When some good friends celebrate twenty years of marriage, I have to make them a special gift that will remain, be visible, and valuable to remind them of this event.
After days of searching and talking, I came to the conclusion and understanding with my wife that the most appropriate gift is a painting.
There are several ways to purchase a painting. The most common and easiest are these: to buy from an art gallery, to participate in an auction, to search through consignments and antique shops, to search on sales sites or on the sites of some painters.
Because my wife worked in an art gallery, we know the pricing methods. The commission charged by the gallery is very high and this also raises the price of the painting. At auctions, too, prices rise far beyond our financial means. Buying from consignments or antique shops is risky because you can buy a fake, counterfeit painting. The best and safest method is to buy directly from a painter.
The offer is big and quite expensive but, fortunately, we know and we were quite close to a family of painters. Unfortunately, her husband, the painter, a wonderful painter, died a few years ago. He is left with his wife who sells some of the paintings so he can live. She also paints very well.
We went to our painter friend to look for a painting for our other friends. That's when you have many friends!
I found my painter friend working on a small painting and we had to interrupt her work and ask her to show us what we can buy.
That's how I got to the abandoned workshop of the great painter. Constantin Daradici. Maybe because I'm subjective because I met the painter. I can't say that we were friends, we only saw each other a few times but each meeting was like a meeting between old friends.
Because Constantine was a very special man. One of the best painters of his generation, recognized as the best colorist in contemporary Romanian painting. He was a great bohemian, he lived hard, with many shortcomings and only from the sale of his paintings. He did not love luxury and did not want it, on the contrary, he sought to live only with his family, wine, and cigarettes. He did not accept the comfort of life at all, although he could have obtained it. This can be seen from the way his small workshop looks, where no one was allowed to move an object.
My wife was closer to the Daradici family of painters. She worked for many years in the gallery that also sold their paintings. My wife saw thousands of paintings and met many painters but most of all, she appreciated Constantine the most. Now that she met his wife, they remembered many events from their lives, looking at hundreds of drawings and pastels.
So many paintings! A whole life dedicated to painting. Painters leave something after they leave this world, people will remember them as we did that day. We forgot what we came for, we let ourselves be robbed by the pleasure of seeing the paintings, many of which we had never seen before.
I liked this the most but, unfortunately for me and our friends, it was too expensive and exceeded our purchasing power.
Finally, I bought a painting by Constantine's wife. Although she has been in the shadow of her husband all her life, she also paints very well and I really like her.
This need to find a suitable gift for an important anniversary brought us in the situation of remembering the painter Constantin Daradici. A great painter, a great colorist, a great bohemian, a great friend. He died in the year we weren't out of town and we didn't even know it happened until we got home. It was a shock. A great regret that we did not see each other in the last years of his life.
Constantin Daradici
I feel compelled to show very little of what Constantine did, to be able to see his enormous talent.
Our friend Constantin who left so discreetly that I may wonder if he really existed. Paintings that could not have been painted by anyone else are proof that he was here in our world.
Our friend Constantin ...
We bought some paintings by Daradici over time, we had the advantage that his wife worked at the art gallery and had a serious discount on their price. I mean, I bought at half price. They are not a great price now. There are many elements that determine the market value of a painting, beyond the life and talent of the painter.
Constantin had to maintain a house and a large family, so he painted a lot, often paying for various services directly with paintings. Many people took advantage of this ... but they also lost, because due to a large number of paintings on the market, the price does not increase.
We did not buy the paintings in the hope that the price will increase and we will get rich. We bought them because we liked both the paintings and the painter. The fact that I met the painter and saw him working, that I listened to the story of his life over a bottle of wine mattered the most.
(These last five images are taken from the painter's Facebook page)
Of all the paintings, there is one that is dearest to me and that I received as a gift from Constantin for my birthday when I turned 58 years old. Constantine shared with me or rather, I shared with Constantine the love for the sea and for Greece. He took this into account and made a pastel for me with the island of Santorini as he saw it, in its incomparable colors.
It often happens that I go to this painting and talk to Constantin. I know he is now at that table on the terrace in Santorini, no one sees him, only I can hear him!
I wrote this post for #MarketFriday, a beloved challenge, proposed and gracefully led by 