Featured People here like a good story, so...

View attachment 184274 I used to live in Hollywood, off and on, in the noughts. I drive an old car and I got my car serviced at a local garage. One day I come in to the office to pay my bill and this picture is hanging on a nail next to the owner's desk. I ask the owner about the picture and he explodes about how he hates the picture, he took it in trade on a repair from the painter, and he will never do that again. I offered him $25 for it and he exploded again... you, you are a good customer, you like it, you take it, it's yours, I never want to look at it again. Get it out of here. And he took it off the nail and he flung it at me. He threw it at me. That was 15-20 years ago.

I must confess that I really like the picture. The artist is a master of neo-cubist multiple faces and likes a Braque type of hand. Do not cubist-shame me. Does anyone know who the vilified artist is? His signature looks like Tomase. Can anyone in the great brain of the Antiquers Forums give me a clue?

 

The full back is an empty pre streched canvas.

[I accidentally hit post reply before I finished with the pictures and had to edit.]

I wonder if the artist ever went back for the picture?

 

The signature appears to read "tomase"

 

Its nicely done whoever tomase is but i cant find any tomase artist. Maybe he was inspired by someone else's work and copied another painting? No clue just a thought.

 

Thank you. The last time I tried to sort this out, I came upon the genera of The Lady and her Maid pictures. The Cloft is very similar.

 

The way both signatures are done and the similar style make me thing that these are decorative pieces. Good quality no doubt.
Is it sure that was actually the painter who left the artwork at the car shop or could have been just an owner?
I think I had a similar one, good quality but I believe it was a “factory” one.

 

The Garage owner called him the artsy fartsy painter. It appeared to me that they had history.

 

I think it says Tomasz, Polish for Thomas. Tried to google him, but every Tomasz in the world seems to be a painter.

 

Factory painting. Here is another one.

https://www.collectorsweekly.com/stories/120127-w-mirkin

 

Appears to be a copy of The Gift by Oleg Zhivetin.

https://www.artbrokerage.com/Oleg-Zhivetin/Gift-AP-1998-112131

 

Painted in 1998, so Chandler's copy was made shortly afterwards.
Zhivetin was born in Uzbekistan, which was Russian at the time, but he went to California because there was interest in his work there. There certainly was.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oleg_Zhivetin

 

Wow, all I can say is wow. So it boils down to it being a gift with transmission!

Thanks verybrad, Any Jewelry, kardinalisismo and all the rest who posted.

Still not bad. I wonder if Zhivetin knew "Tomase"?

 

Tomase is probably a made up name as the rest on the similar paintings.