This past week driving down a main street of the community I live in, I came upon a garage sale in front of a business. I have always been fascinated by looking at people’s possessions when they reach their end at estate sales or in this case the business closing.
As I scanned the items on display I found some oil paintings of African Americans. I knew right away I had found a story worth telling. I asked one of the sellers who the painter was and he proceeded to tell me it was his grandfather.
This business had been a dermatology practice on main street of Pasadena Texas. I needed to know the origins of the characters frozen on the canvas. Who were they? Where were they from? What inspired the painter to bring them to life? I had to know the origins of this paradoxical piece of art.
The seller said he thought the children in the painting were from Costa Rica. His grandfather had been an avid vacationer in Latin America and loved to capture images of the people from those foreign lands. I asked him if I could have the painter contact me to verify the facts.
That very afternoon I got a call from Doctor Edward Shapiro. He confirmed what I had suspected. The painting was a reproduction of a photograph he had taken of African American children in a street scene in downtown Houston. I asked the caller why his paintings seemed to have an African American theme. He told me they were much more interesting to paint because they were much more expressive and alive.
Doctor Shapiro had started his craft when he was a young recruit stationed in El Paso. He abandoned his brushes when he decided to attend medical school. Many years later in 1976 under doctor’s orders he had to take up his painting again. He had suffered a heart attack and needed to take up a hobby that would relax him. Painting was just the right prescription.
According to Doctor Shapiro he enjoyed painting people the most due to his association with patients as a practicing physician. His healing works hang in the hallways of healing institutions Baylor College of Medicine and UT Medical Branch-Galveston.
This now retired physician found healing strokes on canvas bringing African Americans and others come to life. This is an interesting back drop to a community with a dark past full of racism that is now evolving being more tolerant and inclusive. His healing works now hang in my home office.
