Bill Bartman, continued [and very likely forever]

bookish Bill

A full week after it was reported to the rest of the world the NYTimes finally got around to including the news of Bill Bartman's death, at the very bottom of its page of obituaries.

Many will be dismayed over what they will find there. It will be a shock to his friends, admirers and co-workers, and even to those who were often put off by his brusqueness. It will confound the thousands of people from every walk of life who have been touched by and encouraged by his love and respect for the arts, especially the visual arts, and above all the artists themselves.

This short factual account of his birth and the places of his residences, the names of the unique institutions he created and guided, the cause and location of his death and the names of family survivors will not satisfy those who survive him and continue to take joy in the art he encouraged and nurtured so selflessly.

The contracted text of the paper's obituary reads like the paid death notices typeset on the page to the right in the print edition. It would not even challenge the resources of a small-town weekly shopping rag.

The Bill Bartman left on that page today is not the irrepressible genius I was privileged to know and who persuaded me against my every inclination and better judgment to become a part of his foundation's board. I would never have said yes, or been so devoted to "William S. Bartman, 58, Art Patron", in the words of the Times headline.

Bill could be incredibly charming and absolutely impossible almost at the same moment. His many art books and his "bookstore-gallery" were totally unique. No one who happens across any of these beautiful published tributes to one or more artists, and especially to art itself, or who ever wandered into the eccentric, cookie-stocked Chelsea space he dominated will ever forget his work.

This dynamo doesn't fit into five column inches. It will take an artist and a great editor to tell his story. I'm sorry the NYTimes wasn't up to it this morning.

See the warm tributes, the giggles and the stories which have been accumulating as comments to my post of September 25.

UPDATE: There will be a memorial for Bill Bartman at 2 pm on Saturday, November 5, at the Society of Friends Meeting House off Stuyvesant Square. Everyone is welcome. There will be cookies.

[image furnished by A.R.T.]