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SECTION FOUR: MEET DE LA CROIX: THE MAN, THE PHILOSOPHER, THE ART REBEL

By Margee Baker

MAXIMILLIEN…THE BIG HEART…____________________________________________________ 

Maximillien’s heart is bigger than the world we live in.He continues to donate so much and so generously to numerous charities, orphanages and organizations for neglected and hungry children, Christian missionaries in Africa, etc. Not only does he contribute to countless charitable and humanitarian causes, Maximillien is a man who gives financially, as well as a man who is not afraid to roll up his sleeves, get his hands dirty and give of his time, from his heart. If Maximillien earns a penny, Maximillien donates a penny.As the homeless line the walks of Wisconsin Avenue and M streets in Washington, D.C., with consideration and respect, Maximillien was known for personally preparing, cooking and serving 5 star cuisine to his less fortunate friends. On many occasions, at the end of the evening, he would gather those who had set up camp on the near by streets, shivering in the sleet or the snow under a card-board box, to invite them to cross over Key Bridge and spend a dignified night in the comfort of his own home. Twice, he was nearly arrested for automobile theft while driving his Silver Shadow Rolls Royce when a police patrol car signaled him to stop. He did. The police officer approached and asked Maximillien and his passengers (6 or 7 homeless, unshaven, hungry looking guys…) to step outside, one-at-the time. Obviously, the police officer suspected that the driver and the occupants could not possibly be the high profile, class owners of a Rolls Royce! The lot of them, including Max, looked homeless! The truth be told, they were “very” homeless. It goes with out saying that the police officer was absolutely sure that this gang of hoodlums stole the Rolls! Asked by the police officer to show identification, Maximillien - with a great smile – provided the pertinent documents, some of which were very impressive. You should have seen the look on the face of the officer when he enthusiastically exclaimed:  “Man-o-man!  Max?!  Is that really you?! Hey buddy!!”  And so it was off into the night the band of merry gypsies-bandidos went…  

AND NOW ENTER THE MAGICAL METAPHYSICAL WORLD OF MAXIMILLIEN AND HIS ART_______

I invite you to stroll through The Gallery of Maximillien de La Croix and allow him to take you along on this journey called life.  You will surpass the range and grasp of human experience, reason and belief, as you step into his world - where there is no such thing as the status-quo, the norm, the predictable, the usual, the expected - and join us on his wild adventures, where you will inhale the words on the page, hear the colors sing and see the notes dance. ... Musing on de La Croix, it takes no conscious effort at all to lose ones' self in the abstract kaleidoscope of his colorful brilliance and many talents. Indeed, de La Croix is an elegant, sophisticated, educated man of exceptional accomplishments...an aristocrat.At first, I could not shake the feeling that de La Croix was some sort of a mystic messenger - a spirit traveler between realms - sent to remind us that our waking world is a hologram - our life, the illusion - and that this experience is meant to be characterized with such vivid brilliance and dazzling authenticity that the reality of our normal waking world is to be transcended and seriously called into question... ...As I pondered, I thought: “Voila!  THAT is precisely the true essence of art!!!” de La Croix is a talent who does not do what he does for the fame and the fortune - for him, the accolades are merely "the frosting on the cake" - de La Croix does what he does for the true love of it. As we view his canvases, we are granted entree' and given permission to embrace our illusions, break them down, or switch back-and-forth-and-back again. Gaze through the mirror blue - or more accurately - CRASH through the looking glass - into the essence of the multi-dimensional de La Croix.  Delve deep into his soul and you will find a simple man who desires to be acknowledged, appreciated and respected for who he is, what he thinks and what he feels, in addition to what he does for a living. Clever, witty, charming, fun, wild, unconventional, eccentric, sensitive, kind, gentle, loyal, honest, generous and humble...this is the real man behind the magical canvases. You are cordially invited to explore moods and states of awareness here that may be new to you. Given the frontiers that you will cross, you may need to open your mind - your imagination - in order to understand what is happening.  Explore the ability to sing and weep simultaneously, to find a comfortable place where you are partially in darkness and partially illuminated, or half in shadow and half in sunlight, to laugh uproariously and exclaim "a-ha!" simultaneously, a surge of uncanny intuitions that comes while waking up from sleep or ignorance... Once inside the prism - which enables time to stop, allowing for us a brief glimpse into a rainbow up close you will see places and meet people you may have only imagined in the many facets of your dreams.  Though the artist's eyes, hand in hand we will skip  through the ancient streets of Athens or Red Square, feel the salty sea breezes as they gently caress our cheek on the shores of Corsica, smile as we remember Praha and Budapest nights, observe children as they frolic and picnic on a hillside in the South of France and know the serenity of the peaceful Buddhist Monks in prayer.  

Simply and succinctly put, to know the man behind the canvases is to feel that the high light of the evening is when Maximillien de La Croix de Lafayette walks into the room - to shine and share - the low point is when the door closes behind him... 

  I hope that you have enjoyed the journey with me…with father superior at the monastery of the roses…the three kids on stage…and  Maximillien.

  An Art Rebel? No doubt, and a great one! Once he wrote “People might think that De La Croix already made a fortune in the art business, so why should he work harder or become more involved in art? The truth is…I carry art in my heart wherever I go. Even, when I am gardening, I touch and feel the beauty and artistic raw shapes of the stones and rocks I work with, that I carry and I lay out around the  flowers bed edges in my garden. In those rocks, I see and appreciate the divine art work and  immaculate sculpture  of nature. There is art wherever you look in the universe, if you care to look, to appreciate and to love. This is art for me. I rebelled against some of the most visible, powerful, arrogant and snobbish art establishments and a handful of powerful and fancy art dealers, glossy galleries owners and “artistically dangerous and harmful” museums curators, because I am fully aware of their deals and intrigues…and self serving “devotion-image” for the world of art! They made me know every trick, deal and wheel in the art business. If you are not one of them, you will never get a show, you will never sell, you will never be written up in their papers and you…………..will never make it! So many mediocre artists became world famous and so many wonderful talented artists are still unknown and starving to death because of them! I do not need those “chocolat-au-lait” art dealers and wheelers! I was lucky, strong and determined to make it big. I made it my own way, sometime alone, sometime with a little help and support from my friends, sometime with hard work, pain, hope and despair, determination , other time with sorrow and fear to fail, almost all the time but, I made it big without their help and they dislike me for it! Still, they call on me from time to time and try to strike a deal! I am for the small guy, the small talented artist, the underdog, this great talented unfortunate starving artist on the streets of New York, in the dark alleys of Washington, DC, behind forgotten walls and sleepy pubs in Dublin, in  nostalgic narrow romantic streets in Montmartre,  this most creative and helpless street artist around the side walk cafes in Paris looking at you every time you pass by him, by his easel, by the  wooden old box of brushes and paints he left on the side walk near his apron, and he wonders why you don’t buy anything from him, because he knows he is  good  and his paintings are cheap! Why an artist should starve? Don’t tell me “ce sont les risques du métier”. Why artists should have hard time making a living? Why art, acting, dancing, performing, painting, even teaching art, why  professions in the art  in general are not secure , financially stable? Because those big shots in high places in the artistic ivory towers don’t care! No artist  should starve. Especially when one’s has talent, creativity and beauty in the soul, in the way she or he feels, talks, dreams, laughs, cries, welcomes you at the door of her or his house…and especially when she or he talks to the brushes, to the tubes of paints she or he buys only when they are on sale, to the canvas dying to be covered with strokes, curves, paints, sweat, tears and the smoke of her or his “gitane” cigarettes. Yes, call me a rebel against those “grand seigneurs”. I am not  for the fancy arrogant art dealer in an Armani suit at Georges Cinq or at a Manhattan “Petit-Four-Champagne-Art Gallery”. De La Croix continues “ Have you visited lately some of our great modern art museums? If you have, you should know by now just by looking at the mediocre quality of some of the art exhibited there, that something tricky is happening behind doors, that deals are made, and many interests not in the interest of the art have been served. Just go and look around at those museums. It is alarming. I saw one large canvas exhibited at one of our most prestigious modern art museums in America. This canvas was enormous, almost 20 feet by 15 feet. It had a white background and just one or two black strokes on it. Guess now, how much did they pay for that painting? Over 2 million Dollars! And you do not want me to rebel against them!? Another famous guy in New York just sold last year a 2 feet by 3 feet canvas for over one million Dollars. He just grabbed a stick, dipped it in red, orange and purple colors, drew a few circular lines on the canvas and VOILA, the masterpiece is born. A week later, glowing articles appeared about him in some of our leading newspapers. They hailed the new genius of the modern art…the great abstract artist of the decade. The  painting was sold overnight for $1,300.000 ! I do not believe in drilling two three holes in a house paint bucket and swing it over a canvas to make a painting! Some “geniuses” did, and somebody….some big shots in the art community cashed on it. Unfortunately, the so-called “ great artist” did not live long enough to collect! They bought his art for approximately $2,000 and after his death, they sold it for over $2 Millions!…………………………………………… A rebel? Yes, I am. Big  time  rebel. Rebel against those kind of people!” This  was written by de La Croix in 1980. Has he changed? I am not so sure! For years, he did not paint. He refused to “mingle” with the Martini-Fake French Accent Art Dealers…he turned down all  exhibitions offers….he just faded away for years. It took Solange Berthier, his dear friend  and Mr. Theodore Marlins, a trusted associate, seven years to convince de La Croix to return to the world of art and paint again. Fortunately, he is back, and he is as active as ever. Yet, he remains cautious, quite distant, and prepared for all kinds of surprises and “deals”! De La Croix repeated to me what once he told Solange Berthier, his dear friend and European agent  who sold his work for millions and millions of Dollars worldwide, long time before he came to the United States: “Do you want to become and remain among the wealthiest, the most productive, the happiest and the most successful  people  in your business? If yes, then, keep low profile, stay cool, don’t let people know much about you, refuse all honors, do not deprive others from their share or a fair competition, and ABOVE ALL stay put and don’t steal the show. Be the world’s most  INCOGNITO CALM SILENT STRATEGIST. Count your gold bars in the dark.”   This is exactly what he did with his art business and so many other businesses of his for years and years. Up to now (But No Longer in the Dark…) he remained one of the world’s most successful, silent, cautious, fame “avoiders” and best seller artists on the international market, refusing all kinds of promotion, publicity, propaganda and as he- so correctly and wisely put it- safe and out of “NOISY AND DANGEROUS HIGH TRAFIC IN THE PUBLIC EYE”. Once you browse through this website, you will find out who in the  world’s “who’s who” buys and vividly collects his artwork. You will be amazed. We took the liberty to mention their names under the painting (s) they purchased from de La Croix agents. His artwork collectors list and the “1979 MVC Roster” include members of royal families, aristocrats, heads of states, tycoons, international superstars, leaders, noted art experts and world celebrities, yet, he managed to remain the wise, calm and “SAFE SUCCESSFUL INCOGNITO SILENT ARTIST/BUSINESSMAN” for a very long time. If you visit the website of the Goldstein Collection and Goldsmith Art Museum Group, you will learn about the fortune, art collectors and dignitaries spend on buying his canvases. The Solange Berthier & Associates/Salon de L’Art Moderne 1999 website once posted/ displayed approximately 350 paintings of De La Croix which were completely sold in a very short time and almost 15 large canvases were silently pre-sold to world’s celebrities before even the show ever started… and everybody knew about it!  And nobody knew about it! This is just a glimpse into the confusing, successful and secretive prismatic world of de La Croix’s art. He does not go to dealers and galleries owners, they come to him.“ When you have the right name,” Solange  said “ you get the right deal.” Long time before he arrived to the United States, his agents and art dealers had already sold a large inventory of his artwork worth over 20 million Dollars. Maximillien does not talk much about his art. Instead, he chooses to talk about subjects very dear to his heart such as: Poetry, theater, music, world travel, American culture, European history, gardening, wisdom and philosophy of the Orient, and particularly  about the years he spent studying Zen, Chan, Noi Cun and Flowers Arrangements under his venerable teachers in the Orient ( Sokes, Senseis and Sifus). He is fond of wild life and nature. He has a most affectionate attachment and love toward animals. But, to begin with, I will be sailing on the immense ocean of his other facets, aspects, sides, achievements, publications, adventures, genius and delightful madness of the man. If you are interested in reviewing additional art-work of de La Croix, we do strongly encourage you to visit:

http://www.angelfire.com/art/GandMartexpo . Read about his artistic career in the book(s) written about him and listed in Link/Section # 7 “

A man of the world? Is he?

Most certainly. He visited 42 countries, lived and worked in the western and eastern  hemispheres for over 15 years.

He wrote  a considerable number of books on world culture, characteristic features, qualities, strengths and weaknesses of natives including Americans, the world’s best and worst places and people, their religions, traditions, taboos, universities, way of life and life styles. For writing and completing  his work on  socio-politico-philosophical studies and statistics, De La Croix and his correspondents around the globe interviewed over 100, 000 persons for each specific subject and area of study. Those findings, research and analysis on the people of the world appeared in major international best sellers of his, to name a few:

Below, you will find  some of Maximillien’s books and encyclopedias reviews as posted on various and several websites on the Internet. The following pages were  copied/cut/pasted directly  from the website of ALL BOOK STORES. COM., while others were taken from “Books in Print” and various sources. They contain  very informative synopsis/reviews of the books of Maximillien, and most certainly, they will help us  understand the great mind of this man and  explore the infinity and immensity of the wealth of his knowledge and the subjects/topics he brought to life or discussed with pragmatic analysis and imposing depth.

  His book “The International Book on World Etiquette, Protocol and Refined Manners” is considered as among the world’s best published books in the field, frequently used by diplomats, departments of state and eminent United States Public Speakers and Career/Image Coaches and Consultants. Many consultants used it as an effective training tool for international success. Please check it out at:

http://www.fiveoclockclub.com/articles/1997/08-97-International.html

In addition, it is frequently used as reference and authoritative training and orientation guide in public speaking and corporate training provided to America Fortune 500  companies.

The United States Library of Congress, the libraries of the United Nations, the libraries, reading rooms and reference/research centers of colleges and universities, as well as the libraries and sales departments of book sellers, books dealers, books distributors and books publishers list, categorize and index BOOKS under different subjects and categories from A to Z, from Astronomy, Art and Archives to Zoology and Zen, and AUTHORS from authors of science fiction to religions, to fiction, to drama to world affairs, you name it………….

There are thousands and thousands of categories, subjects and disciplines under which you will find and locate a book or an author. De La Croix is listed under at least 211 different categories and subjects. It means, those libraries and centers of learning and research listed him and his books under 211 different categories and subjects in their departments, catalogues and indexes! In brief, this means that he wrote about those 211 fields and subjects! READ MORE ABOUT THIS AT LINK # 24. USEFUL LINKS.

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