Estimated Price:

   $   

Realized Price:

   $   

What is this symbol? This symbol indicates that this auction hose has verified this price result.

Login or subscribe to view price data

on clipping (upper left) oil on panel 5 x 7 in. (12.7 x 17.8 cm) painted in 1929 Provenance By descent in the artist~dq~s family Berry-Hill Galleries, Inc., NEW YORK, 1988 Literature Berry-Hill Galleries, Inc., Old Money: American Trompe L~dq~Oeil Images of Currency, New York, 1988, catalogue no. 38, illustrated p. 92 and in black and white, p.127 Otis Kaye-the last of the great American trompe l~dq~oeil money painters -was a successful Chicago engineer who never exhibited or sold any of his paintings, watercolors and prints in the United States during his lifetime. Born in Neemah, Michigan, to German immigrant parents, Kaye became interested in art during a visit to New York City in 1904. It was there that he met Nicholas A. Brooks, a key member of the group of American money painters who were active in the last two decades of the nineteenth century. That meeting eventually led Kaye to create a group of inspired images of money that, until just over a decade ago, had largely remained hidden from public view. A Fool and His Money illustrates two of Kaye~dq~s primary themes. In several of his paintings, Kaye made it clear that he was interested in perpetuating the satirical money-painting traditions, not only of Brooks, but also of John Haberle and Charles Meurer. Kaye, however, was also interested in relating that tradition to his own experiences, and particularly to the financial losses he had suffered on his investments in the New York stock market during the Great Depression. Given the "Series 1929" date that appears on the $50 United States Legal Tender note in this painting, Kaye must have painted A Fool and His Money immediately after the stock market crash of that year. The $50 bill in the painting portrays President Ulysses S. Grant, himself a victim of fiscal corruption, while the native American on the "Indian head" nickel had suffered comparable humiliations. The key text is, of course, the pink-hued clipping, which not only serves as the artist~dq~s signature, but also reads-in typical Kaye punnery-"I grant you that A Fool [the joker on the playing card in the background] and His Money Are Soon Parted [the folded bill]. Ask Wall Street." Although only a modest painting on panel on its face, A Fool and His Money is not only a stellar example of Kaye~dq~s inimitable illusionism, but is also packed with the pointed meanings that make Kaye~dq~s paintings so entertaining to students of the American economy and stock market. We are grateful to Bruce Chambers for cataloguing this lot.