According to the Trigg Ison Gallery, the title of this work is "Lonesome: Emmett Kelley".
It is quite obviously a painting of Otto Griebling.
"Veres", having spent so much time around clowns and being a personal friend of Emmett's, would certainly have been able to tell the difference between the two, no?
TITLE: Lonesome: Emmett Kelley (sic)
ARTIST: Veres
WORK DATE: circa 1949
CATEGORY: Paintings
MATERIALS: Oil on Canvas
MARKINGS: signed
SIZE: h: 16 x w: 18 in
REGION: American
STYLE: Modern
This painting is now in the personal collection of Ms. Geraldine Clark.
I'm wondering if the painter created this from a live sitting or from a photograph. Does the gallery know?
ReplyDeleteYears ago, when I got a job at a major photo library, I went through their 'circus' file. Almost all of the pictures of performers were captioned incorrectly. I spent A LOT of time going through the files, putting the correct names on them.
A few weeks ago I sent them links to pictures of both Otto and Emmett, but haven't heard from them. It looks like they're sticking with the Emmett title. Looking at it from a commercial and not historical point of view, it probably makes sense, since Emmett's name would probably fetch a lot more money than Otto's. Just think, if they had a portrait of Millard Fillmore they could probably quadruple it's value by calling it a portrait of George Washington. I believe that's called crossmarketing in modern parlance.
ReplyDeleteRik Gern
What a beautiful painting.
ReplyDeleteThis is definitely Otto. How well I know, --- I was on the Ringling Circus and know the different between Otto and Emmett. Enjoyed working with both of them -as well as all the performing clowns in clown alley. They were all great.
OTTO, Look down upon who ever it is responsiable for this mistake. We performers know it is you in this portrait. God Bless your soul. We all Miss you.
I can tell you this is 100% Otto Griebling. How do I know? I am his
ReplyDeletegranddaughter.
Our gallery immediatley changed the title on this painting as soon as we were advised of the mistaken identity.
ReplyDeleteTrigg Ison