Much to the dismay of my wife, I have recently come into a family heirloom. It’s an oil painting of me done when I was about ten years old. It was painted by an artist of some note and it’s top quality work.
In the painting I look quite handsome and athletic. Once when I was in high school some friends came over and saw it hanging over the fireplace. One of them, a guy with a large bag of weed in his sock, stepped closer and studied it for a while before stating, “You know, it looks like you could have turned out to be a real asshole.” It was a memorable moment in my life.
This particular painting has been the cause of much controversy since it’s first showing. My sister was not a big fan of it.
“Why the hell is his picture on the goddamned mantle?”
Good question actually. I was certainly not the favored child in my opinion, but who knows. I guess it is pretty obnoxious to hang an oil painting of one of your children in a prominent place while the other looks on.
Now the picture is in my possession and causing problems again. This time with my wife.
“So now we’re going to start hanging large pictures of ourselves?” she said, clearly appalled.
“It’s not a snapshot from Six Flags, it’s a fucking portrait in oil!”
“What difference does it make? You can’t hang portraits of yourself in your own house!”
“I rather like it and I can’t see stuffing the only real piece of art we have into a closet.”
“The only real piece of art we have? What about—“
“The only real oil painting we have.”
She stared at me for a long time before laughing quietly and dismissing me with her hand. Her show was back from commercial.
My parents went through an art collection phase that lasted about 7 years. They were actually pretty discerning when it came down to it, and picked up stuff from all kinds of genres; from Buckles to Miro to this one guy's name I can harldy pronounce, let alone spell. Some of it I like, some of it I have always thought was overpriced garbage. Prior to this period, they had one portrait (it wasn't oil paint, it may have been oil crayon though) of my father hanging in the house that was done when he was a kid. When they started collecting, this thing was tucked away somewhere. I don't know if it's truly an art faux pas to have a portrait of one's self or if they just decided it was hideous.