Jefferson City News Tribune - October 23, 2005
Man wants to know: Where's Ozzie?
By NANCY VESSELL
For The News Tribune
A 9-by-7 foot painting does not exactly get
lost.
Nevertheless,
it's listed among the "missing" by a St. Louis-based online art gallery whose
director suspects it might be somewhere in Jefferson City.
The painting
depicts retired Cardinal shortstop Ozzie Smith performing his legendary back
flip in a series of three positions, with the Gateway Arch and the river also in
the scene.
The large painting was last seen in St. Louis in September
1996 at Smith's retirement event when it was sold at auction to raise funds for
the Jackie Joyner-Kersee Foundation.
A young artist, Nathan McClain, had
been commissioned to do the painting for the charity auction. He died a year
later in a drowning incident.
Since then, his longtime friend Kris Barks
has been cataloging and displaying McClain's work in an online gallery to
preserve the artist's legacy.
Barks has been searching for the Ozzie
Smith painting, which is one of McClain's largest paintings and is unique
because it features one of St. Louis' most revered citizens.
"It's kind
of the holy grail of his work," Barks said. "I know it's out there
somewhere."
He hasn't been able to locate the auction records. Barks at
first feared the painting might be hanging on a wall of an office in Busch
Stadium, and he wanted to launch a search before the stadium is demolished next
month. Earlier, Barks and others had managed to save a McClain mural on a wall
in Granite City, Ill., before that building came down.
A St. Louis
television station ran a story about the missing painting, which triggered a
phone call from a person who attended the auction. She recalled that someone
from Jefferson City purchased the painting.
So, Barks is appealing to
Jefferson City.
"If it's in a public place or a private residence, maybe
someone will remember seeing it," he told me. You can see a photograph of the
painting online at www.natemcclain.com/ozzie.asp.
Barks
does not want to acquire the painting, but merely document its
whereabouts.
With some experience as my family's designated finder of all
lost items, I went on the hunt last week. In addition to checking under sofa
cushions and probing into coat pockets, I made some telephone calls. Using the
"If I were an Ozzie Smith painting, where would I be?" technique that's basic to
good detective work, I called a few known local collectors of sports
memorabilia.
I came up empty and decided the missing object is not small
enough for me to find.
If you have information about the painting, you
can contact Kris Barks at 314-706-3733. There's also an e-mail link to him on
the website.
This article can also be viewed at the Jefferson City News Tribune website.
