Lord knows, there has been wonderful lasting art created over the centuries through commissions and wealthy art patrons. But the deal that early-20th century artist Rudolf Bauer cut with Solomon Guggenheim was his undoing. This story is brought to life in Lauren Gunderson’s Bauer now playing at Open Book Theatre in Southgate.

Most of us probably do not know the work or story of Rudolf Bauer, unless you have seen the documentary about the artist and his tie-up with copper magnate Guggenheim prior to the opening of the philanthropist’s celebrated museum in New York City. It was that documentary that led to, ironically, the commissioning of the play.

Born in 1889, Bauer was a German abstract artist who was a key player in De Sturm, a vital center and school of art in the teens and 20s in Berlin. He was a contemporary of the more famous and celebrated Wassily Kandinsky and Marc Chagall.

Bauer captured the attention of Guggenheim in 1930 during a visit to Berlin, and the magnate purchased several of his paintings and put the artist on a stipend that allowed him to open a museum in Germany that helped to support him and his more famous friends. In 1937, Guggenheim formed a foundation for Bauer’s work, and put the artist’s former lover, Hilla Rebay, in charge as curator. What could go wrong?

Bauer would be arrested in 1938 by the Nazis and imprisoned as part of the Gestapo’s jihad against “degenerate art” that did not serve to boost Hitler and the Arian race. He was able to escape to the U.S. in 1939 before the war, and Guggenheim set him up on a posh house in the wealthy seaside town of Deal, N.J, with an annual stipend that stipulated that all of Bauer’s work would go to the Guggenheim Foundation.

Rather than a gift from heaven, Bauer found the arrangement stifling, effectively killing his muse. A decade later, as the planning of the Guggenheim Museum was underway, the philanthropist died. His heirs, holding no affection for Rebay, fired her from her post and kept Bauer’s work, over 200 paintings, locked up in the museum’s basement with no plans to exhibit it.

It is this juncture that the play deals with. It is a three-actor play on a minimal set designed by director Krista Schafer Ewbank. Bauer, played by Lindel Salow, is married to his former maid, Louise, played by Linda Rabin Hammell. She has arranged for Rebay, played by Jan Cartwright, to visit Bauer, who is dying of lung cancer, to try and get a rise out of her reclusive husband who has not painted in over a decade and spends his time writing angry letters to The Guggenheim.

Salow is quite believable in both his German accent, and his portrayal of the manic, cranky, angry artist. Hammell delivers nicely on her layered character–maid-turned-devoted-wife and failed muse. Her depth is helped by Gunderson’s script, which makes her a hero of understanding in the end. Cartwright provides a good bit of the energy in the play, livening up the atmosphere of the bare room as soon as she walks in. Her whole character is drama, and her relationship with Bauer, whom she hasn’t seen in a decade, is complicated. She loved him, loves him, used him, needs him. She is a manipulator.

Gunderson’s play, which runs in real time for 90 minutes , is fiction. There is no record of this meeting of the three taking place. There are certainly times, especially in the early part of the play, where one wonders where it is going and what will be accomplished in a dramatic arc. But it delivers on some powerful emotions and themes that any artist should be able to understand.

It is worth noting that the more one knows about Bauer and the story of his undoing, the more penetrating the play becomes. Bauer, despite not having to worry about a roof or meals, is still somehow starved of inspiration. Guggenheim owned him. Perhaps the lesson is that great art is hard to produce when you are indentured. The irony is that Bauer did, in fact, produce art–pencil drawings on scraps of paper–while imprisoned by the Nazis. But the prison he experienced at the hands of the Guggenheim Foundation was one of his own making, in his own head where the steel bars are a lot thicker.

A cross-current of the story, whether one feels sympathy for Bauer or not, is the fact that Bauer is not viewed by the ages as being a great artist. Even in his own time when Guggenheim was bank-rolling him, we might wonder about the influence of Rebay, who was sleeping with the copper king, on his appreciation of the painter. If Chagall was the Sinatra of his genre and era, Bauer was Vic Damone.

The actual dialogue in Bauer can get tedious if you do not immerse yourself in the back-story, but it is not without comedy. All three characters enjoy a bit of snark and sarcasm about one another and the situation from time to time. That may not be a great endorsement for a play, but the reward is definitely there if you spend a bit of time getting to know Bauer before you go to the theatre.

Bottom Line: Doing a bit of light reading about the artist will greatly enhance the appeal of Bauer.

Click here for show days, times and details.