Art Upgrade

Last year my favorite auction house here in town began having a quarterly sale of better art and antiques, and the spring 2009 fine art and antiques auction was last night. I can find something to get excited about at most any sale, but these quarterly sales have been especially interesting. When the catalog came out I found a painting I thought looked promising, which sparked a discussion with Brett about our art.

When we merged households years ago most of the framed art we had was his and over the years much of it has gone away because of changes in decor and our tastes. A lot of what he's kept, mostly prints and watercolors, isn't currently being used. What little is hanging on our walls, and I'm looking at some vintage french wine posters (don't groan, they were very fun in our old dining room), well, their time is up.

The point of all this being that Brett joined me at the auction last night (which is rare) and we were buying not for me to resell, but for us. The painting I liked from the catalog, I loved in person. And here it is, an abstract landscape signed "Hassager 1973."

It's not big, about 16 by 20 inches framed, but I love the image. I know we're in a recession so I'm pleased to report I got it for less than half of what I was prepared to spend. The liner and frame could use a little refreshing, but they're perfectly fine as they are, so I have no immediate plans to change them. I hung it tonight during halftime of the KU/Texas Tech game (which will NOT be discussed) and I couldn't be happier.

I previewed the sale in the early afternoon while I was out running errands yesterday. Brett came straight from work and arrived just after the auction began. There were a number of really great things, and I was happy when Brett mentioned liking the lithograph above. Also a landscape, it's 12 of 300 (top half of the run!) and signed Jennifer Brannigan. The catalog described it as an "arts and crafts" landscape. I certainly can understand that, but more than anything it's just a really nice print. He couldn't have picked something I would like more, so I was thrilled when it came up and he said "give me your number." The frame is ugly and the matting is poorly cut and in bad shape, so some reframing has to be done before it goes up. Once that's done, we'll have a beautiful piece I can't wait to see on the wall. Our art upgrade has begun!