Butt...

I love thrift stores. Can happily spend hours in them, seeking out value in the discarded like a truffle pig (see The Gleaner and I for more on this topic). While sifting (for hours) through Santa Barbara's Alpha Thrift, I find this derriere painting in a pile of ratty motel-esque prints. It is 7'x'6 and of impeccable quality. I love it. I have always been a sucker for photorealism. And classic women. So I buy it for $100:



Back at home on a whim, we google the signature penciled on the back of the canvas: John Kacere, 1970...

Who is John Kacere again? Turns out he is a significant artist of the 1970s photorealism movement (a reaction to post-WWII abstract expressionism) along with Chuck Close, Robert Bechtle, Howard Kanovitz. All of these guys tend to focus on the ubiquitous mundane and fixate on one subject matter throughout their work. Chuck has faces. Robert has suburbia. And John has ladies' lingeried backsides (and sometimes frontsides).





His work is the inspiration for the opening shot in Lost in Translation; one of his pieces ("Jutta") hangs in Charlotte's hotel room. We got the painting authenticated. It hangs happily in our living room.