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My Art Collection
Sep. 26th, 2021 01:10 amThe first major piece of art I bought was a Bob Eggleton bronze bust of Godzilla which I bought at the Philadelphia Worldcon. I picked up about nine more pieces over the next couple of decades, either through local art exhibits, science fiction conventions, or as travel mementos.
For a long time, I've played a little game in art museums deciding which pictures I would hang in my apartment, and I've wondered what art like that actually costs. After an exhibit of paintings by Chiura Obata, a California artist who was interned during World War II, I finally got around to registering with a free auction site so I could see old auction results, and I learned that some of these pictures actually were in my price range. I made a list of artists who I liked from museums who seemed to be in my price range and set up watch lists, and while I was waiting for pieces I liked by those artists to show up, I browsed what seemed like promising auctions and quickly figured out that prints (including limited editions) were the best value for my budget.
I started bidding on pieces in March 2020, and in that time I've acquired about a dozen Japanese woodblocks, 40-odd other woodblocks and silkscreen prints (mostly American), nine photographs (which curators show absolutely no interest in, but I like them), a nice sumi ink painting of a horse by Obata (that watchlist paid off), a 19th century watercolor of a rag gatherer I really like, and a large 1907 drawing in colored pencil and charcoal by one of my woodblock artists. Since I began collecting seriously I've hung eleven pictures and I am running out of wall space. Today I bid on 23 lots in a woodblock auction and won six, including a whimsical portrayal of St. Francis in a diving suit preaching to fascinated underwater fauna.
( St. Francis woodblock )
For a long time, I've played a little game in art museums deciding which pictures I would hang in my apartment, and I've wondered what art like that actually costs. After an exhibit of paintings by Chiura Obata, a California artist who was interned during World War II, I finally got around to registering with a free auction site so I could see old auction results, and I learned that some of these pictures actually were in my price range. I made a list of artists who I liked from museums who seemed to be in my price range and set up watch lists, and while I was waiting for pieces I liked by those artists to show up, I browsed what seemed like promising auctions and quickly figured out that prints (including limited editions) were the best value for my budget.
I started bidding on pieces in March 2020, and in that time I've acquired about a dozen Japanese woodblocks, 40-odd other woodblocks and silkscreen prints (mostly American), nine photographs (which curators show absolutely no interest in, but I like them), a nice sumi ink painting of a horse by Obata (that watchlist paid off), a 19th century watercolor of a rag gatherer I really like, and a large 1907 drawing in colored pencil and charcoal by one of my woodblock artists. Since I began collecting seriously I've hung eleven pictures and I am running out of wall space. Today I bid on 23 lots in a woodblock auction and won six, including a whimsical portrayal of St. Francis in a diving suit preaching to fascinated underwater fauna.
( St. Francis woodblock )
