The Modern's Image Of Freedom Competition

News that the Amon Carter Museum in Fort Worth acquired a painting by Charles Sheeler of the Boulder Dam sent me looking for more, and guess what I found? Sheeler's painting is one of six commissioned in 1938 by Fortune Magazine for a series on "American industrial power." He also made at least 20 photos of the dam, including the print above, which was sold by The Museum of Modern Art in a large sale of photography held at Sotheby's in 2001.

But why stop at pushing the deaccession button, when there's the accession, curatorial stunt, war, and government involvement in the arts buttons to be pushed, too? From the lot description:

This photograph was one of the prize-winning images in the Museum's Image of Freedom contest and exhibition, in which photographers were asked to 'interpret a facet of the American spirit.' Of the 799 photographs entered, 95 were selected as prize- winners and bought by the Museum for $25 each. The photographer's identities were concealed while their entries were reviewed by a judging panel consisting of Ansel Adams, Beaumont and Nancy Newhall, Monroe Wheeler, James Thrall Soby, David McAlpin, Alfred Barr, Jr., and A. Hyatt Mayor.

Now truth be told, that's a pretty unimpeachable panel, as far as the history of photography goes. Adams and Barr, you know. Beaumont Newhall helped form MoMA's photography department under trustee/collector McAlpin's watch; Nancy Newhall was an influential critic and close collaborator with Adams and Brett Weston; Wheeler and Soby were both senior officials and/or curators at the Modern as well as trustees; and Mayor was a pioneering print curator at the Met. Still, an anonymous contest where the prize is $25 and entry of your work into the Modern's collection? Would any museum try such a thing today?

And what about this whole Image of Freedom competition itself? The contest, organized in conjunction with the US Office of Civilian Defense, took place in 1941, before the country actually entered WWII. [The exhibition opened in October, hot on the heels of the National Defense Poster Competition show, part of a double bill with the debut of Picasso's Guernica (above). The goal of this contest was to "urge artists to create posters that would encourage citizens to support the war effort through personal and economic commitment." The posters later appeared in Army recruiting offices and on billboards around the country.]

In the invitation, photographers were asked, "What, to you, most deeply signifies America? Can you compress it into a few photographic images?" and charged to capture "the spirit of our thoughts, our ways, our homes, our jobs." Which doesn't exactly sound the same as our awesome dams, our giant parades, and our suspension bridges [that's one of Brett Weston's award-winners above, which was also sold at Sotheby's].

In his review for Photo Notes, Walter Rosenblum found the Images of Freedom didn't show enough of The People:

Isn't the Image of Freedom something bigger, something more vital [than the natural beauty of the country]? Isn't it that very human quality that differentiates a Nazi Storm trooper from a real American. Isn't it that which is reflected in the workers of Lewis Hine, the people who built the Empire State building, the oppressed who come to this country for refuge?

Isn't it the farmer of Dorothea Lange, the sharecropper's brave wife? Isn't it the complete body of work of the F. S. A.? Isn't it the worker in the mill, in the shop, in the factory? The teacher who can teach as he pleases, without following a regimented text book drawn up by the Nazis? Isn't it reflected in these people who have a stake in our democracy that they are proud of and are willing to fight for to defend?

Isn't it the people who organized Ford at the cost of their lives, the American boys who went to Spain to stop the fascist invader before he was able to spread his power. Isn't it the air raid warden in the city streets, who stands with his head so high, because he is doing his bit for his country? Isn't it that American, who after a hard day's work, visits a Red Cross Station in order to donate his blood to the cause of democracy, to that cause which will give us a better chance of retaining our own freedom.

Rosenblum namechecks a few of his favorite Working Man images from the show. Which is all fine, I suppose, though all that union talk sounds like a lot of Ruskie happytalk to me.

But that discussion still ignores the show's remarkably problematic [or not?] core assumption, namely that a museum--not just a museum, The Museum--should be organizing exhibits for the government and rallying artists to support preparations for war. Or maybe it just baffles me, living as I do in a moment of history where jingoist wingnuts see an NEA conference call as evidence that an army of brainwashing artists is about to enslave America under Obama's tryannical thumb--and where self-important critics make naive, grand pronouncements on the sanctity of Art.

How does MoMA account for its own deep, involved history of colloboration with the government to produce exhibitions and to promote The American Way or whatever? The short answer is with careful ambivalence that tries to distinguish, at least in retrospect, the independently artistic from the overtly propagandistic. Here's the introduction to an exhibition in the Museum Archive called, "The Museum and The War Effort: Artistic Freedom and Reporting for 'The Cause,'" organized last year by two folks in the Archive, Miriam Gianni and MacKenzie Bennett:

In the United States in the 1930s and the early 1940s, many people believed that modern art could pave a pathway to democracy. Numerous exhibitions at The Museum of Modern Art were produced in collaboration with the United States government. The Museum also continued to organize shows that were aligned with its mission to exhibit the best of recent works of art.

Artists in the United States, Europe, and Asia used art as a medium through which they could voice their opinions about political regimes, war, and social turmoil. From 1938 onward, a variety of compelling exhibitions featuring works produced by artists motivated by wartime experiences were organized at the Museum. In Luis Quintanilla: An Exhibition of Drawings of the War in Spain, Art from Fighting China, and Yank Illustrates the War, MoMA provided its public with a glimpse into war-torn Europe and Asia and an inside look at the difficulties of military life.

In addition to exhibiting war-focused artworks, the Museum played an active role in seeking out artists to assist in government campaigns for the war effort. Staff from the Museum acted as liaisons between government agencies and artists. In 1942 James Thrall Soby became director of the Museum's Armed Services Program, which functioned as an intermediary between government agencies and the Museum. Under its auspices, exhibition and film programs designed to rally support for the war and solidify America's image as a society interested in spreading democracy and freedom were added to MoMA's roster.

Weston's images were included in a collection survey in 1944, but Sheeler's photo was apparently never exhibited again by the Museum. It makes me wonder how other Image of Freedom winners fared after the war, artistically speaking, I mean. Maybe despite its long history as an official partner of government propaganda, the Modern has managed to keep its independent artistic and curatorial efforts clear of interference from The Man. Just like how a fine art photographer keeps her commercial work separate from her art.

Or maybe that's exactly what they want you to think.

So The Pollock Isn't Unknown, It's Secret? Or How I Am So Banacek

So first the big news about the Pebble Beach Pollock Caper: did I call it or what? The Monterey Herald reports from the Sheriff's Dept. press conference today that Angelo Amadio and Ralph Kennaugh are now being considered suspects in, well, if it's not an actual $80 million art theft, it's some kind of "criminal enterprise." They've hired a defense attorney, but they have not, as yet, provided the police with any actual documentation that proves the supposedly stolen works even exist.

David St. John says it exists, though. He's supposedly the collectors' insurance broker [and his ex-wife is listed as counsel for Amadio's newly incorporated investment company, so a really arm's length guy. From the SF Chronicle:

David St. John said he had seen his clients' most valuable painting, an untitled Pollock that police were told was worth $20 million.

"There have been very few owners - three or four as I can trace," Amadio said. "It's known amongst Pollock collectors, I think."

Ah, now we're getting somewhere. A 4x7-foot Pollock which has traded hands three or four times in 50+ years, yet has never been sold or exhibited publicly. A painting which is not in the four-volume, 1978 catalogue raisonne or the supplement, yet is "known amongst Pollock collectors," Amadio "thinks."

I guess I've just been spending too much time trying to rally all the Warhol collectors to Find The Warhols! to do much Pollock collector outreach. Could someone who's on Facebook contact the Pollock Collectors Group for me and tell them to spill the beans?

UPDATE: Watch the raw feed of the Sheriff's bemused press conference! [kcra.com]
Also, the Google Map and the real estate listing for the scene of the as-yet-unspecified crime: $4.3m, not $5m, and flooded with western light. Good thing the prints were all rolled up!

What Do People Do With Their Google Voice Numbers?

I took two main factors into account when I signed up for Google Voice:

I know it's old-fashioned, but I wanted the area code's geography to have some significance.

I wanted something catchy, brand-y, not just easy to remember, but worth remembering. My name, URL, etc. would have been ideal, but if not, then some usefully meaningful word or phrase would do.

Which is how I ended up with 34-SOUVENIR. 347 is a New York City area code, of course, but SOUVENIR was just about the longest word I could generate with the 10-digit numbers in Google's pot. And it happens to have a nice resonance with my first short film series. And it happens to mean "remember" in French, so it's built right in!

Now I just need to figure out what to do with it. Any thoughts or suggestions? Give me a call.

Oh, You Mean From The Dead Coke Fiend Pollock Hoard

Now that the Monterey Herald's on the case, I think the Pebble Beach Pollock heist will be wrapped up pretty soon. Then we can get back to Finding The Warhols! Out of Angelo/Benjamin Amadio's shifty, grifty interview with reporters Larry Parsons and Julia Reynolds, emerge details about the stolen Pollock and the "wholesale" art business Amadio ran for ten years:

A few minutes later, Amadio confessed that he knows "nothing about art." But his role in the partnership with Kennaugh was "find it, buy it and sell it." And he said he has good connections in the art world.

In 2001, Amadio said, research he did for a big-time art broker involved in the pending sale of a lot of Pollock paintings revealed that some of them weren't authentic.

In gratitude, he said, a would-be buyer gave the men one of the real Pollocks -- the same one they now say was taken from an upstairs office nook, where it was rolled up for storage. The broker, he said, wound up dying, an art world casualty of "cocaine overdose out West," he said [from his rental house perched on the West coast]."

Ah, so in 2001, when he was 23, the guy who knows "nothing about art" authenticated an unknown hoard of purported Pollocks, and got "one of the real Pollocks" he identified as a thank you gift.

Who was this coke-snorting, big-time Pollock broker out West? I'm sure he must be very well-known to the Pollock-Krasner Foundation. Just think of the firestorm of attention and debate that erupted in 2005 when sexploitation filmmaker Alex Matter, whose parents were friends of the Pollock-Krasners, pulled a stack of small purported Pollocks from his late father's East Hampton storage unit. [below: a NYT photo of Matter with some of his find.]

In fact, much of the story of the Matter Pollocks unfolds in Boston, where Amadio lived with his partner, Harvard physician Dr. Ralph Kennaugh. The NY Times reported in 2007 that pigments from Matter's paintings were analyzed at the Harvard Art Museums and the MFA. When the pigments were found to have been manufactured long after the artist's death in 1956--some as recently as 1996, after even Matter's father's death--Matter disputed the findings, and then commissioned a do-over in Williamstown, and then threatened to sue that guy over the results. And the whole trove was exhibited later that year at Boston's College's McMullen Museum.

Oh, look, as coverage of the local angle on the Matter paintings controversy picked up in 2007, the Boston Globe's Geoff Edgers got Matter to admit that he had given "partial ownership" of his Pollock stash to dealer Ronald Feldman in exchange for help covering the "expenses associated with restoring, insuring and researching the works."

So it could totally happen! Matter actually said he found the works in 2002. There are 22 canvases and 10 boards. Maybe he gave one of the largest canvases to Amadio for helping him clean out the storage unit, and kept the tiny, notebook-sized ones himself? [Q: Did Alex Matter OD in the desert recently?]

Of course, right in the middle of this Matter matter, David Geffen reportedly sold his Pollock painting, No. 5, 1948, for $140 million. That painting measures 4x8 feet, very close in size to Amadio's Pollock. No. 5 is on fiberboard, though, not so easy to roll up and store behind your printer. To a collector-dealer of Amadio's savvy and renown, I'm sure such a confluence of Pollock stories unfolding in his own backyard was a purely matter of deep, scholarly interest--and not a blueprint for concocting a giant Pollock scam of his own.

Pebble Beach art heist puts collectors in spotlight [montereyherald.com]

Cherchez La Femme [Qui Pisse]

Stolen art aficionados, please don't let the reports of a giant $60 million art theft in Pebble Beach distract us from Our Important Task of Finding The Warhols, because it is a big gay hoax. I'll bet you a Warhol wanted poster.

Every thing about the Pebble Beach heist is fishy or inconsistent or hilariously a lie. Let's start out with the collectors themselves, A. Benjamin Amadio, 31 and Dr. Ralph Kennaugh, 62, who present themselves as business partners. Business partners who lived together, retired from Boston together, and were renting the $5 million house with no alarm system while either finishing construction on their new place or shopping around for a place to build. They first went into business together 10 years ago, when Amadio, then 21, was either an art gallerist or a venture capitalist in Ohio.

A. Benjamin is better known to Google as Angelo Amadio, and as 40 commenters at the Boston Herald--but no reporter anywhere so far--were able to figure out, he is the subject of numerous ripoff complaints for selling undocumented puppies as AKC-registered, but then never delivering the paperwork.

But what about the art? From the Boston Globe:

Amadio said that only three or four people in the world knew the two owned some of the pieces and that the thieves took only authenticated paintings, though the collection included some impeccable reproductions that only a skilled eye would be able to distinguish from the original.

"When they hit us, they knew exactly what they were looking for,'' he said.

"They knew exactly where they were and the difference between some of the authentic pieces and some of the reproductions.''

Among those "authenticated paintings" were irreplaceable works by Rembrandt, Van Gogh, Miro, Matisse, Renoir, Jackson Pollock, and G.H. Rothe.

Ignore for a moment that G.H. Rothe is a gigantic print mill, cranking out tens of thousands of pastel posters of taut ballet dancers and running horses--both of which were prominent subjects in the Amadio-Kennaugh "theft" and any of which could be easily replaced for a couple hundred impulsively spent bucks on your next Carnival Cruise.

As for the "real" artists' paintings, the Rembrandts are clearly etchings. One, Femme qui pisse, or Woman making water, is either the version offered for sale in this 2005 CG Boerner catalogue [PDF, image above] or the shabbier one they mention which was sold at auction. It's hard to tell from Amadio's blurry color copy documentation of this extremely rare and priceless treasure. And the Miros are clearly prints, too. [The one on the left is reproduced pointing down the Herald, and up in KSBW's story.]

The biggest tell, though, is the Pollock, the only painting mentioned which could justify the $27 million, $60 million, or $80 million values Amadio has claimed. It is 4x7 feet. There is no published image of it. They supposedly bought it in 2001. It has supposedly never been exhibited or on the market publicly. The only thing that can be said with certainty about this purported Pollock is that it is not the #$&% Jackson Pollock bought by trucker Teri Horton in 1992 for $5, which was the subject of the 2006 joke documentary, Who the #$&% Is Jackson Pollock? As you can see from the movie poster, that #(*$% Pollock is more than four feet tall:

Also, the insurance talk doesn't make sense [it costs $30 million to insure a collection supposedly appraised by the insurance company for $27 million?]; the local law enforcement discrepancies; the lack of FBI Art Theft Division involvement; the sudden appearance of a ransom note/death threat? It's all too much to believe with a straight [sic] face. And yet it gets reported far and wide by newspaper and TV sources as unquestioned fact.

I give it less than a week before the whole Pebble Beach caper implodes in a cloud of boytoy blackmail gone awry. [c-monster]

BeDazzled At RISD

BeDazzled was an exhibition organized by the appropriately named RISD librarian Claudia Covert of the library's collection of WWI Dazzle Camouflage patterns and photographs from the US Shipping Board:

Maurice L. Freedman donated the plans and photos in the collection of the Fleet Library at RISD. Maurice was the district camoufleur for the 4th district of the U.S. Shipping Board, Emergency Fleet Corporation. The Shipping Board was a precursor of today's Merchant Marine. The Navy gave dazzle plans to each Shipping Board district. Maurice's job was to take the plans and hire painters (artists, house painters) to paint the ships accordingly.

Freedman went on to design the first version of the game Battleship, which is set to be ruined by a giant Hollywood movie.

The rather excellent website for BeDazzled, which closed in April 2009 [risd.edu/dazzle]

Razzle Dazzle

Last year Jeff Koons covered Dakis Joannou's angular yacht Guilty [designed by Ivana Porfiri] with a pattern inspired by WWI naval camouflague. The technique, known in the US as Razzle Dazzle and in the UK as just http://www.gotouring.com/razzledazzle/articles/dazzle.htmlDazzle Painting, was created by the British artist Norman Wilkinson.

Dazzle deployed Cubism's multiple perspective and fragmentation to thwart the aim of German U-boat attacks by obscuring the ships' dimensions and traveling directions. The advent of sonar eliminated the need for visual targeting--and the utility of Dazzle Painting.

Ironically, Koons camo design made it exponentially easier for the yachtspotters at Monaco Eye to shoot Guilty in port last summer.

Dazzle Painting history and images [gotouring.com]

The US Navy apparently kept using Razzle Dazzle techniques through WWII. A large collection of 455 lithographs of camouflage designs was discovered in 2008 at RISD, the 1919 donation of an alumnus, Maurice Freedman, who was a camouflage painter during the war. They were exhibited for the first time last spring. [Dazzle Camouflage on Wikipedia]

Gerhard Street View

A Google Street View image of a French radar-jamming installation obscured by order of the Ministry of Defense or an overpainted photograph by Gerhard Richter? You decide.

Houses Of Orange

NL Architects thinks it might make a good Herzog & deMeuron project, but I think Google Maps' security pixelization of the Dutch Royal House's Noordeinde Palace in Den Haag would make an absolutely fantastic series of landscape paintings.

Where else in the world are such things? The DRH's summer palace at Huis ten Bosch; an AZF chemical weapons factory in Toulouse...

There's a surely incomplete list of obscured satellite images on Wikipedia, and a map. Which includes Mastercard's corporate headquarters in Westchester, which actually looks like it was painted over. They call it "watercolored." Perfect.

Previously:
architecture for the aerial view, including WWII factory roof camouflage: the roof as nth facade
art for the aerial view: Calder on the roof

If You Don't Make It Here, You'll Make It Anywhere

Sheesh, build an Empire State Building out of Erector Sets at Rockefeller Center and the NY Times still thinks you're dead:

The greatest enchantments at Inhotim are produced by works that not only draw on powerful subconscious currents but that also could only have come into being in this place, in Brazil. I am thinking, for instance, about Chris Burden's ''Beam Drop,'' a sculpture that -- like a lot of work by this artist, who is so steeped in art-world legend it sometimes seems surprising that he exists and is still at work -- was realized only once before, in 1984, in a version that has disappeared.

Never mind that Burden made another "Beam Drop" in Antwerp. Or that the original "Beam Drop" was made in New York, too.

Meanwhile, this is as good a time as any to hate on the insanely intrusive ads that pop over Every. Single. #$)(%*ing. Page of T Magazine? It's like walking into Saks and getting spritzed by a hundred perfume salespeople desperate not to lose their jobs.

Tripod-For-Handheld

Gruber calls this Windows 7 Launch Party video "cringe-inducing," and it certainly is. Though I'm pretty sure the technical term for erratic, pointless, exaggerated simulation of handheld camera movement using a fixed camera and a pan handle is seizure-inducing.

That said, the dialogue is so bafflingly abstract, it's almost sublime. I'm sure it's because they didn't have party "activities" website finished before the shoot, but this video could have a future as an insider's critique of the corporate existential void. "Windows for Godot."

The Weather Project, Not By Olafur Eliasson

au.bondi.2009.058

Lose 10 Lbs With My Exclusive Red Vines Diet!

1. Pop open a Diet Coke.
2. Eat all the Red Vines you want.
3. uh, actually that's as far as I've gotten.

Black Mountain College Building Mystery Solved

Last month, when I tried to identify this kind of awesomely simple house at Black Mountain College [from a photo in UConn's Charles Olson Collection], the best I could do was a guess, that it was A. Lawrence Kocher's plywood-based Service Building, built in the 1940's to house the BMC's African American kitchen staff.

Well, thanks to the Internet, these things have cleared themselves up. I just got an email from Leigh, who lives and works at Lake Eden Events, an event and destination operation on the BMC site. She pointed me to the BMC Project website, which has the answer.

This is, in fact, the Science Building, designed and built between 1949 and 1953 by faculty architect Paul Williams in collaboration with students Dan Rice and Stan Vanderbeek. [Yes, that Stan Vanderbeek.] From BMCProject:

A site on the lower rim of the knoll just south of the Studies Building was selected, and Williams, Rice, and Vanderbeek started construction in December. By August 1950 lights were on in the building. By January 1951, construction was not complete. An engineer was called in to help find the cause of structural problems which were causing the window panes to shatter the lower front frame to separate where the floor overhung the columns. He concluded that the building was structurally sound, and that bending 2 x 4s had caused the problem.

The building was finished in the winter of 1953 not long before the resignation of Natasha Goldowski, science teacher. She refused to use the building, concerned that it would collapse on the hill. When the lower campus was closed, the looms were moved from the art studio in the Studies Building to the science building.

The building is, in fact, still standing. Camp Rockmont uses it for staff housing. Check out BMCProject.org for some tiny photos.

Now about that Kocher Service Building. Leigh also notes that the only photos she's ever seen of it are from the NC State Archives, [also on BMC Project]. It looked pretty basic and boring, with a shallow, pitched roof. Also, it burned down less than two years after it was completed.

As for this Vanderbeek at Black Mountain thing. Buckminster Fuller taught at BMC for two summers. In 1948, he had his students try to build the first of his geodesic domes out of venetian blind strips. By 1949, Fuller brought a much more successful prototype of a collapsible dome made from aircraft aluminum tubing threaded with cable. I suspect Vanderbeek--who went on to build his own countryside dome for showing immersive, multi-projector films, the Movie-Drome, is one of those khaki monkeys hanging off of it in the photo above.

That's the thing with domes; even if you head out in the opposite direction, eventually, you find your way right back.

Have You Seen Me? The Find The Warhols Project

Earlier this month eleven portrait paintings by Andy Warhol were reported stolen from the home of Los Angeles collector Richard Weisman. The paintings, known the Athletes Series, depict some of the greatest athletes in the world in 1977, plus Weisman. There is a $1 million reward for information leading to their return.

When one man's Warhols are stolen, all our Warhols are stolen, because no matter how many Warhols you technically own, Warhol belongs to all of us. It's imperative that we band together to help these Warhols return to their rightful home [so they can be sold]. Which is why greg.org is announcing The Find The Warhols Project.

MISSION
The Find The Warhols Project seeks to facilitate the safe return of the Weisman Warhols by assisting in the dissemination of crucial identifying information where it is needed most: on the front lines of the art world.

FTW will educate and empower an ever-vigilant grass roots army of Warhol Watchers who will be able to quickly spot the stolen Warhols from among the thousands of Warhols streaming through the art world every day.

THE PROJECT
Many, many Warhols look the same, especially the 40x40-in. square silkscreened portraits of seemingly random people who were rich and/or famous in the 70's and 80s. This can make it hard to tell if a Warhol is hot or not.

For example, just look at these three seemingly identical Muhammad Ali portraits. Can you tell which one is stolen, which one sold for triple its high estimate, and which one was still available last summer in Beijing?

Fortunately, on September 10th, 2009, The Los Angeles Police Department's Art Theft Detail released a one-page, notepad-sized Crime Alert [top] with reproductions of the exact eleven stolen paintings and a critical detail: "NOTE: other Warhol originals exist for each of the images below, but with different colors."

This is an invaluable crimebusting tool that needs to be distributed as widely as possible and studied regularly whenever you buy, sell, see, hang, ship, frame, conserve, appraise, authenticate, license for marketing, or critique a Warhol.

To that end, FTW will take this crucial-but-small Crime Alert and make larger versions which will enable quick and certain detection at a glance. These giant, poster-sized versions will be offset print in full color on 100-lb glossy paper, and will be suitable for hanging by Warhol Watchers at key art world locations with high Warhol traffic, including:

• Art gallery backrooms


• Private dealers' showrooms


• Hedge fund conference rooms


• Park Avenue cosmetic surgeons' waiting rooms


• West Village real estate developers' conference rooms


• West Village townhouse stagers' conference rooms


• Collectors' offices


• Private curators' offices


• Museum curators' offices or cubicles


• Independent curators' hallways, since it is unlikely they have offices


• Curatorial studies graduate program student lounges


• Auction house cube farms


• Art magazine offices


• Art magazine freelance writers' walls above the beds where they write because they can poach the neighbor's wi-fi from there


• Art organization benefit auction organizers' conference rooms


• Art fair booth backrooms


• Art fair concierge desks


• Art fair VIP lounges


• Art fair sponsor VIP lounges


• Fractional ownership jet terminals


• Museum development directors' assistants' offices


• Museum registrars' offices


• Museum freight elevators


• Crate fabricators' workshop offices


• Framers


• &c., &c.

HOW YOU CAN HELP

1. Get some FTW Crime Alert posters.


2. Put them up in your own corners of the art world.


3. Study the details of the Stolen Warhols frequently to keep them fresh in your mind.


4. Whenever you buy, sell, or otherwise encounter a Warhol, check it against the Crime Alert poster to see if yours is one of the Stolen Warhols.


5. Encourage others to do the same by writing about the FTW Project on your blogs, by giving posters to other collectors and dealers and art world friends, by holding FTW Happenings in your lofts to build awareness and learn the paintings, &c.

FTW Crime Alert posters are available for pre-order through Kickstarter starting at $10 for two, to cover the cost of printing [$883] and shipping [$3.62/order]. Orders will only be processed and the posters will only be printed and shipped as soon as 141 pre-orders are received. If the Stolen Warhols are found before FTW reaches 141 pre-orders, the Project will cease, no posters will be printed, and no orders will be charged or fulfilled. The FTW Project Kickstarter page has more information, including details of how Kickstarter pledges work, as well as options for ordering multiple posters, for international shipping, and for collectors who own more than 11 Warhols.

BACKGROUND
The Warhols, known as the Athlete Series were commissioned by Richard Weisman in 1977 for the purpose of bringing the world's two greatest leisure pastimes--sport and art--together. They are all portraits of famous athletes posing with the primary implement of their chosen sport next to their heads. Plus a headshot of Weisman himself, whose mother co-founded the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, and whose uncle Norton Simon founded the Norton Simon Museum.

Warhol produced eight complete sets of the paintings for Weisman, plus an unidentified number of additional individual paintings. Two sets were broken up and given to each athlete and his or her sports governing body. Weisman donated two sets to university collections. Weisman's three kids each got a set. And he kept one for himself. Total price tag for the project: a reported $800,000.

All the works are 40x40 inches, silkscreen and polymer paint on canvas. Warhol also created other, differently sized versions of some images. Except for the Muhammad Ali paintings, all the canvases were signed by the athletes at the time of their completion. For Ali, Weisman had Ali sign five paintings [presumably the non-donated ones: his own, his kids' and one extra, see below] during a visit to Los Angeles in 1991. Each silkscreened canvas was painted in a unique color combination.

Weisman began marketing his set several years ago. He loaned it to the Warhol Museum in 2005. In 2007, it was offered for sale in London by the dealer Martin Summers for $28 million, along with several individual paintings. It was still for sale in 2008, when he showed it in Beijing during the Olympics.

The 2007 show also included a loosie Ali portrait with a purple ground, above right.] A couple of months later, Ali's own red & green painting [above middle], which had been given to his ex-wife, sold at Christie's for $9.2 million.

So you can see how vitally important these Warhols are, especially to Weisman. They're practically his children. Children he can sell for an eight-figure price. And children whose safe return could bring a million dollars to the one who makes it happen. Won't you help?