. E. Tunison, in New York, in connection with my paintings,” in an attempt to set the record straight for the future and to share his secret with them. The surviving account is only one page long, and we do not know if it ran longer and other pages were lost, if perhaps Eleanor disposed of them, or if he just never finished the account, but it ends without completing the tale. It is almost as though his subconscious demanded that he leave clues so that one day others would uncover them, understand his lost years, and come to know and appreciate his secret works. Here we will examine those clues.3 How do we establish that hundreds of Julian Onderdonk’s paintings bear the signature Chas. Turner? For now, we must rely on logic, common sense, stylistic analysis, forensic signature examination, and comparative studies, and we have to settle for a preponderance of evidence rather than absolute proof. We believe that the evidence that follows qualifies as proof beyond a reasonable doubt, and that it will one day be augmented and confirmed by scientific analysis. We are certain that DNA sampling , pigment analysis, fingerprints, and other undeniable proof will establish beyond a shadow of a doubt that the works signed Chas. Turner and those signed Julian Onderdonk were painted by the same person. The discussion up to now has established certain critical points. We know of Julian’s business relationship with Charles E. Tunison, that the works Julian made for Tunison to sell were not signed with Julian’s name, and that scholarly and art-world records have never identified these works. We know from several sources that Julian had a tremendous...

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