Entry #10 Serial Killer Art

So I paint as part of my job.  I make commissioned paintings as well as art to show at different galleries and events I participate in.  This is the most recent piece in a two part series I made for a commision to a client in Chicago.

 As a student, most of my studies is to become stronger and more well rounded as an artist.  Something that took me by surprise is how much I would enjoy art history; stories of why things were painted, what it symbolizes, and who values it. 

Van Gogh is now considered to be the father of color theory in the painting world.  His works have been sold for over forty million dollars in the last fifty years.  Historians say that during Vincent Van Gogh's lifetime he never sold a painting and was never accepted in the galleries of the time; he was considered a failure and rogue in the art world.  There is much documentation that suggests that Vincent was a difficult person to get a long with.  There are few paintings in his large collection of work that he created of other people, (partially from dying young).  Historians say that Van Gogh made other people uncomfortable so he had to pay people to sit as models, but because he was not successful as an artist he could not afford to do so very often.  Thus leaving a large collection of self portraits and landscapes for the lack of willing participants.  In the case of Van Gogh, his lonlieness might not have only drove him mad, but created a Master of painting.

All artists hope that there is a market for the work they make to help them further their careers.  One thing that I found shocking during my Art History class though was finding out how collectible it is to own art created by serial killers, and how much people will pay for them.  Murderer and rapist John Wayne Gacy killed 33 young men and boys after raping them.  Gacy also dressed as a clown and worked childrens birthday parties in order to help him get closer to some of his victims.  While in prison, Gacy took up painting and began to paint himself as his clown alter ego "Pogo". 

Some of Gacy's paintings have sold for up to twenty thousand dollars in the open market.  It's kind of creepy to look at, the clown figure; it's creepier when you find out that cannibalism was part of the crimes Gacy was found guilty for.  Gacy wasn't the only killer that had collectors scooping up valuable paintings made by a murderer; another killer whose art became quite the collectors item was Adolph Hitler.  Hitler was an aspiring artist before World War I,  if the art school that turned him down from attending in Paris had only said yes, we can only begin to guess what World War II might have looked like, if it would have occurred at all.

 

So why do people want to collect the art from notoriously bad?  Maybe so we never forget, or maybe because the world loves to put even the bad guys on a bit of the famous pedestal in history. I can't say for sure that I might not consider the opportunity myself if given the chance to acquire a painting from one of those serial killing weirdos; if only to look at the painting each day to ponder the dark-side of humanity and its capabilities.  Would you let one hang in your house?