Cadillac Ranch creator plans a Monet replica

updated 11:43 p.m. ET April 11, 2009

AMARILLO, Texas - Millionaire prankster and artist Stanley Marsh 3 is back at it.

The 71-year-old's newest creation is unlike most of his others, though. This one — not far from where Marsh began his playful ways 35 years ago by burying 10 vintage Cadillacs nose down in a wheat field — will be peaceful and verdant.

And less noticeable, which is how he likes it.

This time, the art lover, philanthrope and, some say, eccentric is building a replica of Claude Monet's water lilies pond — a very big one — to grace the backyard of Toad Hall, the 300-acre spread in this Panhandle city he and his wife call home.

"Art should be hidden and I believe people should see it by surprise," said Marsh, adding that a masterpiece above a supermarket produce section evokes a more authentic response than a well-publicized museum exhibit. "The best and most significant art, you should never tell people where it is."

That was his intent in 1974 when he commissioned Cadillac Ranch. The cars — ranging from a 1948 club coupe to a 1963 sedan were gathered from junkyards, private collectors and used car lots — have since become a pop art landmark.

Visitors through the years have splattered them with graffiti and, in 2005, they were coated in pink to honor breast cancer victims, survivors and their families. Marsh has also painted them black and yellow to honor the passing of longtime friends.

In 1997, he moved the Caddies a couple of miles west along Interstate 40 to distance them from Amarillo's encroaching sprawl. They needed space.

"It's flat here, and just on the horizon, just as you see it, the tail fins begin to rise, and you don't know what it is," the animated Marsh said of the Cadillacs' skyward-pointing rear ends. "Even after you see it you don't know why it's there.

"In my mind it's made for people who have never seen it or a picture of it."

No desk, occasional water balloons
Marsh (he uses the numeral 3 instead of III because he believes the latter is pretentious) grew up in Amarillo the son of a millionaire oil tycoon. He returned to the Panhandle in the late 1960s after getting his master's degree in American civilization at the University of Pennsylvania.

At first, he wanted to teach but instead bought a share of a downtown bookstore. He could have worked for his father but liked working on his own, he said. "And then things happened."

Marsh served as a bank board director and then married. He and Wendy Marsh, an attorney who once worked for U.S. Sen. John Tower, R-Texas, have remained strong proponents and philanthropes of education and art in the Amarillo area. Amarillo has its own brand of charm, said Marsh, who has owned two television stations, one in this city of about 175,000.

Marsh spends his days at an office occupying the entire 12th floor of a downtown high-rise. (He used to be on the top floor, occasionally dropping water balloons on unsuspecting pedestrians.) A pantry of condiments and other spices nearly fills a picnic table at which he eats lunch most days. He has no desk.

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The sprawling, airy office is divided randomly, filled with what appear to be Jackson Pollock, Andy Warhol and Mark Rothko paintings. All, however, are fakes he and a friend forged because he didn't want to pay for originals.

"I'm a low budget guy," Marsh said. "I'm not rich. I'm certainly very comfortable but I don't have a private jet."

Marsh has had his battles along the way. In 1994, he was accused of locking a young man in a chicken coop for about 15 minutes for stealing one of his hundreds of diamond-shaped street signs with slogans and prose such as "Big Deal," "Steal This Sign" and "My Grandmother Can Whip Your Grandmother."

Four years later, prosecutors agreed to dismiss five felony charges against him in exchange for a no-contest plea to two misdemeanors. Civil suits related to the incident were eventually settled.

He survived a life-threatening bout with pneumonia about 10 years ago that kept him hospitalized for three weeks and he has battled alcohol. He's been sober for years, said Wyatt McSpadden, a professional photographer and longtime friend.

"He's more the same now as then. He hasn't changed a bit, except that he's not drunk," McSpadden said. "There's no one else like him."

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