Yesterday Dick Goody, curator of the Art Gallery at Oakland University, asked me what my first art purchase was - - I think no one has ever asked me that. I am incredibly sorry that I did't turn the question back on him. Hopefully I will be able to correct that oversight. I was flummoxed and momentarily unable to search my memory back that far without prompts - the visual prompts of my collection. He also used that word - collection - a word I think I've never used for my art. I will from now on. It does fit.
Oakland University in Oakland County, Michigan, absolutely needs to have a first rate world class Art Gallery/Museum. They have an amazing collection which needs sharing.
My first art piece as a gift came from an art student who I knew when I was in college. She called it "Icarus Falling" but I didn't know that at the time and so I hung "Icarus" as "Icarus Rising" - that being more hopeful, sadly poor Icarus eventually did fall however. Clicking on photos enlarges them.
The first oil we bought was a very small affordable piece that we got from Arwin Galleries in downtown Detroit back in the day. The artist was Rukavina and the scene he painted might have been from a gallery opening - or maybe my memory wants to remember the name (The Gallery Opening) as that.
Lester sold us quite a few pieces over the years but unfortunately we did not take him up on one superb piece entitled, if I remember correctly, "High Yellow". I can visualize it to this day. He told us we could make time payments and the price really was not horrific but we were both teachers making nothing and living from paycheck to paycheck so we declined. That was the biggest art mistake we ever made. A good lesson to learn. I am still uncomfortable buying things on time - the child of Depression Era parents.
Most of the time we bought etchings because those we could afford - and they appealed to us. We'd go downtown almost every weekend wander the streets, tour the many galleries, have lunch sometimes in Hudson's and other times at the Caucus Club or the London Chop House. There was a small frame shop in downtown Royal Oak, when it was a separate city before it became a suburb, where we'd have them framed. I remember what the gallery owner looked like but cannot remember his name - yet.
The etching below was done by Peterdi. I have another of his tree etchings. They remind me a bit of what I fantasize B'rer Rabbit's briar patch was like. Farmer MacGregor! You know I love trees, spring, summer, fall, winter. I love them.
This is an etching by Jacques Villon of his brother the sculptor Marcel Duchamp working on a marble - or at least that's how I remember the story. I am very fond of our early purchases. They started an enriching life long love of art. Thank you Dick for awaking some long quiescent memories.
