Mountain Range: Swiss Alps and the Toymaker

I don’t know how these two paintings ended up so far from New Jersey.  They certainly are eye-catching.  Pretty realistic, but not all.

Elsie B. Marcak painted these mountains, but painting wasn’t her main occupation.  She was treasurer of Bergen Toy and Novelty.  The company operated from 1932 to 1958, marketing Beton Plastic Toys in their Fifth Ave. showroom in NYC.  Her husband, Charles F. Marcak, was the president and general manager. [1]

Title:  Swiss Alps

Artist:  Elsie B. Marcak (1900-2000) New Jersey, USA.

Marking:  Price 150-

Elsie was born in 1900 and died in 2000.  Imagine living for 99 years.  Imagine seeing the entire 20^th Century:  cars, airplanes, radio, telephones, movies, television, rockets, and computers.  Imagine living through two World Wars, prohibition, Depression, more wars, assassinations, rock and roll, the beginning and end of the Soviets.  Imagine!

The Marcaks had a farm, Beton Farm, on Rt. 6, between Great Meadows, New Jersey and Townsburg.

Here’s what people said about them.  [2]

“…it is his [William Nussbaum, son of the company’s accountant] understanding, backed by the opinion of Louis A. Schiffman, who incorporated the firm on September 12, 1936, that Beton was never a particularly successful company.  The firm’s owners, Charles Marcak (pronounced MAR-sak) and his wife Elsie were at best middle-class.  To me, this was surprising news since Beton appeared to be quite successful, particularly in 1942-45 when its products were ubiquitous in 5 and 10s across the country, with virtually no competition…

“…Nussbaum believes the Marcaks, now deceased with no children, were born around 1896.  On March 11, 1944, they bought a home in Hackettstown, New Jersey, eventually moving the business there…  There, according to Schiffman, Marcak himself did the packing of the soldiers in his own ground-level basement.  Nussbaum agrees this could be true, as he knew Marcak to be “frugal.”  One of the reasons for the move to Hackettstown, according to Schiffman, was that Marcak hoped to do “a little farming” on the five or six acres of land on which his stone house was located.

“Possibly because Marcak was near retirement age, the company was sold, probably in the 1950’s, to Rel Plastics of East Paterson, a company which produced plastic toys.”

Title:  Untitled

Artist:  Elsie B. Marcak (1900-2000) New Jersey, USA.

The local newspaper gave this information:  [1]

“To take care of the greatly expanded market for plastic toys, Bergen Toy and Novelty Company, Inc. will move about April 1 from its present location at 49 Meadow Road Rutherford, to its own factory in Hackettstown, the Cloyd Cummins plant on Stiger Street which was recently acquired by the company.

“C. F. Marcak of Great Meadows, president and general manager, said the initial force will be about 30 or 40 employees…

“Marketed as Beton Plastic Toys, the company’s products have in the past been molded by contract and finished by company workers…This division is in charge of Fred P. Iv[?], vice president, who for many years has been engaged in the building of special machinery and processes for the toy industry.

“Lured By The Fish.

“It was the lure of the fishing in Budd Lake and the streams of Warren and Morris that first attracted Mr. Marcak to this section in pursuit of his favorite sport.  In April of 1944 he purchased the Kelsey property on Route 6 between Great Meadows and Townsbury and has made it his residence for the past year, disposing of his former home in Woodridge.  He has named the place Beton Farm and has been doing extensive remodeling work there.

“His wife. Mrs. Elsie B. Marcak, is treasurer of the firm and will work in the capacity of controller an office manager.  An accountant for many years, she is experienced in business management.

“In Business Since 1932.

“Bergen Toy and Novelty has been engaged in plastic toy manufacture since 1933, when it converted to plastics after a year of metal work. …

“…The toys are made available in every city and town of the United States, Canada, Central and South America, and many European countries.”

So, there’s the story of Elsie and Charles.  Maybe they traveled to European countries on business.  Maybe they took photographs of the Alps on vacation.  I suspect Elsie made these paintings by looking at pictures.  The composition seems like something captured by a camera, not something made up from imagination or by painting from life.

Ninety-nine-year-old Elsie could look back on years of work, change, travel and art.  She may have been “at best middle class,” but her legacy is creativity and bringing toys to the children of the world.

 

 

Stripes and Layers

Stripes and layers.

Bones, flesh and skin; bones, flesh and skin.

Wood, plaster, paint; wood, canvas and paint—

The makeup of this life

Repeated layer on layer

Inside and out.

 

The bones are not enough;

Flesh won’t do.

Surface is all.  Deep surface.

It is a thing of thin thickness.

We know what lies beneath the

Stripes and layers.

 

Support is not enough;

Muscle won’t do.

Elan is all.

 

This is a song dragged from Lethe’s borders.

This is about three things:

Soul, body and spirit.

This is about three stripes of all:

Father, Son and Holy Ghost.

This is.

Mountain Range: Green, Green Grass

Colors!  Blue Sky, Blue Water!  Green Leaves, Gray Mountains!

It’s not unusual to have white-topped peaks, but the white tree limbs set this artwork apart.  The power of this painting is simple:  colors and shapes—Simple.

Deceptively simple.  At first glace, it’s naïve art, folk art.  Like Grandma Moses.  Maybe MT (artist’s signature, lower left) is self-trained.  Maybe, but MT knows more than you think.  The elements are composed.  The tree branches are actually like nature.

The sky and the mountains are not like nature.  This is a different kind of mountain painting.  The foreground takes precedence over the background.  The mountains are not the focus, not the star of the picture.  The mountains are backdrop to lush green life.

The folk artist can tell you:  what matters is growing in dirt beside the stream. The unscalable peaks are far off.  They are a wonderful and soaring ideal, but they are blank and featureless.  All we know and love is here with us.