Antiques Roadshow Detours

Adam Monahan:

As one of the fact-checkers on GBH's Antiques Roadshow, getting information correct is important to me. Our experts see hundreds or even thousands of items at each event, and they pitch the best of the best to be filmed for TV. Once they get the go-ahead appraisers only have about 30 minutes to research every little detail they can about an item before we stick them in front of a camera. After that, it's up to me and one of my fellow fact-checkers to review all those little details to make sure they got them right. Everyone's counting on us, our appraisers, our viewers, and our boss, Marsha Bemko.

Marsha Bemko:

If we make a mistake, it's really embarrassing. So first of all, you're teaching everybody and then you're going to teach them the wrong thing? Like, mortifying, and it's mortifying. So the fact-checking is critical.

Adam Monahan:

As a fact-checker, I agree. When anything goes wrong, it's horrible. I feel terrible. Some are unavoidable, and then there's some that are very, very easily avoidable. So the Klusman painting, we got something wrong, and then when you learn what we got wrong, this one was so easily avoidable because there's all clues. That's what actually is fun about fact-checking, is there's clues hidden in these objects to reveal themselves, and that's part of the game for us. That's fun to figure out is this right or wrong, and I love it, except for when I screw it up.

Marsha Bemko:

When it happens, it doesn't happen much, it's like the kind of thing you don't even... Question you don't even think to ask and you go, "Whoa." Or like with the Clusmann painting, you get diverging opinions on what it is.

Adam Monahan:

There are clues in every artwork, but the experts don't always agree about what they mean. This is the story of a painting whose details slid under one fact-checker's keen radar and the expert viewer who corrected our mistake and the other expert who said, "I think you got it wrong."

Marsha Bemko:

You vomit the first time and then you think, "Oh, we fixed it." And then you think you got to be kidding. That's what I thought when this all happened. You've got to be kidding.

Adam Monahan:

I'm Adam Monahan and this is Antiques Roadshow Detours. Today, a fact rechecked. Can you introduce yourself, who you are and what you do for Antiques Roadshow?

Betty Krulik:

I'm Betty Krulik. My business is Betty Krulik Fine Art Limited. I'm an appraiser for the painting table, and I have a specialty in American art.

Adam Monahan:

And how long have you been appraising paintings for us on the show, do you remember?

Betty Krulik:

I started, I think it was in 2009, so it's going on 15 years. I consider myself a newbie.

Adam Monahan:

15 years is kind of a newbie in terms of a show that's 28 years running.

Betty Krulik:

Exactly.

Adam Monahan:

So a couple of years ago, Betty, we had a Clusmann painting. What can you tell me about this one?

Betty Krulik:

So this painting was just a beautiful Chicago scene, lots of activity. It was coming out of the steps of the Art Institute of Chicago with Michigan Avenue kind of splayed out in front of you, figures, cars, flags. It was just a really, really beautiful painting by an artist that is primarily a landscape painter.

Adam Monahan:

William Clusmann was born in Indiana in 1859, but he spent some formative years studying at the Chicago Academy of Design, the precursor to the Art Institute of Chicago. The painting that appeared on our show in 2022 showed the view of Michigan Avenue from the steps of the Art Institute itself. Not one of his typical works.

Betty Krulik:

He was mostly known for being one of the Hoosier School, the Indiana landscape painters, very rural subjects. And then here is this just beautiful active city scene.

Adam Monahan:

I feel like any tourist who's gone to Chicago has seen that scene.

Betty Krulik:

This is the quintessential Chicago picture.

Adam Monahan:

The painting is oil on canvas, about two by two and a half feet. In the foreground, you can see one of the art Institute's, iconic stone lions, two ornate street lamps, pigeons, cars, pedestrians, and then the formidable buildings of Michigan Avenue extending and blurring out into the distance. It's done in sort of a hazy impressionistic style, so it's hard to see a lot of details. There's also no date on the painting, so Betty had to make a very educated guess.

Betty Krulik:

I figured that it was an early work. Once he had studied at the museum from about 1890 through the '20s, I kind of put it at the center of that output. It also corresponded with what other artists in New York were doing at the time, these kind of street scenes, the high vantage point. So that's why we put it there.

Adam Monahan:

These perfectly logical reasons led Betty to date the painting to circa 1910, and she praised it for 30 to $50,000, ka-ching. But there were certain other clues about what year it was made hidden in the painting itself. Clues that Betty and whoever fact-checked, somehow didn't check. Then a few months later we got an email from a viewer.

Bob Levy:

I'm Bob Levy. I'm a docent with the Chicago Architecture Center, and I give tours of the Chicago River.

Adam Monahan:

What is the Chicago Architecture Center?

Bob Levy:

So the Chicago Architecture Center is a group of people in Chicago who are really excited to celebrate and honor and promote Chicago as a capital of architecture.

Adam Monahan:

And are you an Antiques Roadshow fan?

Bob Levy:

Dude, I am an Antiques Roadshow super fan. It is one of my absolute favorite TV shows.

Adam Monahan:

Well, thank you for that. And the reason I'm contacting you is that we had a William Clusmann oil painting on our show. And when this painting aired, we got an email from you. Can you tell us why you contacted us?

Bob Levy:

I was actually watching the episode on the PBS app a little bit after it first aired. And the appraiser who did a beautiful appraisal of this beautiful painting dated the painting to 1910. And in the distance up Michigan Avenue, I could see the Wrigley building and I knew immediately that the Wrigley building wasn't completed until 1921. And I was fairly certain that I could actually see the addition to the Wrigley building, which was completed three years later in 1924.

Adam Monahan:

If a building from 1924 was in the painting, it wasn't painted around 1910. Bob looked up Betty's gallery so he could let her know.

Bob Levy:

And I emailed Betty figuring, "Okay, well I'm going to put this out into the ether and never hear back." And a half an hour later, like 10:00 at night in Chicago, she emails me back.

Adam Monahan:

Betty CC'd Marsha, and basically said, "Thank you so much. We'll update it on our website. Can we quote you?"

Bob Levy:

And I said, "Well, look, I'm a trainee at the Chicago Architecture Center. I'm really not any kind of expert. Can we pause a beat and let me just sort of circle back to the actual experts and authorities of the Chicago Architecture Center?"

Adam Monahan:

This time Marsha answered, "Of course. Take your time. We want to make sure we get the facts right."

Bob Levy:

So I went to the experts at the Chicago Architecture Center, and I had taken a screen grab of the close up of the painting from the episode and we studied it very carefully and came up with a date of 1927 based on a building that was across Michigan Avenue from the Wrigley Building.

Adam Monahan:

I want to stress something here. These buildings are not easy to identify. This building he's talking about is a blurry gray rectangle. To my untrained eye it has no defining features, but Bob and his colleagues were confident.

Bob Levy:

I wrote a carefully worded email back to Marsha Bemko and Betty Krulik and they updated the website and I was very proud of my contribution.

Adam Monahan:

You became part of your favorite PBS series?

Bob Levy:

I became part of my favorite PBS series, right.

Adam Monahan:

Speaking of which, have you ever heard of this William Clusmann at all?

Bob Levy:

No, I had never heard of him before watching that appraisal, no.

Adam Monahan:

What were your thoughts on this painting of the subject matter? As a Chicago history buff, this must have spoke to you.

Bob Levy:

The painting is absolutely beautiful. And in one of my emails to Marsha Bemko, I asked her if seller who brought the painting into Antiques Roadshow was selling it. I don't know if I could afford it, but I would love to have that on the wall of my home in Chicago.

Adam Monahan:

The guest wasn't selling and we don't share our guest information anyway, but we did post the update from Bob on our website. It reads, "Based on the buildings visible in the painting, we date the painting to 1927. It appears that the Wrigley building is visible at the northern end of Michigan Avenue in the painting. And the fact that the building is visible in the painting and couldn't have been visible before 1927 is what allows us to date the painting to sometime that year, before Clusman died on September 28th." The fact had officially been checked and corrected on our website, case closed, mystery solved, or so we thought.

Bob Levy:

The Chicago Architecture Center posted this story on their in-house docents website and one of the senior docents read the news and he believed that I was off by one building.

Adam Monahan:

Our roadshow super fan fact-checking sleuth is wrong? After the break, our corrector gets corrected.

The guy who emailed Bob was another docent at the Chicago Architecture Center and not just any docent.

Bob Levy:

As it turns out, A, he's an old friend of mine. And B, he produces and hosts specials and documentaries about Chicago architecture for the Chicago flagship PBS station, WTTW, and he is absolutely beloved in Chicago.

Adam Monahan:

So Geoffrey, can you just give your name and what you do?

Geoffrey Baer:

My name is Geoffrey Baer, G-E-O-F-F-R-E-Y B-A-E-R. And I have been a television host and producer for almost 35 years at the PBS station in Chicago, WTTW, which proudly airs Antiques Roadshow.

Adam Monahan:

I like this guy already.

Geoffrey Baer:

So I make these programs about Chicago architecture and history. So I'm kind of like a tour guide on TV and I'm also a docent for the Chicago Architecture Center.

Adam Monahan:

If you're into architecture, Chicago is a pretty good place to be.

Geoffrey Baer:

Chicago is, I like to say, America's first city of architecture. The skyscraper was invented here. Frank Lloyd Wright was here, Mies van der Rohe, and the glass and steel style of architecture, modernism, you can draw a line back to Chicago. So architecture is kind of very much in our DNA.

Adam Monahan:

Geoffrey. I'm so excited that our PBS worlds have collided. The reasons for that I'm not happy about as the fact checker for our program, because when I think of Chicago, you're right, it feels like an old city. The Art Institute of Chicago, I've been there, it looks like something out of Europe. And of course those skyscrapers have always been there, but that's not the case. Can you tell me about that area around the Art Institute of Chicago? What I'd learn if I went on a tour there?

Geoffrey Baer:

Chicago is actually a very new city. In the 1820s when some of these Midwestern cities like Cincinnati and St. Louis, the big river towns were bustling commercial centers, Chicago was this little frontier trading post, not on the map anywhere. But in the 1820s, they started digging a canal that would connect the great lakes via the Chicago River, which is the river, the central river in Chicago, with the Mississippi. And this made Chicago the center of the most important trade route in the country. You could get from the East coast all the way to the Gulf of Mexico because that little canal was the only missing link. So when they opened up that trade route, Chicago became the fastest growing city in the world.

Adam Monahan:

In the 1840s, trains arrived. A land grant allowed the Illinois Central Railroad to build a line from the top of Illinois to the state's southern tip and the elevated tracks briefly passed over Lake Michigan in downtown Chicago. And the city's population just kept growing. By 1871, it was the fifth-largest metropolis in the nation. But that year disaster struck, a fire that started in a barn on the city's southwest side, tore through the city, leaving an estimated 300 people dead and a third of the city homeless and 17,500 buildings in ruin.

Geoffrey Baer:

And out of the ashes rises the world's first city of skyscrapers.

Adam Monahan:

After the great fire came the great rebuilding, many of the new structures looked a lot like the ones that had burned three or four story buildings made of wood. But in the following decades, Chicagoans began erecting new marvels of glass and steel. The fire brought a change to the city's topography as well. The train trestle over Lake Michigan had created a sort of lagoon, the perfect solution to the problem of fire debris.

Geoffrey Baer:

After the Chicago fire of 1871, they had actually shoveled up all the ashes and thrown them in the lake, which filled in that area from the shore out to the train trestle. But it was kind of this barren no man's land. There were like squatters camps and itinerant circuses and an armory. So it was kind of a trashy lakefront.

Adam Monahan:

Fast-forward to 1893, Chicago, now the US's second-largest city was hosting the World's Fair. It was a massive expo that featured some of the world's greatest performers, Scott Joplin, Harry Houdini, and amazing new inventions, the Ferris Wheel, the zipper. Over its six month run the fair had more than 27 million visitors. And the fair's architecture was of course stunning. The landscape architect, Frederick Law Olmsted, designed the grounds. He's the guy who designed New York Central Park and some of America's most celebrated architects designed the buildings. The chief architect overseeing it all was Chicago's own, Daniel Burnham.

Geoffrey Baer:

Burnham loved historicism. So the whole World's Fair looked like this Greek and Roman Beaux Arts Neoclassical Fair, and it sparked a movement called the City Beautiful Movement.

Adam Monahan:

The idea was simple, cities should be beautiful for the good of their residents. This idea spread out across the nation inspiring buildings like Grand Central Station in New York, Union Station in DC, the Boston Public Library, and many, many more.

But not everyone agreed with this philosophy.

Geoffrey Baer:

It made those early skyscraper architects outraged because they were creating something new and modern. And Louis Sullivan, the great father of the skyscraper said that this would set architecture back 50 years, and it sort of did.

Adam Monahan:

One of those new Greco-Roman-style world's Fair Buildings housed a sort of 19th-century TED Talk conference. Leaders from around the world gathered to present on topics like surgery, social reform, engineering, and religious studies. The building was designed in the Beaux-Arts style, which takes its influence from classical Greek and Roman forms. Think huge stone buildings with columns, arches, and figures built into the facade or just think about what that building became, the Art Institute of Chicago.

Geoffrey Baer:

Well, it was the only building built for the world's fair of 1893 that was not on the fairgrounds, which were much farther south in the neighborhood of Hyde Park, Jackson Park, where the University of Chicago is now. This is right downtown.

Adam Monahan:

In fact, it was right in that desolate area between Michigan Avenue and the lake, the area that was built from the ashes of the great fire. The Art Institute opened in the building in December 1893 and soon after skyscrapers began going up along Michigan Avenue, including 333 North Michigan Ave, the key to dating our painting, or so we thought. So Bob emailed us and thought that the clue was in one building that dated it to 1927, but then in one, has to be one of the first, in a correction of a correction, he mentioned your name. Tell us what we learned from you.

Geoffrey Baer:

So we're looking north on Michigan Avenue and you get to see all these buildings in the distance. And the Wrigley Building is there, so that's 1921. The London Guarantee Building is there, I believe that's 1923 and then across the Michigan Avenue, from that Bob thought that tall building was what we know as 333 North Michigan Avenue, which is right on the river's edge. But I realized that probably was actually a building that's one building closer to us and would be blocking the view of 333 North Michigan Avenue, which is a building called the Old Republic Building from 1924.

Adam Monahan:

Again, the buildings in the background of this painting are not exactly photorealistic. But even in photos, these two buildings look pretty similar. They're both big, gray-white rectangles with flat facades and neat rows of small windows. They have a similar silhouette and they're right next to each other. But if you are looking up Michigan Avenue from the steps of the Art Institute today or in 1924, the Old Republic Building is the one you'd see.

Geoffrey Baer:

And if this had been 1927, the next building to the north, which is 333 North Michigan Avenue, there's a tower portion that's about eight stories taller than Old Republic. So if Klusman had been really accurate, he probably would've shown us Old Republic and then the top part of 333 poking above it.

Adam Monahan:

But there's no tower like that in the painting.

Geoffrey Baer:

So it's likely that that building had not been constructed yet. And so this is probably 1924, 1925, something like that, '26 maybe if they hadn't gotten to constructing the upper tower yet of 333.

Adam Monahan:

So definitely not 1910 like we thought and definitely not the initial thought of Bob of 1927. We're now somewhere between 1924 and 1927.

Geoffrey Baer:

Yes, I think so. That would be a good estimate.

Adam Monahan:

It's the hardest fact check I've ever done.

Geoffrey Baer:

Welcome to the world of Chicago Architecture Center docents. There is no minutia that we are not deeply diving into.

Adam Monahan:

With Geoffrey's new information we updated our website once again and put the matter to bed. We also learned some news from our appraiser, Betty, who got a call from an auction house in Tennessee.

Betty Krulik:

And they said, "We're trying to get this work on consignment. I just thought you should know."

Adam Monahan:

And there was one person Betty thought should know.

Betty Krulik:

I was like, "Wait a minute. Did anybody call Bob?"

Adam Monahan:

Bob, the original date Corrector had asked Betty if the painting was for sale. Now that it was, I got the fun job of telling him. Which brings me to the update that I did have for you and why we are requesting for a podcast. On Saturday this is going up for auction at Case Auctions.

Bob Levy:

Oh my God.

Adam Monahan:

Yeah. So two days, 21 hours, 41 minutes from now, this painting will go up for sale. Right now its starting bid is $14,000 and it looks like there's zero bids, so...

Bob Levy:

Oh my God, this is my opportunity. How cool would it be if I get that painting?

Adam Monahan:

I think it'd be pretty remarkable.

Bob Levy:

What a great ending to this little cookie story.

Adam Monahan:

After the auction, I called Bob to hear how it went. So Bob, the big auction was this weekend, what do you have to tell us?

Bob Levy:

It was so intense. You register with the auction house, then you register to be a phone bidder because I'm thousands of miles away from the auction house. And then you wait and then the guy calls and says, "Okay, we're a couple of lots away. Are you ready?" And I'm ready. And literally there were eight bids in a grand total of 37 seconds. I couldn't even get a bid in. And then I saw the going going gone thing happen on the website and I thought like, "Oh my God, I've got to get in." And I bid and nobody came and topped me and bid over me and the auctioneer gaveled it closed and I got the painting.

Adam Monahan:

That's amazing.

Bob Levy:

My heart was pounding for about an hour after that event. It was a very intense 37 seconds.

Adam Monahan:

For those at home who don't know about how these auctions work, how much did it hammer at? What do you wind up actually having to pay for this thing?

Bob Levy:

Okay, so first of all, I have to say I am a little embarrassed to admit how much I paid for the painting. This is a lot of money to pay for anything, let alone a work of art. But to answer your question, the auction of the lot of the painting was hammered close at my bid of $22,000. But I knew that in addition to the so-called hammer price that I would have to pay what they call the buyer's premium, which is sort of like a commission to the auction house. And in the case of this auction house, the buyer's premium was 22%, which means that ultimately I paid a grand total of $26,800.

Adam Monahan:

26,800. You know what? I feel like this is a win for everybody because Betty on our show said 30 to 50,000 and we don't want her to look bad. So it's very nice of you to bid it all the way to $22,000.

Bob Levy:

It was my pleasure.

Adam Monahan:

Well, thank you, Bob. I appreciate you coming on and having this conversation with me.

Bob Levy:

Adam, I could not have been more excited to play my small role in the Antiques Rogue Show universe. It's a great story that I'll be telling for the rest of my life.

Adam Monahan:

Just one question remained. I brought my co-fact-checker, Allyson Izzo Smith into the studio. Well, the lounge, to figure it out. I don't actually remember who fact-checked this one.

Allyson Izzo Smith:

It's definitely me. It's for sure, me.

Adam Monahan:

I'm hoping we were both out that week.

Allyson Izzo Smith:

Maybe it was Jill.

Adam Monahan:

It was Jill.

Allyson Izzo Smith:

I thought it was Jill.

Adam Monahan:

Who gets the blame for failing this fact check and the credit for making this story possible? Was it me? Was it Ali? Was it our occasional replacement, Jill? The source of truth was hidden in my email. Where's my archive?

Allyson Izzo Smith:

It's at the top.

Adam Monahan:

All right, hour two, is this me? Let's see. I did Tim Prince, Colleen Fesco painting, Simeon Todd.

Allyson Izzo Smith:

Oh, it's you.

Adam Monahan:

Oh, gosh. Damn it, it was me.

Allyson Izzo Smith:

I never would've made this mistake.

Adam Monahan:

You would never, never in a million years. You would've contacted the Chicago architecture immediately.

Allyson Izzo Smith:

I would've.

Adam Monahan:

You knew better than that.

Allyson Izzo Smith:

I knew better.

Adam Monahan:

Well, thank you Ali for being the better fact-checker of us all.

Luckily, Marsha forgave me for this grave, grave error, and she had some sage advice.

Marsha Bemko:

You know what's good about that kind of mistake though, Adam? Next time you make a mistake, it'll be very different from that one. You won't make that mistake again.

Theme Muisc:

I know love is not a walk in the park.It's a once in a century storm.

Adam Monahan:

Antiques Roadshow Detours is a production of GBH in Boston and distributed by PRX. This episode was written and produced by Galen Beebe, edited and mixed by Tyler Morissette. Our assistant producer is Sarah Roach. Our senior producer is Ian Coss. And Devin Maverick Robins is the managing producer of podcasts for GBH. Marsha Bemko is the executive producer of Antiques Roadshow Detours. And I'm your host and co-executive producer, Adam Monahan. Our theme music is Once in a Century Storm by Will Dailey from the album, National Throat. Thank you all for listening. Have a good one.