Carnations and Lilies
Oil on canvas, 20 x 24 inches, 1930.
When asked how she and Ben met, Rae wrote to her friend, writer Helen Papashvilly, “On April 5, 1930, I was having dinner with this person, a mutual Philadelphia friend of Ben’s, in the area of 72nd St. when he said ‘Let’s stop and see my friend Ben Solowey, the artist,’ which we did do, only to have no one show! Nothing daunted, as they say, a month later, in the same general area, same routine but – an answering bell from Ben (his studio on the 5th floor) and looking up from the ground one, through a maze of banister – there was Ben. In retrospect, and accustomed as I am to Ben’s present studio, in itself an art work, created, if you will, by him, the 72nd St. one was rather – unobtrusive, but on the easel, a jewel-like still life Carnation and Lilies. It has become part of me. As we were leaving, he asked if I’d have dinner with him the next night, but I was doing something else. The next night? The magic sesame – at dinner – he asked me to marry him, Said he would have done so the first night – except for this Person’s presence! Difficult not to invoke the ‘what if’ syndrome – had Ben been off his premises the second time – that just might have been that.”
