Jon Crispin's Notebook

It is very rare in our lives to be around genius.  I was so fortunate to spend several days with David Beck in his San Francisco studio back in 2005 when Peter Carroll and I worked on a film about David for the Smithsonian American Art Museum.

Claire Larkin at SAAM hired Peter to make a short film about David’s piece “MVSEVM”, and I was hired to shoot stills and help set things up.

I remember that David didn’t particularly like to be called a miniaturist even though the scale of his work was often quite small.

I was terribly saddened today when Claire emailed to say that David had died.  Here is his obit in the Times.

David was truly a genius.  I was completely in awe of his creativity and craftsmanship.  His spirit and sense of playfulness were as abundant as his talents.

During the shoot the four of us laughed so much and had an absolute blast together.  As we were packing up and getting ready to leave, I lost a bet with him about the name of the actress that played the lead in the Munsters.  He nailed it with Yvonne DeCarlo.

Peter’s film is linked above, and “MVSEVM is on permanent display at the Smithsonian American Art Museum in D.C.  Watch Peter’s film and listen to David’s voice, which sadly will not be heard again.