The Russian Spy Who Painted Brooklyn Red

The papers called him a master spy, an identity-shifting KGB colonel dispatched to mid-century America to lead a vast network of espionage. My father called him a friend.

Illustrations by Zach Worton

This is a story about a man named Rudolf Ivanovich Abel. He was a colonel in the KGB—a master spy, a mole deeply embedded in the United States, and the central hub of a massive, all-consuming espionage network that threatened all that we hold near and dear.

Well, that’s not totally true.

He was also Emil Goldfus, a kindly, unassuming, retired photofinisher and amateur painter, developing his craft with a group of fledgling Realist artists living and working in Brooklyn in the 1950’s.

Of course, that’s not entirely true either.