Visual Art Jan 6, 2014 at 3:15 pm

Comments

1
Whoa, those are great, aren't they?
2
I saw these also - although I do not like all of them, they are pretty good and interesting. I cannot say the same for about 90+% of the stuff at Ballard Consignment - - that place is a dump!
3
I don't think the last one is maudlin. Not as well executed as the guy looking at the letter, that's true.

Very interesting find.
4
The mom with child one is really really great. Did you not buy any of them?
5
Decent paintings, but perhaps, since the regrets issue is still fresh, you can make a note of the first of 2014 for misuse of the term "maudlin"?
6
http://www.girlfriendsestatesales.com/20…
7
There is a lead in the cartoonish one. I bet Rev Edward C Collier is real.
8
Hi I own the Ballard consignment store. So the paintings are from photos or some other images and the family that liked these images in the past commissioned an artist In China to make these from the photos they sent Him/her. It was a while back and all the paintings are in vintage frames. I hope this helps answer your question.
Joey
9
Joey: Thanks for responding. If you see this tonight: Do you know whether the photos were of people in their own family (especially the man, and the woman and baby)?

Also, someone who saw this re-posted on Facebook posted a link to an estate sale in Shoreline in November with photos that show these paintings. Is that where you got them?

Any idea how far back is "a while back"? I always think of commissioning artists in China as a relatively recent phenomenon, but I could be wrong about that.
10
The "cartoonish one" is a quick caricature, like you'd see done on the street or at a party, with a background painted in after the fact.

Is it common for commissioned Chinese artists to sign their work so prominently? That seems a little odd to me.
11
For the curious, here's the estate sale the paintings apparently came from.
12
The one with the guy reading the letter is the winner, IMO. I would like to see the original photo, because the painter in China (per #8) provides a curious filter.

But this does not seem at all photo realistic to me. There's an apparent attempt at realism in the letter-reader figure (great job on the face) but there are some anatomical peculiarities, especially in his angular left arm and his pincer-like left hand. And then the artist isn't at all worried about perspective in the floor patterns and ceiling lights. And the background figures are highly stylized, kind of half way to Jacob Lawrence. Good painting. Thanks, Jen.
13
Yes I bought them all from the family at the Estate sale. I'm guessing they are older because the gal whom sold them to me said they were her Dad's and he had sent for them to be made overseas, that combined with the vintage frames makes me think they are kinda old. I would do more research. They may have been magazine pictures, I think the one of the lady on the ground is from a movie.
14
These remind me of Justin Beckman and his commissioning a Chinese company to paint his portrait as General Grant for his show at Punch Gallery this year.
But the bigger question- are they still art, if, contrary to the hope that some undiscovered outsider painted them, they were, instead, painted by a professional painter of commercial art, in a factory setting?
When Beckman commissioned a similar painting, and showed it in a gallery, there was a veneer of irony.
But at what point do we look at the work itself, in isolation, and when is the opinion changed by who did the work, where, and when?
And how, exactly, do these differ from paintings "done" by Damien Hirst, or Jeff Koons, who have factories full of employees doing the actual painting?
15
Kim Y.S. is not a Chinese name, it's a Korean name. Kim is one of the most common Korean surnames, like Park, and YS could easily stand for a common Korean first-and-middle-name combination like Yung Soon or Yong Soo. There is, in fact, a Yong Soo Kim who paints, but it's not the same artist, as far as I can see...

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