Time To Organize Holiday Gifts

Hello iTaggit friends,

I hope you all had a wonderful holiday season! I was very pleased when some of my items from my iTaggit wish list appeared under the tree this year. I especially look forward to setting up my new green iPod mini! I hope all of you comic collectors out there received some great collectible additions, all of you antique and art aficionados acquired new pieces to be displayed in your homes, and of course all of you entertainment enthusiasts added new games, music, and dvds to your shelves, but all of you must be sure and add them to your iTaggit collection and share them with the rest of our community! There's no time like the present to get started on your birthday wish lists, and our Gallery is a great place to find ideas. I look forward to seeing what you all add, ask us if you need your collections valued, and I hope you have a happy new year!

Discovery Of Ventarron Temple Unearths Ancient American Art

For all of you treasure seekers and American culture collectors and enthusiasts, a new discovery has been made to fawn over. A 4,000-year-old temple, which is located inside a larger ruin, has been unearthed on the northern coast of Peru, making it one of the oldest finds to date in the Americas. Peruvian archeologist Walter Alva (seen in the picture at left with a mural), led the dig in the Lambayeque Valley, about 472 miles from Lima, Peru's capital. Alva also discovered Sipan, an administrative and religious center of the Moche culture, during the 1980's. The temple “Ventarron” is filled with murals and includes a staircase that leads to an altar which was used for fire worship. The construction methods and architectural design of Ventarron impressed the discoverers since its erection predates Sipan by centuries. “The discovery of this temple reveals evidence suggesting the region of Lambayeque was one of great cultural exchange between the Pacific coast and the rest of Peru,” said Alva.

Here's a brief history lesson to help clarify: Until the Spanish arrived in the Americas during the 1500s, the Incas ruled their empire for several centuries. Their nation stretched from Colombia and Ecuador in the north, to what are now Peru and Chile in the south. Peru is known to be rich in archaeological treasure from this time, including that which was found in the Inca citadel of Machu Picchu in the Andes. Discoveries made at Sipan have included a gold-filled tomb built 1,700 years ago for a pre-Incan king. Perhaps discoveries of ancient treasure at Ventarron will yield as positive of results as the Sipan exploration's did. Pieces from Incan culture are extremely valuable and highly sought after, and I believe artifacts from Ventarron will be treated similarly. To read the entire article, click here. Also, feel free to post pictures and stories to this blog of ancient art and artifacts, as well as share your historical items within the iTaggit Gallery.

Painting Found in Trash Worth $1 Million

This is a great little story about sheer luck and circumstance. I found it originally on AOL.com and you can click here to read the full version, but a recap goes something like this:

One March morning four years ago, Elizabeth Gibson was on her way to get coffee, when she spotted a large and colorful abstract canvas nestled between two big garbage bags in front of the Alexandria, an apartment building on the northwest corner of Broadway and 72nd Street in Manhattan.

“I had a real debate with myself,” said Ms. Gibson, a writer and self-professed Dumpster diver. “I almost left it there because it was so big, and I kept thinking to myself, ‘Why are you taking this back to your crammed apartment?’” But, she said, she felt she simply had to have the 38-by-51-inch painting, because “it had a strange power.”

Art experts would agree with her. As it turns out, the painting was “Three People,” a 1970 canvas by the celebrated 20th-century Mexican artist Rufino Tamayo that was stolen 20 years ago and is the subject of an F.B.I. Investigation.

Experts say the painting — a largely abstract depiction of a man, a woman and an androgynous figure in vibrant purples, oranges and yellows — is in miraculously good condition and worth about $1 million. Ms. Gibson returned the painting to it's original owner and will receive the promised $15,000 reward from the seller, as well as a smaller finder’s fee from Sotheby’s, which the auction house declined to disclose. On Nov. 20 it is to go on the block at Sotheby’s as one of the highlights of a Latin American art auction.

Need help getting through your piles of collectibles? Let iTaggit help! We help manage collections for those who need it most. Organize collections by adding in your item's important information and pictures on iTaggit. Show them off in our Gallery and send them to your friends to check out or add to. Research collections with our Google search tool to learn more about your things. Whatever it is that you seek for your collections, iTaggit will help you!

One Of The Greatest Collecting Families Set To Sell A Gauguin

(as originally posted by news-antique.com)

On the evening of November 7, 2007, Sotheby’s in New York will offer for sale Paul Gauguin’s Te Poipoi (The Morning), one of the greatest Tahitian scenes by the artist remaining in private hands. For the past 62 years, this painting was part of one of the most illustrious collections ever formed in America, that of Joan Whitney Payson. Acquired by Mrs. Payson and her husband, Charles, in 1945, this stunning scene of an exotic paradise hung alongside masterpieces by artists such as Vincent van Gogh, Pablo Picasso and others, and has been consigned for sale by her family. Executed in Tahiti in September or October 1892, the painting is estimated to sell for $40/60 million (£20/30 million)*. Prior to auction, the painting will be on view at Sotheby’s London from October 7-12 and in New York from November 2-7, 2007.

David Norman, Executive Vice President, a Chairman of Sotheby’s Impressionist and Modern Art Department Worldwide, said, “Sotheby’s is thrilled to have yet another occasion to represent one of the greatest collecting families in America. Joan Whitney Payson and her brother John Hay Whitney were each the very definition of the enlightened, passionate and daring American collector in the 20th century, and their previous sales, whether directly or indirectly, through Sotheby’s – Vincent van Gogh’s Irises, Pierre-August Renoir’s Au Moulin de la Galette, Pablo Picasso’s Au Lapin Agile and Boy with a Pipe, among others -- represent not only many of the world’s greatest works of art, but also landmarks of the modern art market.

“For Paul Gauguin, the towering figure who provided the bridge from Impressionism to 20th century Modernism, the search to represent the ideal in art took him outside the comforts of western tradition toward the great exoticism of remote Tahiti. In the present work, the artist represents a quintessential Tahitian scene – an unspoiled landscape populated by native women going about their daily routines in the midst of a sun drenched, color-rich paradise.” In Te Poipoi, Gauguin presents a highly idealized version of paradise, untouched by western influence. This stunning canvas was painted on the island’s southern coastal region of Mataiea in September or October 1892, about a year into the artist’s first extended stay in French Polynesia. The title of the painting refers to the still and quiet morning hours when the local people began their day. We can imagine Gauguin’s voyeuristic pleasure in watching this intimate scene of women bathing beneath a canopy of banyan and mango trees. Te Poipoi is a refreshingly modern and daring interpretation of the ritual of the bath, one of the most symbolically loaded themes in the history of western art.

Edgar Degas presented one of the best well-known modern interpretations of this theme by focusing exclusively on the bodies of his young models standing over their metal tubs. Gauguin would have been well-acquainted with these images because he had exhibited with Degas in 1887 at the final Impressionist group exhibition in Paris. When Gauguin returned to France in August 1893, he brought back with him over sixty canvases and selected the best among them, including the present work, for a one-man exhibition at Durand-Ruel. After suffering a number of visits with his estranged family in Copenhagen and a broken leg in a street brawl in Pont Aven, Gauguin longed to return to the South Pacific. In order to raise money for the trip back, he sold several canvases at auction at Hôtel Drouot, including the present work, and in June 1895 set sail for Tahiti, where he would remain for the rest of his life.

Ever wonder "How do I value antiques I have?" Gathered several antique collectibles over the years? Upload them onto iTaggit and let us use our antiques value guide to help give you an estimate on your beloved belongings. It's as easy as posting them in our "What's My Item Worth" collection.

Living with the Dead - new zombie comic

Yes, the comic shelves are flooding with undead / zombie titles thanks to the success of "the walking Dead" and "Marvel Zombies" but here's a new one i found that has a fun twist. Living With the Dead

is funny well drawn with a good plot line - this is from the dark horse desription:

" Two survivors of a global catastrophe disguise themselves as corpses to survive in a land of the walking dead.

From the mind of Mike Richardson ( The Mask; The Secret) comes this hilariously frightening tale of Straw and Whip, two slackers who have lived through a plague that's left the world with seven billion brain-hungry zombies. Life is tough as they try to keep up the appearance of being like the rest of the decomposing masses, and things heat up when a damsel in distress needs their help. Will they blow their cover for a beautiful young girl, or sacrifice her in the name of rock and roll?

* Be sure to catch this three-issue series with art by Ben Stenbeck, and covers by legendary Richard Corben, making zombies fun again.

Two boys, a girl, and seven billion living dead. "

Vandals Damage A Monet

iTaggit always stresses the importance of keeping the safety of your valuables a top priority. This includes storing your item's information, such as certificates of authenticity, in a safe place. But sometimes even the safest places can be compromised.

Early Sunday morning, five people forced their way into the Musee d'Orsay and vandalized “Le Pont d'Argenteuil” by Impressionist painter Claude Monet, gouging a four-inch hole in the canvas. Culture Minister Christine Albanel believes France should impose tougher penalties on art vandals. “It would be a good thing to increase the sanctions for (people who vandalize) a church, a museum, a monument, because they are attacking our history.” Albanel also added that the painting will be successfully restored. For more on the story, click here.

Need help getting through your piles of collectibles? Let iTaggit help! We help manage collectibles for those who need it most. Organize collectibles by creating new collections on iTaggit to group them in. Show them off in our Gallery and send them to your friends to check out or add to. Research collectibles like your own through our search option and add to your collection or wish list. Whatever it is that you seek for your collectibles, iTaggit will help you out.

Mystery Behind Holocaust Painter's Album Partially Solved

It has been 60 years since the end of World War II, and as the number of Holocaust survivors dwindles, the mysteries of that horrific era become more difficult to solve. Recently, the story behind an album of historically unique value has been partially solved.

Shari Klages' recalls wandering into her parents bedroom as a small child and thumbing through a leather-bound album that held around 30 pages of ink-and-watercolor images, depicting the horrors of Dachau. She knew her father had spent the last few weeks of World War II in Dachau, but did not know how he came to possess this album. He had immigrated to the states on a ship with more than 60 Holocaust orphans and had taken his life in 1972. The signature “Porulski”, found on the bottom of a few of the pages, was her sole clue as to who the artist was.

The album begins with an image of four prisoners in winter coats. They are carrying their suitcases and marching toward Dachau's watchtower, which was armed with SS guards. The next depicts two inmates being stripped for an exam by a kapo, a prisoner who worked for the Nazis. As the drawings continue, they become more debasing and humiliating from the inmate's perspective. In the final image, a man is lying on the ground next to the barbed wire fence that separated him from freedom, but he has been killed under the looming watchtower. The album also contained 258 photographs, including copies of well-known images of the dead, but also those that portrayed Dachau an an idyllic summer camp, which the Nazis used for propaganda.

Thanks to modern technology archiving and a little help from the Associated Press, Klages located records that documented Porulski's journey. He had enrolled in the Warsaw Academy of Fine Arts in 1934, after completing two years in the Polish army service. After Germany invaded in 1939, he worked on painting postcards of Nazi-occupied Poland. Two of his postcards have survived and are currently located in the Warsaw Museum of Caricature. He was rounded up in 1940, arrested “without any reason,” and was moved from camp to camp before being recorded at Dachau as Michal Porulski, Profession: Artist in 1941. It has been assumed that Porulski created his works after his release, due to the fact that they are all done on the same paper and that no prisoner would have dared to draw such horrors under the Nazis' watchful eyes. Porulski was tragically unable to resume a normal life after the years he had spent in concentration camps, and he wandered from country to country before finally becoming homeless and painting in England, where he passed away at the age of 74.

Though Klages is unsure of where her father and Porulski crossed paths outside of Dachau, it is certain that he treasured Porulski's work as a documentation of what the two men had been through. If you have any treasures of historical value, document and catalog them for the generations to come.

I Am Iron Man!

the new trailer for the Iron Man movie is up at apple trailers. and it's awesome! I hope the end product lives up to this.

666photography Translates Rockabilly Culture Onto Film

Austin is known for its slogan “Keep Austin Weird” because of the unique culture that thrives in the heart of Texas. From the “Hi, How Are You?” frog mural by Daniel Johnston on the side of the old Austin Sound Exchange music store on Guadalupe, to being dubbed “The Live Music Capitol of The World,” the eccentric side of this city is visible where ever you are. 666photography was founded by Gayla, a graduate of the University of Texas at Austin, and her vision adds to what makes this town so great.

She has always been interested in modern rockabilly culture, art nouveau, vaudeville, and Victorian fashion, so she was naturally inclined to begin shooting glamorous pinup photography. Gayla has early recollections of family outings to antique auctions or estate sales and has been collecting distinct pieces since she was small. Her first major purchase as a child was a 1930's armoir, and her furniture collection has since grown so vast that her storage room “looks like a bomb blew up in a vintage store.” There is no idea Gayla and 666photography can't recreate for their models. They build their sets from the ground up, and often hand make their costumes, hats, and accessories to form the concept perfectly.

Gayla was the photographer for the cover of Halloween Man, which I featured last week. Jami Deadly, who portrays the character on the cover, has modeled for Gayla on numerous occasions, and is married to Drew Edwards, the writer/creator of Halloween Man. Gayla knew if she combined her photography with Jami's look, they could give Drew the cover shot of Lucy, a main character in HM, he was looking for.

666photography currently has numerous projects in the works including two books, one of them covering the Seven Deadly Sins, and their schedule is filled through December 2007. If you would like to make an appointment and discuss a photography shoot with Gayla, you can reach her through her MySpace page here. To ensure you grab her attention, she humorously encourages titling messages to the effect of “Read This! I Want To Give You My Money,” and that should bump you up to the top of her respondee list.

Be on the lookout for the conclusion of this trilogy with my upcoming blog featuring Jami Deadly!