Rene Ricard Print Goes On Sale Monday at Exhibition A

by Deidre Woollard (RSS feed)
Dec 18th 2010 at 1:01AM

You've no doubt heard of 1980s art stars like Jean Michel Basquiat and Julian Schnabel but Rene Ricard may have passed you by. I first learned about Ricard in Schnabel's movie "Basquiat." Ricard has been called unsung hero of the New York art world, a poet/artist who has done more to further the work of others including Schnabel and Basquiat than to create his own career. In 2009, Vice magazine called him "a semi-secret hero of American art and culture." He is, a survivor, an artist, an original.

These days much of Ricard's poetry is in the form of paintings, poignant words scrawled across images in his sweeping cursive. Starting Monday, Ricard's work Boat, shown above, will be available at ExhibitionA.com as a special limited edition print of 100, signed and numbered by the artist, framed or unframed. It's perhaps not the most cheerful of holiday gifts but it's on my wish list just the same. As I mentioned recently Exhibition A is new online platform for buying and collecting contemporary art started in part by the husband-and-wife team of Bill Powers, Half Gallery owner and judge on Bravo's Work of Art, and designer Cynthia Rowley. Pieces are available for purchase for $100 to $500 and I predict Ricard's work will sell fast.

Tags: art, art prints, exhibition a, rene ricard