Sometimes the images come first when writing a novel and sometimes they appear as a gift after your characters are fully formed. This is EXACTLY how I imagined Fred and Buck Crenshaw (since they’re twins) and then I found this lovely painting by Edward Cucuel. In my mind it’s at Buck’s wedding and Fred is having a chat with his sister Thankful. Oh, writing can be such fun!
Edward Cucuel, the son of a San Francisco newspaper man, had big talent at the age of 14. Eventually he went to France where he exhibited his paintings of mostly impressionistic, beautiful women and handsome men in social settings. Tell me the guy in this painting doesn’t look great smoking. Cucuel made Germany his home until World War II when he came back to San Francisco to live the rest of his life in seclusion. Did a beauty break his heart?
Author Adrienne Morris 
2 responses to “I Found Buck and Fred In A Painting By Cucuel”
Agreed, he may look great now but he won’t look so dashing later on down the road when hooked to an iron lung. Sorry, but even though I myself am a sucker for smoking imagery (It’s difficult if not impossible to think of Bogart minus trailing cigarette smoke) I’m all too aware of the damage these idealized images of smoking do to young impressionable minds. To my utter horror my 19 year old son has recently been dabbling in various forms of tobacco products and it seems nothing I say can dissuade him from enjoying his new found habit. I don’t mean to be rude or intrusive but I hope you can appreciate my perspective. I do however (as with ‘Casablanca’) think the vehicle for the message is beautiful and sumptuously artistic.
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I’ve never smoked, but I have been brainwashed by the coolness factor in art and movies. I never liked seeing my parents smoke and it really does age people–of course disease is bad too, but still, knowing all of it, there’s something compelling about it. Not sure why.
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