Michael Jackson's Only Portrait

Portrait of Michael Jackson up for auction online
April 7, 2010, 12:05 PM EST
LOS ANGELES (AP) -- An over-the-top portrait of Michael Jackson is going up for auction online.
The eBay.com auction of the 50-by-40-inch painting by Australian artist Brett-Livingstone Strong will launch Wednesday evening, the portrait's owner said Tuesday. The colorful portrait, titled "The Book," and reportedly the only painting for which the King of Pop ever posed, depicts Jackson in a red velvet jacket, clutching a journal at his Neverland Ranch.
"I've had it an awful long time," said toy inventor Marty Abrams, who acquired the painting with partner John Gentilly in 1992 from Japanese businessman Hiromichi Saeki as payment on a debt owed to them. "With the positive response to his music and the movie about him after his death, we thought it was a good time to sell it and for the world to see it."

For over 17 years, Abrams kept the painting in storage in a New Jersey warehouse. It was briefly on display at the Dancy-Power Automotive showroom in Harlem after Jackson's death last June. The fantastical painting, which also features the fairy character Tinkerbell hovering in the background, is hanging inside Abrams' home in Kings Point, N.Y.
The painting was originally sold to Saeki for $2.1 million in 1990. Abrams said the painting was appraised by Belgo Fine Art Appraisal and Restoration at $5.3 million in 2000, but he believes it is worth more now. Abrams hopes it will fetch over $3 million in the auction, which is scheduled to end April 17. The minimum starting bid will be $2.75 million.
"Frankly, I thought instead of trying to call out to other people, let's bring the people that are really interested to us," said auction organizer Marc Samson. "The idea of doing it on eBay in an auction format seemed to make the most sense. When Marty's son, Ken, came to me with the painting, it hit me across the face. This is the way to get it out there."

http://music.msn.com/music/article.aspx?news=492060&gt1=28102

My Paintings are available on Etsy

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Happy Birthday Vincent

 Of all the paintings I've seen in museums over the years, its always the Van Gogh's that have the barricades around them.

I am always moved when I see his work, not only by his incredible mind blowing skill but by the brilliancy of his colors, as if the paintings were just painted yesterday. You just can't grasp the beauty of his work in photographs or prints until you see them in person. His work has been a huge influence in my work and he holds a special place in my heart. So in honor of his birthday, I hope you will enjoy these pictures.

 Vincent Letter to Theo

“ — that dead tree beside a stagnant pond covered in duckweed, in the distance a Rijnspoor depot where railway lines cross, smoke-blackened buildings — also green meadows, a cinder road and a sky in which the clouds are racing, grey with an occasional gleaming white edge, and a depth of blue where the clouds tear apart for a moment.”

Vincent Willem van Gogh

(30 March 1853 – 29 July 1890)

Traveler

This is a very large gallery sized painting and took several days to complete. It has the theme of traveling.  I drew the deer from a photograph I took of a deer at a wildlife preserve. I loved the pose of the deer and drew it with graphite pencil. Then I roughly painted the deer allowing the graphite to show through. I wanted to do something different and modern. I wanted this to have a rustic look with the rough and drippy rust and copper colored paint. I love how the turquoise antlers stand out and I outlined them with hot pink. I enlarged part of an old French Postcard, added the large sun and silhouette of the vintage airplane. I mean for the soft blue and green swipe of color to represent a river and grass along a river. Finally, I sealed it with a light varnish to protect the graphite.

TRAVELER.

40 X 48.

OIL, ACRYLIC AND GRAPHITE ON CANVAS

This painting is for sale on My Website

http://www.art-star.net/

Abstract Heart

My little Abstract Heart painting has been featured on the RI handmade blog.

http://rihandmade.blogspot.com/

GAMES PEOPLE PLAY

New Painting.

GAMES PEOPLE PLAY

12 x 18.

Surrealism

Oil on Canvas.

Private Collections Of Texas

I finally made it to the Kimball Art Museum in Fort Worth to see "The Private Collections of Texas" exhibit.

Giorgio de Chirico's "Hector and Andromache" was stunning. But as always I was intrigued and in love with Magritte's "Daily Bread".

And well worth the trip to see the Kimball's new acquisition Michelangelo's "The Torment of Saint Anthony" (1487-88), which was his first painting at age 12 and is one of only 4 known easel paintings.

Queen Of Hearts

New Painting.

Self Portrait. 24 x 34. Oil on Canvas.

with my new signature.

Biggest Art Heist In History

Josh Reynolds / AP


20 years later, biggest art heist still a mystery
Investigators make renewed push to find loot valued at half a billion dollars

By Steve LeBlanc

BOSTON - It remains the most tantalizing art heist mystery in the world.
In the early hours of March 18, 1990, two thieves walked into Boston's elegant Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum disguised as police officers and bound and gagged two guards using handcuffs and duct tape. For the next 81 minutes, they sauntered around the ornate galleries, removing masterworks including those by Rembrandt, Vermeer, Degas and Manet, cutting some of the largest pieces from their frames.
By the time they disappeared, they would be credited with the largest art theft in history, making off with upward of a half-billion dollars in loot far too hot to sell.

Now, 20 years later, investigators are making a renewed push to recover the paintings. The FBI has resubmitted DNA samples for updated testing, the museum is publicizing its $5 million, no-questions-asked reward, and the U.S. attorney's office is offering immunity.
Two billboards on Interstates 93 and 495 are also advertising the reward.
"Our priority is to get the paintings back," U.S. Attorney Carmen Ortiz said. "If someone had information or had possession of the paintings, immunity from prosecution is negotiable."
Investigators say they've largely ruled out some of the more popular theories, from the specter of a recluse billionaire art collector to the hand of notorious Boston gangster Whitey Bulger.
More likely, investigators say, the two were homegrown thieves with knowledge of the museum's security system — including the absence of a "dead man's switch" that would have alerted police. They might have even underestimated the breathtaking scope of their crime.
"I picture the thieves waking up the next morning and looking in the papers and saying, 'We just pulled off the largest art theft in history,'" said Anthony Amore, the museum's security director.
Men took their timeThe theft began around 1:24 a.m. when the two white men — one in his late 20s to mid-30s, the other in his early to mid-30s — overpowered the guards, according to an FBI report.
The two took their time. A full 24 minutes passed before they were first picked up on a motion detector entering the museum's second floor Dutch room, where the most valuable paintings were seized.

Investigators believe the first nabbed was Rembrandt's iconic "Storm on the Sea of Galilee," measuring about 5-by-4 feet and dating to 1633. The frame was laid on the floor where one of the thieves neatly sliced it from its frame.

Next was "Landscape with an Obelisk" by Govaert Flinck.

Other stolen masterpieces included a second Rembrandt also cut from its frame, "A Lady and Gentleman in Black" from 1633.

The most valuable pieces was Vermeer's "The Concert," an oil painting measuring about 2 1/2-by-2 feet from 1660 — one of only 36 known works by the Dutch master and valued at more than $250 million, Amore said.

A Rembrandt self-portrait from 1629 — one of the museum's most valuable paintings — was removed from the wall, but then left untouched while one of the crooks patiently unscrewed and removed from its frame a tiny Rembrandt etching slightly larger than a postage stamp.
It was the first of many odd twists investigators have puzzled over as they mapped the route the thieves using motion detector records.
Odd pieces stolenAfter the heavier works of art were removed from the walls, the thief in charge — possibly the older of the two — might have let the younger thief take what he wanted.
Amore believes the second thief found his way to a nearby gallery, lifting smaller Degas drawings of horses while passing up more valuable works of art including one by the Italian painter Botticelli.
The thieves also tried to remove a flag of Napoleon's First Regiment from its frame before giving up and making off with a bronze finial in the shape of an eagle from atop the flag — ignoring more valuable letters with Napoleon's signature.
Then came a final puzzle.

At some point the thieves found their way to a gallery on the first floor, again passing more valuable works of arts, to seize a "Chez Tortoni," a Manet painting of a man in a top hat and a departure from the Dutch paintings — all without triggering a motion detector.

"If we ever speak to the thieves, which is secondary, I would like to say, 'Why did you take that? Why did you pass by the Raphael?'" Amore said.
On their way out, the two thieves smashed their way into the security office and snatched the only visual record of their crime — a VHS tape.
In all, 13 works disappeared.
'Missing that last chapter'FBI agent Geoffrey Kelly, who has led the investigation for eight years, said it's unlikely the thieves destroyed the art.
"If it were any other kind of commodity, I might feel pessimistic about recovery, but with art it's not uncommon to stay missing for long periods of time," he said. "It's one of the most interesting novels you could write, except it's missing that last chapter."
For those drawn to what happened that March night, the lure of the theft won't fade.

Ulrich Boser, author of "The Gardner Heist" and a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, said he's convinced the paintings were taken by burglars involved in Boston's organized crime rackets in the 1980s. He said the thieves might have subsequently lost possession of the works.
"For the most part, thieves steal these works because it's easy to do and they're worth a lot of money, and then they become too hot," he said. "You can't sell them on eBay. You can't bring them into an auction house."
Amore said he won't stop until the paintings again fill the empty frames still hanging in the museum's galleries.
"I don't have any doubt we are going to recover them," he said. "There's nothing we're not doing."

Flowers and Memory

Me with a couple of paintings I did this last year.

Sized 48 x 48.

Available on my website
http://www.Art-Star.net

Featured Paintings

Available on my website http://www.Art-Star.net

Sculpture sets record for highest price paid for art

Giacometti sculpture fetches record $104M

Price for ‘Walking Man I’ is highest ever paid for work of art at auction

LONDON - A life-size bronze sculpture of a man by Alberto Giacometti was sold Wednesday at a London auction for 65 million pounds ($104.3 million) — a world record for the most expensive work of art ever sold at auction, Sotheby’s auction house said.
It took just eight minutes of furious bidding for about ten bidders to reach the hammer price for “L’Homme Qui Marche I” (Walking Man I), which opened at 12 million pounds, Sotheby’s said.
The sculpture by the 20th century Swiss artist, considered an iconic Giacometti work as well as one of the most recognizable images of modern art, was sold to an anonymous bidder by telephone, the auction house said.

Sotheby’s had estimated the work would sell for between 12 to 18 million pounds.
The sale price trumped the $104.17 million paid at a 2004 New York auction for Pablo Picasso’s 1905 “Boy With a Pipe (The Young Apprentice).” That painting broke the record that Vincent van Gogh had held since 1990, and its sale was the first time that the $100 million barrier was broken.
“L’Homme Qui Marche I,” a life-size sculpture of a thin and wiry human figure standing 72 inches (183 centimeters) tall , “represents the pinnacle of Giacometti’s experimentation with the human form” and is “both a humble image of an ordinary man, and a potent symbol of humanity,” Sotheby’s said.
The work was cast in 1961, in the artist’s mature period. It is rare because it was the only cast of the walking man made during Giacometti’s lifetime that has ever come to auction, Sotheby’s said. It was bought by Dresdner Bank in the early 1980s.
The last time a Giacometti of comparable size was offered at auction was 20 years ago. That sculpture was sold for $6.82 million, a record for Giacometti works at the time.

Associated Press

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/35223008/ns/entertainment-arts_books_more/?GT1=43001

My Paintings are available on Etsy

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Rah Rah Grammys Gaga

I just love it when big shouldered broads wear art as a dress.

photo link

The Big Beauiful World Of Art

Person At The Window

by

Salvador Dali

Recently I heard someone who is a supposed art expert say she thought Picasso was awful. In fact I think she said she "hated" it to use her exact word. All said while making a squinty prune face. That was not before she confused him with Dali, whom I got the impression that she doesn’t even actually know.
Inside I was laughing hysterically. Or else I was weeping with sadness.
I wanted to tell her to open her needle thin mind. The idea is that even if you don’t like an artist’s style, at least you can appreciate the work. Especially if you are an artist. Not her. Which I found rather shocking coming from someone who is a supposed art expert. She is someone who thinks Thomas Kinkade is God’s gift to art. And it was very obvious and rather sad to find that she is so limited in her appreciation of a huge, beautiful world of art variety.
To hear someone bash Picasso and praise Thomas Kinkade, I had to write this.
While I can definitely appreciate Thomas Kinkade’s work and achievement, at this point I have to wonder what happened to the actual “art” in his art?
When I saw Thomas Kinkade himself on some home shopping show pushing Thomas Kinkade teddy bears for like $100 I think I threw up a little. The way they were describing it you would have thought it was made of ancient Chinese silk and 24 carat gold. There was no art on the bear. I think it was holding an alphabet block and that was it. Big whoop. And how much are they?!! It made me feel icky. It makes me feel like at this point he is swindling little old ladies, making them think they are buying something valuable when they aren’t.
His work is so overproduced that here you have these little old ladies collecting like 26 of his prints, (as one caller claimed), thinking they have something of value when in fact it is my belief that at this point his work is less valuable than what people are actually paying for it.
15 or 20 years ago perhaps his prints were worth something but now…..uh uh. He is diluting his own value by overproducing his work.

Remember beanie babies? Everyone had to have one. Everyone was collecting them. They were selling for outrageous prices. Then they became so overproduced that now you can probably find them at any given garage sale. Unless you have one of the very early ones or you happen to encounter a beanie baby hoarder who is willing to stupidly pay anything for them, they aren’t worth much.
I see this happening to Thomas Kinkade’s work. Unless you buy one of his original paintings or early reproduction, you are wasting your money. When I saw a deck of Thomas Kinkade playing cards I knew it was all over. At least for collectors. Not for him obviously. He is making millions. But for self proclaimed “collectors” of Thomas Kinkade, his work is a money vacuum.
There is no “limited edition” in overproduced work. The value is in the rarity. So don’t waste your money. You would be better off investing in a beautiful ORIGINAL landscape by someone no one has ever heard of.
Thomas Kinkade paints pretty landscapes. There is no knocking that. But he’s a one trick pony. They are all houses with flowers and light. It’s the same thing over and over again just in a different composition. Yawn. There is no genius in that. I’m no artistic genius but I could reproduce one of his paintings stroke by stroke if I wanted to. Picasso and Dali on the other hand, it would take an artistic genius to reproduce one of their works.
Every painting Picasso and Dali painted were different from the previous. That is the true genius of their work. They painted many things and in many styles. If you think Picasso only painted cubist women you are sadly mistaken and I would encourage you to explore his other work. I would encourage you by saying don’t limit yourself to just one artist or one style. There is a great big world of magnificent art out there! If you like Thomas Kinkade’s style, have a look around, there are thousands of other unknown artists who paint paintings that are just as or more beautiful that cost far less than his reproductions and will possibly be worth a lot more. And if you still insist on buying Thomas Kinkade’s work, seek out the early pieces and research them thoroughly.
As for my work, that ‘art expert’ told me my work was “unique”. And the way she said it was not a compliment. She said it in a looking-down-her-nose-at-me way. But I actually take it as a huge compliment. Unique is what I was aiming for. Mission accomplished.

Here are some magnificent lesser known works by Picasso and Dali for you to enjoy.

WORKS BY PABLO PICASSO

Acrobat and Young Harlequin.

1905. Oil on canvas. Barnes Foundation, Lincoln University, Merion, PA, USA.

First Communion.

1895/96. Oil on canvas. Museo Picasso, Barcelona, Spain.

Still-Life with a Pitcher and Apples.

1919. Oil on canvas. Musée Picasso, Paris, France.

Portrait of Olga in the Armchair.

1917. Oil on canvas. Musée Picasso, Paris, France.

Science and Charity.

1897. Oil on canvas. Museo Picasso, Barcelona, Spain.

Self-Portrait in Blue Period.

1901. Oil on canvas.

The Family of Saltimbanques.

1905. Oil on canvas. The National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, USA.

Portrait of Suzanne Bloch

1904

Portrait of Mme Olga Picasso.

1922-23. Pastel.

Group of Dancers.

Olga Kokhlova is Lying in the Foreground. 1919-20. Crayon.

The Old Guitarist
1903

Boy with Pipe or Garcon a la Pipe

1905.

$104.17 million was paid for this painting at a 2004 New York auction.

The highest selling painting on record.

SEE MORE PICASSO WORKS HERE
http://www.abcgallery.com/P/picasso/picasso.html



WORKS BY SALVADOR DALI

The Basket of Bread.

1926. Oil on panel. 31.5 x 31.5 Salvador Dali Museum, St. Petersburg, FL, USA.

Woman at the Window at Figueres.

1926. Oil on canvas. 21 x 21.5 cm. Gala-Salvador Dali Foundation, Figueras, Spain.

Portrait of Luis Buñuel.

1924. Oil on canvas. 70 x 60 cm. Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid, Spain.

Olive Trees.

Landscape at Cadaqués. ca.1922. Private collection.

The Discovery of America by Christopher Columbus.

1958-9. Oil on canvas. 410 x 310 cm. Salvador Dali Museum, St. Petersburg, FL,

The Lacemaker

(after Vermeer) 1954-55. Oil on canvas. 23.5 x 19.7 cm. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, USA.

Paranoiac-Astral Image.

1934. Oil on panel. 15.8 x 22.1 cm. Wadsworth Athenaeum, Hartford, CT, USA.


SEE MORE DALI WORKS HERE
http://www.abcgallery.com/D/dali/dali.html