Starving Artists - Part Six by Dave Jaffe

          Starving Artists - 19th Century U.S. Artists Drew Money


        James Boggs who draws one side or two of currency bills has many imitators who copy his art work and try and pass their work off as something made by Boggs. Their art work is a version of a version of a dollar bill drawn by Boggs. How do the power structures deal with these people because they could be breaking the law at least twice?
    Then there's artists who lived long before Boggs and sort of did what he did. 19th century artists like William Harnett, John Peto and John Haberle painted pictures that included very realistic looking dollar bills.
    "Though their work never enjoyed intellectual prestige," writes Edward Lucie Smith in his book 'American Realism' "some had moments of popular success beyond the reach of more ambitious artists.
     One of these artists William Harnett was warned by U.S. Secret Service agents not to paint dollar bills. They told him he was a counterfeiter and could go to prison."Harnett", says Edward Lucie Smith, "accepted the warning, abandoned this kind of subject."  Yet when Secret Sevice agents warned John Haberle, he kept on painting pictures that included portraits or copies of dollar bills. Haberle painted a picture called 'Reproduction' that included a copy of a U.S. ten dollar bill.
     These paintings belong to a type of painting called 'trompe-l'oeile' or 'trick of the eye' paintings. They were painted to be so realistic that the person looking at them would think the objects in the painting were real.
     In Europe in the 19th century 'trompe-l'oeil' paintings were still filed under the heading of 'still life paintings'. About this time they disappeared in Europe as artists turned to other subjects. Yet at this time in the U.S., this type of art became very popular.
     To-day, the paintings of Harnett, Peto and Haberle could sell at auctions for hundreds of thousands of dollars. Their works were of course popular in their lifetimes too.
     Still, the careers of these men and the career of J.L.S. Boggs proves it's sometimes hard for a visual artist to make money no matter what he or she draws, sculpts or paints. Yet these days there are books that show visual artists. We'll look at them in the next part of this story.