OUR AMERICA from facing page TV personality Regis Philbin, who died last year, wrote of his feelings of “sorrow, doubt, and fear” after seeing the planes go into the World Trade Center. “We have survived the most savage attack on our nation in modern times and have answered it swiftly and bravely,” he wrote. “I used to wonder if we had the guts and character of our predecessors. I don’t anymore.” Former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, upon visiting Ground Zero, recalled the words of President Abraham Lincoln.
When Lincoln dedicated a portion of the Gettysburg battlefield for use as a cemetery, he said it was the duty of the living “to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they … have thus far so nobly advanced.” Bloomberg noted that “the same spirit that guided the soldiers at Gettysburg flowed through the rescuers of Sept. 11.” Hugh Downs did a great job editing My America. In these pages, readers will find encouragement for 2021 and beyond. James E. Patterson is a writer and speaker based in Washington, D.C.
Art & Antiques by Dr. Lori
Lori Verderame
Donated David Bowie Painting Sells for Big Bucks
Puzzles shown on page 7.
Puzzle Solutions
A circa 1995–97 oil-on-canvas portrait painting by the The painting was discovered in the summer of 2020, when late music icon David Bowie sold at auction for $108,120 many people were donating objects galore as a result of the Canadian recently. That statement in and of itself is not all that widespread home and storage cleaning sparked by lockdown groundbreaking until the rest of the story is told. time at home. The painting was purchased for $5 Canadian at a thrift store According to the auction house, which worked to or donation center in northern Ontario. authenticate the painting, DHead XLVI was purchased by an David Robert Jones is the given name for the music legend American collector for more than 10 times the pre-auction David Bowie (1947–2016), who is best known, not for his fine estimate. art, but instead for his music. Of course, the auction sales price sets a new record for His final album, Blackstar, was an international hit. Many of a painting by David Bowie; a similar work from the series his albums entered the Billboard 200, including The Rise and sold shortly after the musician’s death in 2016 for $39,000 Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars, Hunky Dory, Canadian in the United Kingdom. Let’s Dance, Aladdin Sane, Low, and The Next Day. It is not unusual to see active bidding when a celebrity name Compilation albums like Best of Bowie are established hits. is attached to a work of art that is up for bid at auction. This Bowie had the most albums in the Top 40 at one time with 12, painting was rare because not only did the piece come from a along with the likes of Elvis Presley and Michael Jackson. famous collection, but the artist had star power as well. David Bowie died in Manhattan, New York, in 2016 after Even more interesting was the situation surrounding the suffering from liver cancer for more than a year. discovery of the painting: at a Canadian donation center for a Early in his life, Bowie studied art and design as a young few dollars. David Bowie on stage man, and throughout his life, he collected fine art of the Such finds have been much more commonplace in the wake during the 1983 th 20 century, including pieces by the German Expressionists, of the global COVID pandemic and resulting home cleanouts, Serious Moonlight tour Francis Bacon, and many British painters. with increased donations of unwanted vintage art and antiques. The painting that sold for $108,120 Canadian recently at Dr. Lori Verderame is the award-winning Ph.D. antiques appraiser on History Cowley Abbott auctioneers in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, was entitled DHead channel’s The Curse of Oak Island. Dr. Lori offers free information about antiques XLVI. An abstract portrait head in a turquoise, white, and red palette, DHead appraisals and selling at drloriv.com and youtube.com/drloriv. XLVI was part of a series of paintings dating to the mid-1990s.
www.50plusLifePA.com
50plus LIFE
September 2021
21
