Directly descended from the last pirate publicly hung in Charleston, South Carolina, legendary scourge of the seas Earl Hugh Rose, Michael Rose's known history dates from December 12, 1971 when the wretched child, of perhaps four years of age, was found abandoned on the steps of the Sisters of Mercy Home for Boys in St. John, Newfoundland. Active discouragement from all pleasurable habits and the repeated, prolonged physical abuse at the hands of older, stronger boys finally caused the Sisters to seek placement of young Rose elsewhere. A fishing trawler bound for international waters off the coast of Japan agreed to take him on as mess boy. Nothing more is known of the artist until 1983, when he resurfaced in the ward of a public hospital in Guangzhou, China, near Hong Kong.

Apparently suffering from Yellow Fever and found wandering the streets in a delirious and malnourished state, it was while convalescing that Rose began his first surviving series of paintings, the infamous and so-called, "Headless Series."

The exhibition of these paintings, as is now commonly known, were found by the Communist Chinese authorities to be so perverse that after being imprisoned and beaten for more than a year, Mr. Rose was expelled from China and returned to what American Embassy officials told him was his birthright, the Rose ancestral plantation outside of Georgetown, South Carolina. Abandoned for many decades, Rose quickly decided to forsake the crumbling plantation house with its terrible ghosts and debauched past. Upon leaving he set the rotten hulk ablaze and eventually established residency in Bruynswick, Ulster Co., N.Y. where, from 1996 to winter, 2006, he maintained an art studio in a 17th century farmhouse with his wife, Kristina, and their three children, all of whom were adopted during a voyage to the Philippines in 1998.

Since 1992, Rose has eeked his living exclusively from his artwork; painting, drawing, bookmaking, and occasional tatooing. When last seen, on February 5, 2006, he was known to be researching occult phenomena in a vermin infested barn on the Bruynswick property. He hasn't been seen by human eyes from that time. Cult activity is widespread in the area. A local police investigation remains open. At this time, they are awaiting lab results of a hideous ectoplasm that was found at the scene.