But now, a less than spry septuagenarian , with anger management issues and old art world ego injuries that have forced a retreat from hands-on work, Court Painter is facing a hard-edge court battle — and a potential cloud over his life and art — around the question of what his press Attache does besides being studio eye candy.  His Press Attache A Hardon MacKay is suing, seeking financial compensation  for paintings that  he says he created or inspired, but for which he  was never properly credited or compensated.

These are painful days for Court Painter, as he attempts to ratchet up a long career, facing a challenge that stabs at the heart of any artist: his originality. Court Painter emblazoned his signature on the art world by working and rethinking the vocabulary of  political and celebrity portraiture. Physical challenges (he’s left handed) and emotional scars (that he’ll never be as successful as his Iowa Grandpa, a notorious corn liquor bootlegger) compounded the difficulty of that path. More recently ,he tripped over an ashtray stand in his studio that permanently injured his pride. A shoulder sprain from a table dancing stunt at the Ship & Anchor made him very reliant on his devoted studio assistants to do the heavy lifting in the studio. He suffers from celebrity disorder, marked by sweeping swings of elation and depression. And with greater dependence on his pretty petty criminal studio assistants he suffers a greater vulnerability to claims that his work is not his own.

Long liquid lunches have limited Court Painter to painting no more than an hour or two at a time, perhaps three days a week,

“Yeah, I would say it probably made it easier to attack me,” he said. “I absolutely need my studio team. But not that low energy Press Attache MacKay who is no more than a handyman,” Court Painter said of  MacKay’s role in the studio.

This twist to what was otherwise a beautiful story of seamless cooperation, MacKay has brought a lawsuit against Court Painter which says that exploitation and uncredited work were built into the Court Painter team system, and that the mental swings of working under a whacky nut job artist — manic bouts of energy followed by crashes of depression and paranoia not to mention fashion crimes— were part of the unpredictable dynamic of how and when work got done, and who did it. Up-and-down manic cycles were a constant, and “I had to take up the brush many a time to meet commission deadlines,” the despondent Press Attache mumbled despondently.

Legal experts say that claims of inadequate credit by an underling generally have faced a tough road because courts require proof of credit of authorship like a Youtube video, security camera footage or a studio snitch.

In both law and art value assessment works that go out the door of an artist’s studio, however they are produced, are generally deemed to be a product of that artist’s vision. Because of that one can see little effect on Court Painter art-market values no matter what happens in the case.

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But the Court Painter case also opens up what many artists say is an uncomfortable and complicated debate about artistic temperament, celebrity and the foibles of human nature where one person is in control, egos are large, and vast fortunes are expected to be made.

“Court Painter is such a whirlwind of energy and excitement and enthusiasm, he is like a magnet, drawing the most talented young hipsters and failed art students around him …. to learn to smoke and strike poses,” Press Attache A Hardon MacKay uttered. “But he’s a shell of the man that he was — it breaks my heart,” slamming the security door of the studio with upmost gentility and grace.

Energized, infuriated — often a gumbo of both —Court Painter grabs his iPhone or lettering brush. Sometimes he paints and tweets while propped on his straw filled pillow, according to Press Attache A Hardon MacKay. Other times he doodles or tweets from the loo next door, watching another B&W television set. Less frequently, he makes his way up the hall to the ornate Masterpiece Room  festooned with unsold ‘art products’, sometimes dressed for the day in a stylish smock, sometimes still in his long johns with the flap flapping in the breeze , reminiscent of an untamed bohemian dandy, where he begins his official and unofficial calls.

Court Painter, each year is redefining what it means to be the preeminent portraitist of the Great Dominion. He has pudgy friends in the local political circus. He sees the highest painter position in the land much as he did the night of his stunning painting victory by popular vote over  his nemesis : techno paint pusher CC (name available upon request)— as a prize he must fight to protect every waking moment clutching his favourite brush in his exquisitely manicured hand as his Excalibur. Despite all his bluster, he views himself less as a titan dominating the art world stage than a maligned outsider engaged in a struggle to be taken seriously, according to interviews with 1 mental health adviser, 2 Ship & Anchor barflys, a  Facebook friend and a surviving member of the Tim Hortons retired Sunday painter group.However no one from the local carnival would vouch for him without an upfront fee.

For Court Painter, every day is a test of how to mentor by example aspiring artists, not just his non practitioner fan faction but  balancing the competing interests of money grubbing and real good rendering. For Court Painter, every day is an hour-by-hour battle for self-preservation. He still relitigates last year’s peoples choice award as Best Darn Dabbler (beating out his nemesis CC (name available upon request), convinced that there  is a plot to delegitimize and dethrone him. On a prominent studio wall , colour coded maps highlight the locations of all the famous politician and celebrity commissions he has painted:  noting that he treated them all  with equal artistic verve and has been acknowledged by all with a chronic lack of compensation.

CC (name available upon request) seen typically smoozing with unidentified couple and a local beauty.

Before establishing his Inglewood studio in partnership with   firebrand Press Attache A Hardon MacKay, Court Painter told top studio assistants to think of each Court Painter day as an episode in a television show in which he vanquishes art rivals. A Hardon MacKay estimates that Court Painter spends at least four hours a day, and sometimes as much as twice that, in front of a television, sometimes with the volume muted, marinating in the no-holds-barred wars of How to Paint Drapery and Hands , Etc. on YouTube  channels and gets all fired up to meet each private studio tour and conflict filled day.

“He feels like there’s an effort to undermine his painting style and that stealing images and ideas from the internet allegations are unfounded,” said A Hardon MacKay who has spent almost as much time with the Court Painter as his buddies at the Ship & Anchor pub. “He believes passionately that the conceptual left and the art media are out to destroy him. The way he got here is fighting back,cussing  and counterpunching into his open palm.He sometimes reverts to Booze,Women & Movies as a diversion.

Court Painter accompanies on piano CC(name available upon request) as he stands waiting for someone to notice him.

“The problem he’s going to face,” AHM added, “is there’s a difference between running a start up art studio and playing in the big free market leagues like his nemesis  CC (name available upon request). You’ve got to find that sweet spot between being an art pugilist and maintaining the precarious position of preeminent portraitist of the Great Dominion and environs.”