Pennsylvanianing

Today I closed on a new house in PA (always an event somewhat comparable to a root canal), and on the way there I took a van-load of fragile stuff to deliver to the new house, because I don't trust the movers with it.

And in the process I managed to break the glass on the framed Gene Davis charcoal drawing, and drop the framed Vija Celmins drawing, all but destroying the frame, while hoping that the drawing survived.

And I packed the Frank Frazetta oil wrong, and put a dimple on the back of the canvas (but I know how to fix that).

Everything else made it OK, althought I still have no idea (from the last move) where my Ana Mendieta drawing is.

Is that enough name dropping? Oy vey! Still have loads of art to move.

Now I just gotta sell my Potomac house... it has been reduced by $85,000! Buy it here (Mention DC Art News and get a $10,000 discount).

Walter the Ripper?

Crime writer Patricia Cornwell (who I think used to live in Richmond?) will apparently donate 82 works by the artist Walter Sickert to the Fogg Art Museum.

This art collection, worth millions of dollars, was acquired by Cornwell while she was researching and writing Portrait of a Killer.

That book (and the 60 Minutes special) concluded that Sickert was Jack the Ripper.

Cornwell used the visual clues left by Sickert in his paintings to follow a rather convincing trail that led to a very convincing reasoning that deduced that Sickert was the Ripper.