I believe the first content I posted to this Web site was a piece about Joe “40,000” Murphy, the Chicago usher who created an art environment inside his South Side house and nearby five-car garage. That was in 1994, not long after I had acquired more than 700 pieces of art previously salvaged from Murphy’s property in anticipation of its sale. Murphy had died in 1979.
Bits and pieces of the work have been exhibited in the years since then, most notably at Randolph Street Gallery in 1994, Aron Packer Gallery in 1997 (both Chicago) and in a traveling show organized by San Francisco’s Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in 2004.
I’ve had the pleasure of living with the work in the years since, but I am excited to share the news that nearly all the Murphy material I own has been acquired by the Kohler Foundation, the world’s leading supporter and preserver of art environments. I had been hoping for years to find a good home for the work, and Kohler couldn’t be a better steward.
You can read all about Murphy in this updated version of my original article, including a new section devoted to Murphy’s role in the famous (and I believe heavily fictionalized) Cubs World Series curse.