"Man paints with his brains, not his hands" - Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475-1564)

“You make money from art only when the insurance kicks in.”

In Dublin, the capital of Ireland, a prominent art gallery was, for a period in the later part of the 20th. century plagued by a series of burglaries, most particularly when exhibitions were being held. These innocent but hopeful law-breakers had come to the conclusion that the relatively high prices quoted in the exhibition catalogue made the paintings exhibited desirable prey. They would be easy to steal and to sell on, if not, they imagined, quite for the full catalogue price. It took some years for the thieves to discover the realities of the art market. The break-ins and the theft of paintings from artists’ shows gradually ceased, when this dawned on them. All through the period, the only persons to gain to some extent were the bemused artists who were exhibiting and who were as a result of the theft of their paintings indemnified by the insurance companies. The unexpected cash benefit they received was often over and above the meagre returns resulting from the show itself.

are available for book illustrations, annual reports, paper and packaging, giftware, related products. You can license them in the following format: Original transparencies in 6 x 6 cm. (2¼ in.) format, high-resolution RGB drum scans on DVD or efficient and quick E-Mail or FTP upload.