There were nude watercolors on top of the cabinet in the attic along with dozens of canvasses, prints, and notebooks, all seemingly destined to be stored away or sold as novelties, as the owners of a house in Shelter Island, nearby the New York Hamptons, were selling the furniture during a yard sale in January 2023. 

French-born Olivia Bransbourg, founder of Iconofly–a brand that blends art, fragrance, and culture through innovative, award-winning projects–was there, hoping to find tablecloths for the new home she and her husband Gilles own on the North Fork of Long Island. Instead, she stumbled upon a dusty treasure trove of artworks.

“It was drawings of breasts, bottoms, and naked bodies piled up everywhere and landscape canvasses stowed against the walls,” Bransbourg says, “but I had no idea what it was, so I asked.”

The house belonged to Joan, whose husband died three years before. His name was Robert J. Markell. He was born in 1924, was a pioneer in American Television, and even introduced Al Pacino to American viewers in the series NYPD in 1968. His real passion, however, was to live an artist’s life, which Bransbourg now wants everyone to posthumously recognize. 

So, she teamed up with Tatyana Franck, the President of L’Alliance New York, and together, they began looking for more of Markell’s artwork, engaging with the late artist’s family, conducting biographical research, and compiling a first catalog raisonné.

The outcome is a priceless collection of hundreds of previously unseen works.

There were two Robert Markell: the engineer-turned-television pioneer and the unbeknownst painter.

Olivia Bransbourg

It is an astonishing work that might have been lost forever without Olivia’s curiosity. Together, we researched the history of Robert Markell to create a comprehensive catalog of his work, and make this artistic treasure, buried in the attic of his old house, accessible to everyone.

Tatyana Franck, President of L’Alliance New York

Nothing predestined Markell to be an artist or even to help usher in the golden age of Television. 

His father, a commercial printer, firmly opposed his son’s desire to create art. He urged him to study engineering instead, and Markell earned a degree in mechanical engineering from Northeastern University. This career, though, was short-lived. Markell moved to New York City in the late 1940s and became one of the earliest set designers in Television. At CBS, Markell worked for some of the most prestigious programs of his era, including You Are There and Cole Porter’s Aladdin. His set design was perhaps best shown in George Balanchine’s first televised Nutcracker Ballet. Longtime collaborator Sidney Lumet even asked him to be the Art Director for his iconic film 12 Angry Men, starring Henry Fonda. His peers recognized his talent, winning him five Emmy’s, two Golden Globes, and two Screen Producers Guild Awards.

Yet, Markell’s first ambition was always with him. When he was not producing a TV show, he spent hours in museums, studying paintings, particularly the works of Degas, Cézanne, Toulouse Lautrec, Bonnard, Vuillard, Matisse, and Picasso. He dedicated his spare time to his landscapes, still lives, and self-portraits. He entirely gave in to his artistic passion once he finally retired in 1991, then became a senior Vice-President at CBS. Markell and his wife settled in Shelter Island, and he continuously sketched, drew, printed, and painted, turning his focus to the nude.

Only illness stopped his creative momentum. When he died at 95 in 2020, days before COVID put the world on hold, Markell left hundreds of prints, watercolors, lithographs, and canvases behind. Despite a few exhibitions in galleries on the North and South forks of Long Island and at the Brooklyn Museum, his body of work was soon forgotten.

Had Bransbourg not ventured through the attic doors of his old home, Markell’s legacy may have been limited to the films, broadcasts, and audiovisual documents and the stored boxes of sketches for set designs he gifted to Stony Brook University and Northeastern University.

On the second floor, I found a room in disarray, with easels and a large lithographic press: hundreds of drawings, notebook pages. Watercolors of nudes littered the floor.

Olivia Bransbourg

“It was a cold, white winter Saturday and a perfect day for an estate sale,” Bransbourg remembers. “Many cars were parked at the end of a long driveway in front of an 18th-century house, and Visitors jostled for space on the first floor, buying teacups, carpets, and tables for modest sums. On the second floor, I found a room in disarray, with easels and a large lithographic press: hundreds of drawings, notebook pages, and watercolors of nudes littered the floor. These works caught my eye, and I noticed they were all signed by the same person.”

Bransbourg returned home with three watercolors in her pocket and tried to discover more about the drawings. A second day of the estate sale was organized, and the artworks were still there. Bransbourg bought 50 of them. She then was able to contact the deceased’s family. This is at that moment that Bransbourg’s journey with Markell, the artist, started.

“With Robert Markell, the gesture always seems to pause in mid-air. Color and line overlap, respond to each other, and ignite. There are no mistakes,” Bransbourg explains. 

The Franco-American entrepreneur then called Tatyana Franck to share her discovery. A former director of the Musée de l’Élysée in Lausanne, Switzerland, and of the Archives Claude Picasso in Paris and Geneva, Franck is an expert in archival collections and their preservation. She was equally amazed by this unique collection.

“It is an astonishing work that might have been lost forever without Olivia’s curiosity,” Franck says. “Together, we researched the history of Robert Markell to create a comprehensive catalog of his work, and make this artistic treasure, buried in the attic of his old house, accessible to everyone.” Franck is no stranger to rescuing archives. While working in Switzerland, she once dived into the archives of American photographer Jan Groover. Franck brought Groover’s work back to light through a major traveling retrospective. “This resulted in nearly 10,000 prints, slides, negatives, and numerous archival documents becoming part of the collections of the Musée de L’Elysée.”

A similar fate now happened with Markell’s impressive body of work, exhibited twice: first in New York at Galerie Gabriel and then in Paris, at the art printing atelier Idem. Bransbourg and Franck curated two exhibitions, on each side of the ocean as if there were a bridge between the city where Markell lived and that of the painters who inspired him to unveil this rediscovered work to all. 

“This double exhibition was unique in itself and read like an artistic dialogue that combines countries, cultures, and even one of Markell’s favorite genres, lithography,” explains the President of L’Alliance New York Franck. Bransbourg echoed her, adding, “Two exhibitions to finally share this artist’s immense body of work with everyone.”

More information: https://www.robertmarkell.com

All visuals (c) Robert Markell Estate except for the pictures from the Robert Markell exhibition in New York (c) Pascal Perich and from the Robert Markell exhibition in Paris (c) Andrew Brooke.