"The Unsuccessful Transvestite"
Henk Tulusletrack
Polish-born Depressionist painter Tulusletrack found Paris to be the ideal environment for his proposed series of canvases recording the downside of popular forms of social peculiarity. His first publicly-shown painting, "Unhappy Man Fondling a Mallard" attracted critical acclaim as well as a condemnation from the Church, which insisted that the artist add pants to the duck.
Tulusletrack's first effort was followed by "Melancholy Nude with Salami," and the less well-known "Guilt-ridden Bishop Playing 'Johnny-Ride-the-Pony' with Nude Altar Boy," which is in the Vatican's private collection.
The work shown here records the pathetic efforts of M. Jacques Lesperge to be "just one of the girls." In spite of his best intentions he never managed to fool any of the patrons of the Moulin Rouge, no matter how drunk they were, and the summary rejection of his application to join the can-can line at the Folies Bergeres caused him no end of heartbreak. He was openly displeased at Tulusletrack's portrait of him in his finest gown, which led the police to immediately suspect him when the artist was found strangled with a feather boa after having been roundly beaten with a size 12 patent leather dancing shoe.
