Sunday, December 3, 2006

One of my favorite Norman Rockwell paintings was found behind a false wall in the home of late Donald Trachte(cartoonist and illustrator). He bought the painting from Rockwell and very carefully painted a copy of it, hiding the original behind the false wall along with other paintings he collected. I'd seen the copy, which was loaned to the Norman Rockwell Museum by the Trachte family years ago. I think we were all fooled(which is a testament to Don Trachte's skill as a painter).
The only person I can recollect to have any suspicion about the one that hung at the Norman Rockwell Museum , was my friend James Gurney
he noticed some things were little "off" from the printed version.
Trachte's sons had the painting auctioned for 15.4 million dollars.


3 comments:

Unknown said...

I love N.Rockwell too

Mark Heng said...

Hi Travis, found your blog via James Gurney's...Your work is muy interasante! I'd love to know how you do what you do...I'm guessing an airbrush?
That story of the faked Norman Rockwell painting is amazing...It would have been so easy to accidentally destroy it. Whew!

Anonymous said...

Your blog keeps getting better and better! Your older articles are not as good as newer ones you have a lot more creativity and originality now keep it up!