I've been painting for more than 25 years now. In that time, a number of paintings have been acquired by collectors. I know where most of the artwork resides and with whom. But, there are pieces that I've sorta lost track of. Case in point, the Ricky Jay painting. This was purchased by a friend and collector in Virginia. I was aware that this person had gotten out of magic at one point and perhaps might have passed the painting on to someone else. I had an idea who that other person might be, the only problem was, that person had since died and their collection was scattered to the winds.
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| Denny-FOUND |
Imagine my surprise when this painting turned back up a few days ago. Indeed, the original owner had either gifted or sold the painting to Denny Haney of Denny and Lee's Magic Studio. But as I said, Denny had died. Now, back in the day, I was commissioned to paint Denny himself, and that painting showed up in an auction a year or so ago. That was another painting I never expected to see. It has a good home today.
The Ricky Jay is going to another collector and I'm very happy as this person seems quite thrilled to be receiving it.
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| LOST |
Are there other paintings? Yes. There are two David Bull paintings, he is the guy from the Le Grand David Magic Show (see left). There are two Cesareo Pelaez paintings, again, he is from le Grand David. There is a Houdini that I sold but lost the information of who bought it when my computer crashed. There is a Slydini painting which went to a collector who has since died. There is a Blackstone Sr painting that also went to a collector who has since passed away. Ken Klosterman owned a Thurston, which has never appeared in any of the auctions, that I know of, so it's lost. There might be more that I don't recall at the moment.
Then there are the ones in private collections. One collector owns: A Doug Henning, a Copperfield, the Dante w/Cigar, a Herrmann the Great, and the first Kellar painting I did. Another collector owns: the yellow Lance Burton, a Doug Henning w/Rainbow, and a Thurston Sawing in Half painting, oh and this guy also owns the Denny painting I mentioned above. There is a collector who owns my first Penn and Teller, another who owns a huge commissioned work of Cardini. There is a Thurston painting owned by a collector in Rhode Island. There are maybe a dozen more that are out there, and I know where they are. In fact, with most of them, I know the walls they hang on, lol.
All of these I mentioned are originals. The prints are a whole different story. I will say, as an artist, it's rewarding to know that my artwork brings joy to people. Nothing worse than artwork that isn't displayed for everyone to see. Trust me, I have tons of that! There but so many walls in my home. I think this is every artist's curse. Even with selling a bunch of the artwork, I still have a ton here. But the good news, if you are interested, you can own a print, and possibly an original on the rare occasion that I let them go.
