The Art of Murder

Henry Hawran is an unusual man. He spends his days cleaning homes and fixing windows, and when he’s done he wants to admire his own house and the art that decorates it. But this art is quite different from most — it’s based on the settings of mystery novels:

In his 20 years of righting the wrongs of dishevelment and dirt,

Hawran detected a far more dangerous pattern of injustice in people’s

homes: bad art.

“I see people who spend a fortune on art that they don’t really like, but it matches the sofa,” he said.

When Hawran studied his own house — the 1,000-square-foot Portage

home he grew up in — he found he was doing the same by adorning his

walls with floral prints he had bought at chain stores.

So, he set out to make things right.

“Basically I’m a dumb guy when it comes to decorating,” Hawran said.

But if there’s one thing Hawran knows well, it’s a good mystery

novel. He’s been reading them since he was 10 years old, when his Aunt

Nina who lived in England brought him a book from the “Famous Five”

children’s series by British author Enid Blyton. Now, 30 years later,

he has collected thousands of books, from the Hardy Boys to Sherlock

Holmes. He boasts of having “one of the best juvenile mystery

collections anywhere,” which he has bequeathed to Woodland Elementary

in Portage, the school where he learned to read.

“They’re what I like. I love mysteries. I can’t get enough of a

mystery story, so why not have things that I enjoy around me?” he said.

And so the idea to commission a painting inspired by a mystery novel

was born.

Thus, Hawran got in touch with local young artist Seth Wehner to do the task :

To date, Wehner has painted five works for Hawran, all measuring

about 24 to 30 inches by 20 inches. All the art wwas inspired by Blyton

novels, and framed and matted to appear as if each was from the 1930s

and ’40s, when the Blyton novels were written.

The sense of the past evoked by the paintings is important to Hawran

every day, almost as a meditation. “You wake up in the morning and you

look at your art and you find yourself looking at them for a few

minutes. It takes me back to a simpler time and a simpler world,” he

said.

And the characters represent the kind of values Hawran holds dear.

“They had a sense of honor about them, a sense of duty, of doing the

right thing that you don’t often find anymore, an attitude that isn’t

as prevalent as it was 50 or 75 years ago,” Hawran said.

Eventually, Hawran would like to write his own mystery novels, but in the meantime, he’s satisifed with the ones depicted on his living room walls.