THIS IS An InvitatioN
There they were, both looking in the bed of the pick up truck. It was Dennis’s truck. He has a world war 2 museum in his house. He’s come to Tim from time to time to unload some of his stuff
Tim was still new at buying antiques. By trade he’s a sculptor, the kind who pulls bones out of carcasses and turns them into art. Smart guy. But antiques were his girlfriend’s territory, and she wasn’t here. Whatever got bought today, he’d have to answer for.
The truck bed was full of war memorabilia. And then there was this painting. Beat up. Paint flaking off.
Dennis wanted 150.
Tim offered 75.
Dennis came down to 100.
Tim offered 75.
It was the only number Tim felt wouldn’t get him in trouble.
Seventy five dollars, out of the back of a pickup truck.
Tim hung it on the wall, where it sat silently, holding a secret that would change the course of his life.
Mine too.
Sample footage cut together into a rough little sequence.
I never imagined that journey would lead me to Poland...
There’s a story that says that during the Holocaust, a Nazi officer in Białystok, Poland had 20 Jewish painters copy European masterworks that he sold to make himself rich. The painters thought if they did his bidding they would survive.
They didn’t.
Murdered at their easels, in the streets or in concentration camps.
This Copyist workshop produced more than 2,000 paintings, and remained an urban myth. No known painting from that workshop had been found.
Until one was bought for $75 out of the back of a pickup truck in Rockford, Illinois.
In Warszawa, Poland. Standing in front of the Pałaxc Kultury.
WHY THIS FILM NEEDS TO EXIST
We were told that during the Holocaust, twenty Jewish painters in the Białystok Ghetto were forced by a Nazi officer to copy European masterpieces for his profit. More than 2,000 paintings may have passed through their workshop. The painters were murdered, this we know for certain. But no surviving painting had ever been identified.
Then a damaged painting was bought for $75 out of the back of a pickup truck in Rockford, Illinois. It most certainly looks like it is a Copyist painting. The only one
Tim could not prove where it came from. He had every excuse to dismiss the story, keep the painting, or sell it. Instead, he considered what it might be and what it might mean to the people it had been taken from.
So he returned it to Poland.
That decision is the parable at the heart of The Only Copy?
We live in a time when doubt has become an excuse to avoid responsibility. AI makes us question what is real. Conspiracy theories allow us to reject any truth that asks something difficult of us. But Tim did not wait for absolute certainty before doing what he believed was right. Empathy moved first.
The film may also help answer the mystery it documents. If enough people see this movie and learn the Copyists’ story, someone may recognize another work hanging in a home, hidden in an attic, or buried in a collection.
This is a Holocaust story, a historical mystery, and a story about one ordinary decision: When you cannot know everything, do you use doubt as permission to walk away, or do you act with empathy because of what might be true?
When I need to remind myself of what I’ve accomplished
For fifteen years my curiousity became more than 100 stories..
Hundreds of millions of views.
A thank-you from NASA.
NBC Nightly News coming to town after seeing the Band Grandpas.
Helping inspire the LIAM Foundation.
I've spent my career figuring out how to make something meaningful with little funding.
I’m hoping to finally have the resources a story like this deserves.
I'm currently in Poland working alongside museums, conservators, and historians while this painting undergoes conservation.
As a painter, I figured the best way to fund a movie about a painting was to sell paintings. So I made 100 of them. I’m able to be in Poland because 54 people bought paintings. Every purchase gave them a film credit and a visual reminder that they helped someone make the most important project of their life. That's not hyperbole. And here in Poland, people are carrying this too: feeding me, driving me, housing me, opening doors. This film is being built by generosity on two continents.
I'm not looking for donors.
I'm looking for people who believe this story deserves to exist. That when something incredible happens, I can text and share the news
Here’s a rough edit of the first steps.
$65,000 GOAL
To allow me the runway to create pitch materials for investors, producers and partners
$15,150 TOTAL Committed
$3000 Pete Avramopoulos
$3000 Jeff and Nancy Kaney
$1500 Ron Clewer
$500 Matt Makris
$500 Nancy Perry
$100 Josh Stoneberg
$100 Brian Shelton
$50 Jason James
$5,400 from paintings purchased from
I painted $100 paintings; the following people purchased them. There are still paintings available.
Carol Davies
Zak Rotello
Brent Murray
Natalia Ushakova
Patricia Diduch
Michael Laskonis
Michael Lindvall
Lorie Corcoran
Nancy Kaney
Ron Clewer
Tonya Lamia
Linda Niemiec
Molly Bhattacharya
Gwyn Gulley
Ann Dempsey
Keri Asevedo
Joshua Young
Jennifer Stark
Brian Foster
Kathi Edwards
Sara Fleming
Margaret Larson
Rhonda L Gates
Carol Bingley
Rod Lashock
Richard Vargas
Rachel León
Nancy Shannon
John Broda
Dawn Glass
Roman Salamon
Twana Johnson
Brett Whittacre
Tim Prince
Bob Blosser