Art: Manhattan Mahatma

For 20 years Manhattan's most persistent exhibition-goer was a little old gentleman with a beard, a beady eye and baggy trousers. Standing before a painting, preferably a high-priced one, he would mutter. "Pffft! Such crude pigments! My, such a stencil technique—brr—let me get away!" He stopped other gallery-goers to tell them he was the world's greatest artist, passed out handbills describing himself as "Mesmerist-Prophet and Mystic, Humorist Galore, Ex All Round Athletic Sportsman (to 1889), Scientist supreme: all ologies, Ex Fancy amateur Dancer. . . ." He wrote crank letters to the newspapers....