Harold and Kathryn "Kate" Shapinsky are best known for playing their roles in a real life "fairy tale," which was captured by Lawrence Weschler in Shapinsky's Karma. In that story as in reality, Harold Shapinsky was an abstract expressionist painter and the son of Russian jewish immigrants. He married a modern dancer, Kathryn Peters Shapinsky, the daughter of a prominent New York-New England protestant family. And until the mid-eighties, Harold Shapinsky lived the life of a relative unknown.

In 1985, Akumal Ramachander, Salman Rushdie, and Tariq Ali, among others helped turn misfortune into luck, bringing Harold Shapinsky much of the recognition he had never before experienced.

More on: Harold Shapinsky; Kate Shapinsky.

Galleries: Franklin Riehlman Fine Art; Waterman & Co