Penny Cent Sold at Auction Prices

Painter, b. 1905 - d. 1986

One of the most interesting and enigmatic characters in the drama that was the College in the Hills was the German-American artist who went by the unlikely name of Penny Cent (most often articulated as one word — Pennycent and his closest friends called him simply "Penny". Of the college staff, he was the only obvious foreigner, and he spoke with a German accent. This, in itself, would have inevitably led to considerable speculation and suspicion by some of the local population. His obviously fictitious name, of course, made matters much worse. In fact, his true name and identity was wrapped in so much secrecy that apparently not even the other staff members knew it, and it remained a mystery (at least to us in the former environs of the College in the Hills) until 2015.

My uncle, George Carr, and my father, James R. Carr (both artists in their own right), befriended Penny Cent soon after the college staff made their appearance in the area, thus I have inherited a second-hand "relationship" with Penny Cent's memory — and a personal interest that continues to inquire into that empirical question that many have asked over the last half century and more: "Whatever happened to Penny Cent?"

Lamentably, the college only operated for about three years (Penny Cent and other members of the college staff arrived on site on the 17th of December 1934, and the College's main building burned to the gound on "Wednesday Feb. 23, 1938. The larger part of four years of struggle, pains, hardships, and labore was thus lost" wrote Penny Cent in a letter dated Mar. 19th, 1938.) When it closed down and its staff moved on to other pursuits, Penny Cent moved to Harrisburg (in Saline County) and privately taught art at his rented house at 104 N. McKinley St. as late as 1941. George Carr was one of his students. By 1941, World War II was in progress in Europe, and an anti-German sentiment had been rising its hoary head. Though Penny Cent seems to have continued to find Harrisburg congenial, some people in the area had begun somewhat of a gossip campaign. When Penny Cent left, it is believed he spent some time in Carbondale, Illinois, before returning to New York City, the last place he was known to have lived.

In addition to his position on the college staff, and afterward, Penny Cent worked on the Work Progress Administration (WPA) Illinois Arts Project. He was the administrator in charge of the deep Southern Illinois art project. His name was listed as "Penny Cent," and his department was listed as "Easel/Administration" — location: Harrisburg and Williamson and Saline Counties. He helped my uncle, George Carr, and Paulis McClendon (two of his students), get jobs with the Federal Illinois Arts Project as well. No doubt he touched many other lives in a positive way too. Penny Cent apparently also worked on the Federal Writers' Project for some time as well as the Arts Project.

Among other things, Penny Cent was a fitness enthusiast as well as a vegetarian. He rode a bicycle around Harrisburg when bicycle riding was no longer considered an adult activity. He was friendly, outgoing, kind, and generous — and obviously possessed a great sense of humor, as the flippant nature of his name would indicate.

One Harrisburg native who remembers Penny Cent fondly is Luciella Foster, who still has some of his work. Just out of high school in 1937, Luciella had a summer job at the Harrisburg City Park swimming pool where Penny Cent often came to swim. "He was generous with what he had," she told a local newspaper writer in 2000, "He took the boys to go swimming who didn't have money to pay the admission fee." She said she knew little about him otherwise, but thought he was a kind man.

It seems incredible that such a person would simply disappear from the face of the Earth, but the matters of his later career and ultimate fate remain a mystery which continue to baffle local researchers. After his involvement with the College in the Hills; and having been awarded several Guggenheim art Fellowships for nonobjective art (which apparently provided his financial wherewithal while at the College in the Hills, prior to the WPA Arts Projects); after having touched and inspired several lives; he seems to have simply vanished — remembered, but otherwise totally lost.

After leaving Harrisburg, Penny Cent seems to have changed his nom de plum to Robert H. Centurion for a while, and then to Penrod Centurion. Under the name Penrod Centurion he produced what is probably a considerable volume of abstract art, and some of his works can still be found on various Internet web sites. None of those I've found thus far have been dated later than 1949. Only rumors have persisted. The man seems to have simply ceased to exist. If his given birth date of 1905 is correct, he would have been only 44 years old in 1949, with a long career ahead of him. (Circa 1915, we learned that 1902 was probably the correct year of Penny Cent's birth. So he would have been 47 in 1949. Along with this it was also confirmed that his real name was Robert Schmidt.)