“It was just like a miracle.”
Prominent Big Island artist Ken Charon was describing how he felt when his painting, “And Then There Was Peace,” was returned to him after having been missing for 33 years.
The art work is a 16-inch-by-20-inch acrylic painting on canvas. It was one of five paintings that Charon — one of 12 invited artists, eight of them American — took with him to the former Soviet Union in 1990 to tour the USSR in a special space-themed exhibition celebrating the the 30th anniversary of the first manned space flight by Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, which took place in April 1961.
“At the time, in 1990, we were hopeful that our countries could have normal relations again. And they were so friendly to us and hosted us for a whole month,” Charon said. “Once we paid to get there, we were their guests. It was a great experience.
“The Russian people were so happy to meet Americans.”
At the time, cracks were apparent in the metaphoric “Iron Curtain” the Soviet Union and its satellite states had erected in the minds of both its own people, as well as Americans, during the so-called “Cold War” waged between the United States and the USSR since the end of World War II.
“Things were changing,” Charon recalled. “All the statues of (former Soviet Premier Josef) Stalin had been taken away. And every building had one of (Russian revolutionary Vladimir) Lenin and Stalin. And I guess there is a landfill somewhere that has, maybe, 10,000 marble busts.
“I do a lot of peace art. So, this was a big opportunity for me to be able to spread that message. And that’s what I dream of. I was able to speak to the people of the Soviet Union through my art and give them ideas of peace.”
“And Then There Was Peace” depicts five people in space suits sitting in the lotus position, facing each other in a partial circle on a moonscape surface with what appears to be Saturn to the upper left on a starry night.
“It’s supposed to be an international crew meditating on the thought of peace,” Charon said. “It’s all just a dream, dreaming of peace. You know, they say you have to imagine something before it can become a reality.”
Charon described the Saturn-like image as “my symbol for peace on Earth.”
“There’s an American astronaut, a Soviet cosmonaut, an African crew member — and two whose nationalities are left to the imagination,” he said. “I painted five canvases especially for this unique opportunity at a time when things were opening up between our two countries. My paintings were all of the theme of peace.”
The initial exhibition was in Yalta, a Crimean resort on the Black Sea, according to Charon. From there, the exhibition moved to Moscow as its next stop of the Soviet tour.
“Those five paintings were to be returned after they toured,” Charon said.
“But after I flew back to Hawaii, the Soviet Union collapsed and was no more. Years later, somehow my paintings showed up in Las Vegas in an auction. Someone in the International Association of Astronomical Arts found out that they were to be auctioned and intervened.
“Three of the five paintings were returned to me. The other two were sold at the auction.”
“And Then There Was Peace” was one of the paintings sold.
“I never got any money from those two that sold, this being one of them. It sold for $500, apparently” (in 1995), Charon said.
Last month, Charon received a call from a man in Marietta, Ga., who had worked in the space industry — and who, as it turned out, was in possession of “And Then There Was Peace.”
“He called me up to see how much it was worth, because he was considering downsizing,” Charon said. “And when I told him the story, he stopped me in the middle of the sentence and said, ‘If you still legally own it, I’m going to just send it back to you.’
“When he called me up and said that to me, it was like a miracle. I said ‘wow’ maybe four or five times.”
Charon said the honest art collector — who didn’t allow Charon to publicly identity him for this story — had bought the painting from the person who obtained it in the Las Vegas auction in 1995.
“I have no idea who that man was and he didn’t tell me,” Charon said.
The painting, according to Charon, arrived in perfect condition, still in the original frame and with the official Soviet stamp and label on the back of the canvas.
“I hadn’t laid eyes on it for 33 years, and now it’s back home where it was supposed to be,” he said.
“It was completely out of the blue, and I never would’ve dreamed that I was ever going to get it back.”
Email John Burnett at jburnett@hawaiitribune-herald.com.