There is one poem
often thought to have been composed by Robert Service that really has nothing
to
do with Service, “The Face
on the Barroom Floor.”
Noiseless the painted face
of this famous woman stares up from the floor of the Teller House in Central City, Colorado. This princess
without a smile has become one of Colorado’s top tourist attractions. She is not the Madeline in H.
Antoine D’Arcy’s poem “The Face upon the Floor.” But she does have a story that combines art, anger,
and of course, love.
The man behind the face,
Herndon Davis, whom journalist Ernie Pyle called the “painter laureate”
of the west was born just after
the turn of the century. Davis, being a cousin of Confederate President Jefferson Davis, himself
was a sort of rebel. Starting out as a sign painter he worked odd-jobs
painting billboards. As World War One started he went to work for Government
as a mapmaker. After the war he moved to Colorado where he worked for the
Denver Post while moonlighting by painting life-sized murals. He also stated being
an amateur historian by producing a map of the cannibal outlaw, Alfred
Parker’s trail and deeds.
In the summer of 1936, Davis
was commissioned to do a series of paintings for the Central City Opera
Associations and the Teller House. While in the Teller House, one hot afternoon,
he got embroiled with a Ann Evans over western
art. Both Davis and Evans had different views. Their opposite views produced a violent argument,
that culminated in a shouting match. Evans stormed out, leaving the artist his fate, for Ann
Evans had great influence with the Opera Company and newspaper.
“You’re going to be fired,”
giggled a young busboy Joe Libby. In a jester of disgust, the young lad said, “Why don’t you give
them something to remember you by? Paint a picture on the floor.” The plot was in motion. After the
bar closed, Davis and Libby crept inside, pouring drinks they got to work.
After many sips and giggles, the
portrait was complete.
History does not record Evans’s
reaction to the joke, but we do know that Davis left Denver soon after. He didn’t sign his masterpiece.
The new owners of the bar either forgot the artist or just did not reveal his name. They just capitalized
upon the artist’s work, passing it off as the face that was part of the famous western poem. Davis
became one of the great artists of the Smithsonian Institution. He died
in 1962 while working for the
Institute.
The owners of the bar, just
happened upon the poem by D’Arcy, and with the mysterious painting upon the floor, claimed
that it was indeed the famous Madeline in the “Face upon the Floor. If
only the owners realized that
Davis had painted the face of his own wife, Nita. This just to aggravate
the “stuck-up boss woman.” Inspired
by a busboy, anger, and poem, Herndon Davis had paid homage to the woman he loved on an
otherwise forgettable piece of floor. The portrait is viewed by many tourists each season and lingers
a relic of a practice joke.
