Before we begin, this episode contains some strong language.

On the afternoon of August 5, 1986, Doug McGill was sitting at his desk at the New York

Times on his phone rang.

I got a call from the news desk, which was the Uber desk right in the middle of the

newsroom.

You know, to please come up there.

Doug had started at the Times as a copyboy, but he'd work his way up to arts reporter,

focusing on the visual arts.

It wasn't that often that there was an urgently breaking art story, but that's exactly what

the news desk wanted to talk to him about.

Somebody up there had received a press release from Arts and Antiques magazine about their

forthcoming issue.

That press release talked about a cash of 240 paintings by Andrew Wyatt that he had kept

a secret from everybody, including his wife, of a beautiful model, often make it.

Andrew Wyatt was the most popular and famous painter in America at the time, though his

critical reputation was complicated.

He was a household name on the cover of magazines and tapped to paint presidents.

His work was grounded in the two rural communities in which he lived, and that subject matter

had established him as a paragon of Americana, sometimes referred to as America's artist.

And now here he was, nearing 70, apparently with a secret stash of intimate, provocative

nude paintings of this one woman, paintings and a woman that he'd hidden from his wife

and the public for 15 years.

...