But the painting of the 30-something woman in the shawl may have been his masterpiece, says Chris, the James Beard Award-winning force behind Pizzeria Bianco and Pane Bianco at Row DTLA, a commercial district in Los Angeles, and four other restaurants in Phoenix.
For Leonard and his family, though, the portrait was a source of pain, and a kind of stubborn psychic baggage that hovered at the edges of his career. This was the case long after the painting disappeared more than 50 years ago amid an acrimonious dissolution. And it remained so after Leonard died in 2021 at 94.
Then something remarkable happened. Sitting in a brown leather chair at his Phoenix home on a Sunday in April 2022, Chris was scrolling through his Instagram notifications when one caught his eye. He clicked the link.
A photograph showed the painting leaning against a brick building in the New York borough of Queens, beside a rubbish bag.
Immigrant who became artist in her 60s shows it’s never too late for dreams
Immigrant who became artist in her 60s shows it’s never too late for dreams
“I zoomed in, and my dad’s signature was on it,” Chris says. “I just stared at it for about five minutes and handed my phone to my wife, Mia, to see if I was seeing a mirage or having a dream.”
She confirmed he wasn’t. But Chris was confused. The elegance of the artwork contrasted with the gritty streetscape in a way that was hard to process.
“I couldn’t put it all together,” says Chris, 61, arguably the most famous pizza maker in the US.
He hadn’t been searching for the painting. But the discovery made him certain about one thing: he needed to get it back. Even if it meant reckoning with the darkness it represented.
Chris was 7 in 1969, when his father got a commission from a well-to-do Manhattan woman. Leonard had just bought his first house and money issues loomed, in part because the life of an artist meant irregular paydays.
“My dad, like most artists, if you get a decent hit, you’ve got to eat off of that buffalo for a long time,” Chris says.
This commission seemed like a good one. But the client had requirements. First, Chris says, she wanted an especially ornate frame, so Leonard had a gold-leaf one fabricated at a cost of US$2,000. She paid for it upfront.
Chris says that his father’s fee for the portrait was US$4,000, about US$33,000 today. The artist and his subject struck a handshake deal.
Chris remembers minute details of the roughly four months his father spent toiling over the canvas, which was about 6½ feet (two metres) tall. He explains, for example, that the intricately patterned shawl wasn’t actually a shawl. The woman was pregnant, Chris says, but didn’t want that to show, so a window curtain was draped over her.
“It’s one of my favourite parts of the painting,” Chris says.
Leonard delivered the painting to the woman in 1970. That’s when things went awry.
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She refused to pay, Chris says. He says his father filed a lawsuit, but nothing came of it. Public records show that Leonard sued the woman’s company in 1971; none of the case details are available online.
“He just finally gave up on it,” Chris says. “My dad never got a penny.”
And he never got the painting back. The result, Chris says, was “a lot of heartache. It made for a tough year.”
It wasn’t just about the money. There was something existential about his father’s angst.
“To not get paid for something – at best, it can be confusing,” Chris says. “Maybe they didn’t want to pay for it because it’s not good? He was very insecure about his work. Which was hard for me to understand, because he was a great painter.”
Fast-forward to April 15, 2023, and Marion Weiss and a friend had just got lunch at a pizza place in New York’s Hell’s Kitchen neighbourhood and were heading back to her apartment in Queens.
Walking down 35th Street, Weiss spotted something leaning against her building. It was a large painting, she said, next to the garbage and obviously “just there for anyone” to take. The painting depicted a woman with a brightly coloured shawl.
“I was fascinated by it – I was just so curious,” Weiss, 35, says. “Where did it come from? Why is it here?”
Studying the painting, whose frame had been removed, she remembered that rain was in the forecast and said to herself: “I can’t leave this here.” So Weiss and her friend carried the painting up three flights of stairs to her apartment. She noticed the artist’s signature and began researching “Leonard Bianco” on the internet.
Around the same time, Jessica Wolff was learning about the painting, too. She operates Stooping in Queens New York, an Instagram account that posts images of items left on the street, and one of its followers had just sent in a submission.
Krissy Kivel had seen the painting on the pavement and said she “just stopped dead”. Her apartment wasn’t big enough for the artwork, and she hoped that sharing it via Stooping in Queens could help secure it a new home.
Wolff added the painting to the Instagram page. By then, however, Weiss had already snagged it, she said. Before long, the friend who’d helped Weiss carry the artwork up to her apartment saw the Stooping in Queens post.
He never really, I don’t believe, saw his greatness. It’s an amazing painting
This touched off a complex digital choreography – comments were written, direct messages exchanged – but a granular rehashing of the process risks stripping the story of some of its magic. The takeaway: Weiss connected with Chris the next day. The painting, she told him, was safe.
“It’s one of the craziest f*****g things I’ve ever had happen to me,” he says. “Probably the craziest.”
As they spoke, Weiss said it became clear that the artwork belonged with Chris. He would’ve paid for it, he said, but she didn’t want money.
“If I was in the same situation, and someone found something that was from my family, I hope they would do the same,” Weiss says. “It was going to the right place.”
Chris was overwhelmed by her kindness. “I don’t know how I could ever show the gratitude I feel,” he said.
Making arrangements to have the painting shipped to Los Angeles, Chris started to process what had happened. The ordeal over the artwork all those years ago had taken something from his father.
“He never really, I don’t believe, saw his greatness,” Chris says. “It’s an amazing painting. That’s what I know – I don’t need anybody telling me that. That is a message for people: the best art is what you love.”
Still, a mystery endures. How did the portrait end up on the street in Queens? There are theories. Weiss wondered if the woman, or a family member, had lived in her building. But the woman and her children haven’t lived there or nearby, according to online public records.
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That’s not Chris’ focus. For him, the experience has revealed a lesson to be shared with his three young children.
“Sometimes we just have to hang around long enough. We don’t need to make voodoo dolls of people or wish bad upon them. We just got to hang around and present kindness.”
The experience has been a gift in more ways than one.
Chris and his father had a tradition tied to the opening of the chef’s restaurants: Leonard would create a painting for each one. It was a ritual dating back to the 1994 debut of Chris’ first sit-down spot: Pizzeria Bianco in Phoenix.
There was no way to continue the tradition at Pane Bianco, which opened in June, two years after Leonard’s death.
But on what was once a blank wall just off Pane Bianco’s open kitchen, the woman in the brightly coloured shawl now looks out across the restaurant. During a recent afternoon, none of the diners seemed to meet her gaze. But Chris did.
“Her external beauty was a billboard for my dad’s work,” he says. “She paid it forward – she lent her image. Now it’s mine to share with others.”
If the woman owed Leonard, Chris or any of the Biancos anything, that debt has been settled.
“She’s paid in full,” he said. “We’re good now.”