I’ve long had an interest in clown paintings, and have seen plenty at thrift shops and antique stores, and actually bought the one (above left) at an antiques store in New Paltz, New York. I’m also attracted to saxophone-related art, since I used to play the saxophone myself – I bought the painting (above right) at an antiques store in Orange, New Jersey, and included it in my exhibition titled “Syncopated Visions.”
With that said, I encountered something I’ve never seen before, while at an antiques store in Andover, New Jersey: a clown playing a saxophone! Look at this guy!
My first thought was: I have to have it! But then I noticed the rip in the lower left corner of the canvas, and thought that maybe $75 was too much for a damaged art work. But now I wonder, maybe I could have stitched it together, because where else am I going to find a saxophone-playing clown painting???
Oh well, too late now. If I find myself in Andover again, maybe I’ll see if it’s still there. It happened to me once before, where I saw a painting in the Antique Emporium of Asbury Park, didn’t buy it, came back a year later, and did buy it. Posting about that experience at my former Artsology website triggered an unexpected response, where a man wrote to me about meeting the artist (Arrigo Ghedini) in Virginia Beach in 1968 and buying his work then, which then led to more responses, including thanks from the artist’s grandchildren who were thankful to see the work again.
If anyone knows anything about this saxophone-playing clown, let me know – I didn’t see a signature on it, but who knows? Stranger things have happened …