Hotel Chelsea Project - The Four Seasons Room

The short story below is the back story for a tiny piece of art I contributed as part of a community art project in Mexborough. Each person would contribute one window. Here is mine:

This is the full hotel

The Four Seasons Room

The old man had been in the hotel room longer than most of the staff could remember. He always told them it helped him make new friends among the staff and guests. People wondered how he paid for it all but no bill was ever missed; some said he had been famous at one time but few seemed to know what for.

Recently he had been increasingly confined and had a series of nurses and carers permanently installed in an adjoining room. Rather than wandering the corridors and lounges he mainly stayed in the room, in bed or in his wheelchair reading or observing the world through his window.

One day in early spring he requested soft pastels of all colours and a pad of artists paper. He would spend time at the window, mainly thinking, but occasionally working. As the year went on his health deteriorated but he continued with his drawing. As New Year followed Christmas he called his nurse over and said “I've finished – get my lawyer”.

The meeting was set up and completed. A week later the old man was gone. A few weeks later the lawyer came to the hotel and asked to speak to the owner – the owner was called and, after the conclusion of the meeting, emerged looking pale and shocked, unable to speak. Eventually the Maitre D, who had known the owner longest, got the story.

The artist was indeed famous and had produced no new work since an abrupt retirement in 1985. The four expensive, much sought after, pastels he had produced had been bequeathed to the hotel on condition that the window in his room was altered to be a stained glass representation of his works – one for each season of the final year of his life. Thus was born The Four Seasons Room, named for the now celebrated Four Seasons pastels that spent most of their life on loan to collections around the world - but whose sisters could always be seen by everyone who walked past the hotel - second to top floor, second window from the right.