When I heard the auctioneer say the word “African,” I instinctively looked up. He was holding a large and heavy book in his hand, unsteadily, as he flipped to a front page. From where I…
Category: Art
So I’m sitting in the audience at the auction, my hands and feet freezing because the owner has not fired up the furnace for the season, when I noticed that the auctioneer kept mentioning the…
The trio was sitting high and playing loud. The auction house had placed the wooden female jazz singer, and her piano and trumpet players on a perch atop some furniture seemingly to give them prominence. They…
Protest posters from the Vietnam War
Posted in Art, and Ephemera/Paper/Documents
The entire back stone wall of the auction house was awash in posters. Their silent messages gave off the forceful sound of the weapons in the war they were protesting. Someone was selling a large…
Who was Phila. artist Collins Thomas?
Posted in Art, and Reader questions
Friday at Auction Finds is readers’ questions day. I try to guide readers to resources to help them determine the value of their items. I’m not able to appraise their treasures, but I can do…
I feel like I’m in the midst of a whirlwind of African American art. I keep bumping into familiar artists and their early works, discovering a different style of their works, and meeting new artists. I’ve written…
Friday at Auction Finds is readers’ questions day. I try to guide readers to resources to help them determine the value of their items. I’m not able to appraise their treasures, but I can do…
Most of the carved heads were displayed so high atop furniture that I had to stand back to get a good look at them. I had searched for them specifically at the auction house because…
A forlorn drawing that no one wanted
Posted in Art
No one would take Linda home. I couldn’t blame them because she looked like one miserable person, without a tinge of hope. Her face was drawn, her stare vacant. So when her portrait came up for…
“I hate the stuff,” I overheard the man say to his friend. I was across a table from them in a large open-air shelter in the side yard of the auction house. We were all…