Alright, I’ve been thinking about starting this thread for a while. This is a place to share what you’ve got hanging on your walls, and the story of how it got there.
Art is important to me, and I can’t image hanging anything that doesn’t really resonate. This is the first piece of art I ever bought because I simply had to own it …
I bought this on my first trip to Ecuador with my ex wife. We were in this little beach town called Salinas, and there was a guy selling paintings from a little kiosk. I saw him setting up one evening–climbing an unsteady ladder to steal power from the utility lines overhead, hanging the paintings. The paintings he was selling were clearly by a mix of artists, and most of them didn’t register at all for me. But this one jumped out.
I think it’s a fantastic piece, still maybe my favorite. Had to cut it off the stretcher and have to restretched back in DC. We went back to Ecuador a few months later (not just for this purpose) and tracked down some other work by the artist (Daniel Ortega, I believe a Colombian). I bought this piece, but clearly it is inferior to the larger original work.
Of course, I think I paid $100 for the first one because I was some random dude buying from a random dude in a random place. Second time around my ex-wife’s family helped track down an art dealer who located a couple of more his pieces. They were smaller and not as good, but 3x the price. Funny…
Years later I was at a North Carolina flea market and bought this for $10 …
Joan Miro is one of my favorite artists, and so this lithograph for an art sale in 1974 was immediately attractive. But it got more interesting when I did some research on the Gabos Art Center.
Turns out the owner, Cornell Gabos, spent years in prison for selling fakes. I wrote a little blog post about the litho and Gabos, and now I get ocassional emails from folks asking me if some print they bought at the Salvation Army could be a real Picasso (these prints have Gabos name on the back sometimes, and they find my blog).
I snagged this at an auction for less than $100. The guy who framed it warned me it could be fake when he asked what I paid for it …
… I’m interested in this idea of “fakes.” There are lots of ways a print can be fake–a real, authorized image with a fake signature. A signature on a blank sheet, with the print later added. A wholly original-fake image, with fake signature.
Barcelona 1964 was a portfolio of 10-12 lithographs in an edition size of 100 (how many lithos there were is unclear). Complete set went at Christies in 2008. Here’s an image of apparently all of them.
I’m inclined to think this is real, as it fits the description. This is the cover image, it is numbered and initialed in accordance with other mentions I’ve seen. I don’t think it’s particularly valuable, but I am thrilled to have it.
This next piece is maybe familiar to folks. Edition of 250, by Ralph Steadman, originally accompanying Rolling Stone’s printing of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter Thompson.
Here’s what that first printing looks like …
I have some other HST stuff, including a signed poster from a lecture he did at Arizona State. He was a fascinating character, though often people seem to latch on for not the greatest reasons.
Last piece I’ll include here is the most recent acquisition. Local arts conservatory has an annual auction, and someone donated this piece by Nicholas Takis.
As soon as I saw this painting, I was hooked.
I think there were three bidders? I was shocked. The painting just had this magnetic pull for me–the same feeling I had in Ecuador for the very first painting.
