50 Alan Greenspan paintings?
 

Has anyone seen this story? In a nutshell, this young lady has garnered a tremendous amount of press as a result of painting 50 portraits of Alan Greenspan. As I understand it, later tonight one of them will be auctioned on E-bay and is expected to bring at least $6000.00.

Any thoughts on this? You can read one of the stories about the "series" below:

Greenspan paintings

Fascinating approach!

Hope he doesn't sue her for breach of privacy, though. It has happened.

If she hasn't actually met Greenspan, then I assume she used photographic references taken by other people. If I were she I would be nervous about copyright infringement. I would also feel uncomfortable about being un-original. But I guess that doesn't bother her.

It certainly promises to be a lucrative venture. I can't tell whether she's a dedicated artist or whether she is just out to make a buck. Or maybe a little of both. The article could be slanted because it is in Forbes.

I wondered about the copyright issues as well. Pretty ingenious stunt though. She was all over cable news today. She has a web site which consists so far only of her Greenspan paintings and links to news articles.

When I saw this I just laughed and laughed. It is ingenious, but probably good for only one run. She mentioned that it was time to move on to another subject; I think Ted Kennedy would be great!

Jean

Yes, it seems there is only one dimension to the two dimensional paintings so far. Love the Kennedy idea. Perhaps Bill Gates would be a good strategic move.

At the time of this writing the bidding is up to $23,000. Someone is laughing all the way to the bank. To be fair, the auction winnings go to a charity. Now I am thinking this isn't such a bad idea if you can get the press. Check out the bidding here: Greenspan Auction on E-bay

Amazing!
 

The bidding is up over $80,000 now, with 100% of the final sale price going to a charity called Autism Speaks. Free shipping, too!

Lisa, thanks so much for posting this! I love to see people doing this type of innovative thing!

I am thinking she may not have used photo references, but perhaps worked from sketches or may even have taken her own reference photos. I don't know how tough it is to get into those press conferences, but I know for sure it is do-able. I'm rooting for her!

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He doesn't need the publicity, though, and he may very well be bothered by this. Either way the artist has taken a big risk. There's a well known case from a few years back where an artist took pictures of Tiger Woods at a golf tournament (no photographer's copyright issues, the artist took the pictures himself).

He then made paintings and sold a pile of prints of them, with Tiger Woods' image. Tiger Woods sued over the issue of using his image for profit without permission -- and the artist lost.

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It's not art, it is at best a con and a miserable painting.