Author: Chris Waddington

  • A Rope Trick

    In August 1924, one year after a honeymoon tour of India, Alain Coulbec pushed my grandmother down the servants’ stairs at their country home outside Paris. Bruised but uninjured, she promptly pushed the noted aviator from family history, fleeing to Tahoe with her trust fund and newborn son. It didn’t matter that Coulbec had crossed…

  • Thin Ice

    Loyal collectors believed that Russell Kern was due for a revival. His dealer had kept faith; the right curators showed interest. But this was still the bad year that dear friends whispered about, the year Kern lost his wife in a car wreck, discharged a load of bird shot into a threatening shadow, burned a…