A Peculiarly American Gothic

PW Talks with Luis Ortiz

by Ben P. Indick -- Publishers Weekly, 1/31/2005

PW: Lee Brown Coye is celebrated for the art he did for Weird Tales and Arkham House, among other fantastic venues. Are you a horror fan?

Luis Ortiz: I grew up reading the stuff. My uncles used to read the magazines, and they were around the house.

PW: How did you end up writing Coye's biography, Arts Unknown [click here to read the review]?

LO: I was interested in illustrating when I was a kid, but his art was so unique I knew I could never imitate him. A few years ago, I saw some of the books he had done in the '40s, and I had to find out more about him. I visited his son's house and saw all Coye's stuff—paintings, drawings and diaries. His son told me that for over 30 years people had come around, but nothing ever developed. I figured I could get a book done in three years if I could sell the idea. I went to a small publisher that had done mostly magazines. They weren't too keen, but I kept pushing and once I told them I would be willing to do the photography and production, they agreed.

PW: How did you get all the personal background on Coye?

LO: I went all over northern New York State interviewing people. His sister is still alive, at 96, and an artist who shared a studio with him in 1932, he's 97. We had a pre-publication book signing in Syracuse, since Coye was born there, and I figured maybe a half-dozen people might show up, but the word of mouth about Coye spread, and I was there for three hours signing advance copies of the book. People showed me photos. One woman had paintings in her attic. It turns out Lee lived in her house in the '50s.

PW: In 1967, a folio of a dozen of his weird drawings was issued under the title Gothics. Did Coye consider his work gothic?

LO: He had a librarian friend who called it that. Actually, Lee always had humor attached to his stuff. When people said it was "horrible," he would laugh. That's what drew me to him. He painted and drew in many styles.

PW: Who were his favorites?

LO: There isn't any single artist. He used to have a big thing for Thomas Hart Benton in the '30s when he was starting out. Burchfield's watercolors, too. The Everson Museum in Syracuse has many uncatalogued watercolors by Lee in their basement. He admired and watched Diego Rivera painting his mural at Rockefeller Center. Coye did murals also. They had the same fate. Rivera's was destroyed because he included Lenin, and Coye did murals like Benton's in a Cazenovia, N.Y., school. They were painted over. The school is closed now. We tried scratching at them. He even did some amusing cartoons for Spice, a sort of Syracuse New Yorker. I tried to get his whole career in the story.

PW: How was he able to stick with his art, despite his low earnings?

LO: He was able to stick with art mostly because his wife was working. Basically, he had his own studio from 1939 to the '70s, when he had a stroke. His son is happy that I could cover his whole life and also show art having nothing to do with horror.

PW: What's next for you?

LO: I'm working on another hard sell now, a book on Peter Arno.