Marsha Froliak has an article on the artistic efforts of Richard De Cosmis a retired police officer who, self taught, painted in his spare time. According to his son, also a police officer, his dad held one public exhibition and never sold any of his work. Asked what he sees in his father’s works he said “things he dealt with as a police officer.”Police-officer-secretly-paints-for-25-years-leaves-behind-incredible-collection.

I accept that Ms. Froliak is sincerely impressed with the late Mr. De Cosmis body of work. I have quoted from her article more than I usually do to demonstrate two things. One Ms. Froliak is impressed. Then she ruins it by running down the typical liberal rabbit trail. How can an untrained police officer, translation: “He’s not one of us, he didn’t attend the proper schools, didn’t take the courses, how did he crack the code? She posits, “it’s a mystery, this after cataloging the art books he had on hand and his hand written notes. It is no mystery to the son, “things he dealt with as a police officer.”

The mystery might have been cleared up had she taken the hint. Where was Mr. De Cosmis employed as a police officer? What were his assignments? But life doesn’t influence such genius, hear that Vincent, cock and ear and listen up.

Standing in front of a painting by Richard De Cosmis – in his studio, improvised from a garage of his house in Weehawken, NJ – was a revelation to me.

Broken turbulent lines depicted a figure of a man, his torso bent, placed against an abstract background. It was reminiscent of the contorted bodies in the work of Michelangelo and Francis Bacon. But the painting I was looking at had its own unique style and emotional intensity. Who is this artist? And why we haven’t heard of him?

Richard De Cosmis was a police officer. He died last year, leaving behind a large collection of paintings and drawings, as well as a mystery yet to be solved, on the over 100 paintings he produced, in seclusion, over the last 25 years.

His family reveals, that De Cosmis began painting after retiring his 30 year service as a police officer and was a self taught painter, a total outsider in the art world.

However, a great amount of books, sketches, and notes scattered in the studio suggest that he was very conscious about what it was he was trying to achieve.

I look through some handwritten notes: “Traditional out. Paint: or quit!”, “Essentials: mood, emotions, tension” , “Forget realism”, “Reduce Definitions”, “Negative space needs movement.”

He showed his works to few, mostly his family. He didn’t visit museums. He didn’t interact with any other artists. Apparently art books were his only point of reference, and there are plenty of them in the studio.