(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Street Prophets Friday: Treasured Trash [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.', 'Backgroundurl Avatar_Large', 'Nickname', 'Joined', 'Created_At', 'Story Count', 'N_Stories', 'Comment Count', 'N_Comments', 'Popular Tags'] Date: 2023-02-03 One evening this week, while walking home in the rain, something caught my eye. Trosky — 1975?, oil on Masonite by Miroslav Šilhán, 68 cm x 30 cm On a stack of corrugated cardboard, flattened boxes, propped against some trash bins, someone had deposited a painting. It was matted and framed. The frame's glass was even intact. If nothing else, such a large frame with a good sheet of glass was worth probably a hundred dollars or so. I tucked it under my arm and took it home. I set it upright next to my drawing table. The matte was wet in one corner where the rain had seeped in under the glass. It was apparently an oil painting, so it was an odd choice to frame it behind glass. Not how I'd have framed it in any case. I mean, just the paper-shopping-bag brown matte was ridiculously wide to begin with. I left it to dry and showed it to my family. Geez, what has the cat dragged in? Well, the next day I took a look at the signature and the back of the frame. The name Šilhán was signed, lower left along with a quick double squiggle that was probably the date, and probably ‘71. The back of the frame was interesting. The sheet of Masonite was backed with cardboard and then taped to the frame. The cardboard was rubber stamped (practically everybody had a rubber stamp with their name and address on it in Czechoslovakia) with a note that states “Summer day — Trosky from the hamlet of Želejov …” and “Oil 1975.” Aha, so that second squiggle was a headless, tailless 5? Then a long note about the framing that I haven’t tried to untangle accompanied by a little sketch (perhaps a cross-section of the frame?), some calculations— another little note of some sort. both the cardboard and the tape are signed by the artist. This is all original. I decided to look for more work by Miroslav Šilhán online and found several of his paintings offered for sale in various Czech online auction houses. Starting prices of around $20 — $40, final bids of $44— one place optimistically trying to get someone to bite at $400. The castle ruins of Trosky were apparently a favorite subject of his. While digging I found out that Miroslav was from the Turnov area, lived from 1910 to 1980, had shows of his work in Liberec and in 1948 turned in several of his fellow citizens to the State Security forces (the Czechoslovakian equivalent of the KGB). Their crime was distributing anti-communist fliers and pamphlets. I guess he was proud of what he'd done and crowed about it in some communist publication from 1968. And to think that less than ten years after his death, the communist government would step down and free and democratic elections would be held. It’s not a spectacular painting. Reminds me a bit of my own efforts at oil painting out in the wilds. He seems to have been fairly average, mostly forgotten by the artistic community. His name doesn't appear in lists of important Czech artists, he's not represented in the collection of the National Gallery. Maybe his work would be worth more than the cost of the frame if he hadn’t turned in those pamphleteers. My Czech grandma was a pampheteer, for the communists, during the Nazi occupation. She left the Communist Party after the Warsaw Pact tanks rolled into town. The tides keep turning. I'm glad to have acquired this painting though. It has a story to tell. Why would someone just throw it away? It's not as if a whole apartment was being cleared of clutter. Wondering where I’ll hang it, just as it is, without reframing. Maybe in the garage … Not been a particularly fancy week around here. Snow fell and melted. Last weekend we got out for a walk with friends and stopped by a little Vietnamese restaurant to celebrate our newly elected President. I think General Petr Pavel will be far better at representing the Czech Republic than his predecessor. A photo from our walk It was funny, I got a call when the second round of elections was underway from my brewery client who asked, “If you don't mind me asking an indellicate question— who are you going to vote for?” After explaining that, as a non-citizen, I couldn't vote, I was told that that simplified matters greatly. If the election would go— um, positively, could I be asked to produce a new beer label illustration? It did go positively. I was asked. And I drew this: Brushed walnut ink and black pencil from my sketchbook I had some fun researching Czechoslovakian army general's uniforms from the era between the world wars known here as The First Republic as all of the illustrations, and the Art Deco style of the labels, are inspired by this time period. Thanks for stopping by. This is an open thread. [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/2/3/2150846/-Street-Prophets-Friday-Treasured-Trash Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/