Yesterday, I attended my very first auction. It was at the Salvation Army and I scored a large print by Canadian artist Benjamin Chee Chee called "Friends". The print caught my eye a few weeks ago and I just hoped there wouldn't be too many people at the auction. I was right!
His bio is fascinating and tragic. Here's a small excerpt I got from Wikipedia:
"Benjamin Chee Chee, artist, of Ojibwa descent, born Kenneth Thomas Benjamin at Temagami, Ontario 26 March 1944; died at Ottawa 14 March 1977. His early life was troubled and he lost track of his mother, who he spent many years searching for. He moved to Montreal in 1965 where he developed his love of drawing, moving back to Ottawa in 1973. He gained fame as he developed his unique style of clear graceful lines with minimal colour of birds and animals giving sense to emotion and movement. After finally finding his mother and achieving success as an artist, he committed suicide in an Ottawa jail. "
I have a few small prints of his hanging in my living room. My favorite is Learning. Good catch.
ReplyDelete