Great story about marketing and publicity

Stacy E. Apelt - Bladesmith

ilmarinen - MODERATOR
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I forget the painter's name, but a now very famous painter was in an exhibition in his early days. He was good, buy some of the others there were far better ( imagine having your knife sitting between Nick Wheeler's and Bruce Bump's). His painting was placed between two of the best painters in Europe. No one spent more than a few seconds looking at his opus. After a while, with the gallery packed, he came up to his seascape painting with a pot of red paint and a brush. He put a big red splotch in the center...and walked away. People were shocked to see him apparently destroy his work. Word spread like wildfire, and soon the entire population of the building was squeezing together to see the damaged painting. He shouldered his way through the crowd with a pallet in his hand and a few brushes in his teeth. While everyone watched he deftly turned the "splotch" into a channel marker buoy. The crowd was all abuzz, and his painting was picked as the best of the exhibition.

One of the big names who's painting was on the side of his said, "You have to hand it to him, he got me! If he had fired a gun in the hall, he could not have drawn more attention."
 
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Crazy artists ! My parents were artists as were many of their friends .One whom I never met came for painting and dinner . We got him set up with his stuff .adjusted the lights , asked if he'd like music/ YES some good lively music please. We did that and watched as he rapidly painted to the music !! As my parents and friends painted my job was often to prepare dinner .If they were painting the food for a still life I hoped they would paint fast before the hunger got me !!
 
I went to an art opening for one of my cousins back in the 80s in Seattle.
They splashed paint on 3 naked girls and pressed them against a large canvas.
Then several of the artists attending the opening added their own painting to the canvas.
When it was finished they auctioned it off.
I don't remember how much that it sold for, but I do remember it was a lot.
 
So what I'm getting from all this is, I need some naked women and some red paint.

I'm OK with that, but I'm not real sure my wife would approve :(
 
The painter who did that was J.M.W. Turner and it happened at a show at the Royal Academy in 1832. Turner was already very well known in Britain by that point because he had show his paintings first while he was still studying at the Royal Academy in he late 1790's. His arch rival, John Constable, was displaying a grand painting of the opening of the Waterloo Bridge that he had been working on for 15 years. Turners painting was a smaller seascape that had only taken him a couple of months to paint. He walked into the room, figured that his little painting did not have enough color, did his smudge in front of the patrons and walked out without saying a word. Constable said that "he had fired a gun in the room." the paintings were displayed side by side once again at the Tate in London in a special exhibition in 2009-2010. I haven't seen the film yet, but this incident was dramatized in the recent movie "Mr. Turner." it is said that M.r Turner abolutely idolized many patients who came before him, but he did not get along well with and apparently didn't have much use for a number of his contemporaries. After a stunt like that, I am sure that they feelings were mutual. :D
 
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Thanks, I thought it was Turner, but couldn't remember for sure.
 
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