“It was a dark and stormy morning…”

Okay, so I’m no Raymond Chandler. But the early morning atmosphere had a brooding, film noire type of feel. I sat in my car, sketch pad in hand, sipping my cup of joe. Little did I know, as I drew the plan for this painting, that I was about to uncover a murder…

This scene is captured outside the Hotel President in Kansas City in the early hours of a wet spring morning. The interplay of light and atmosphere, with reflections on the building and pavement, spoke to me. The taxi, woman at the bell stand, and signs of early morning activity in the background provide elements of life and intrigue. And the feel of the scene somehow connects the present to the past.

What was this past I was feeling? I took a break from my sketching to do a little research on this place and found that it is the scene of a quite unusual murder/mystery that occurred in 1935, and which remains unsolved. I wrote a blog piece about it on my website. Knowing this story led me to try and capture a Chandleresque, mysterious quality in this piece. Do you feel it?

This original oil painting is sold.