Update 0n progress after 4Th year anniversary.

Memorial Day , four years ago we moved this painting and have been moving slowly to have the restoration work completed and the painting to be returned to a museum setting . I went by the Brooklyn museum and was happy to see an exhibition of 3 murals that had been lost and found. It took them 4 years to finally raise the $350,000 to restore the paintings which are worth millions. It makes us feel better about our slow progress. It is the end result that counts and the earnest efforts of our journey, to restore Hundertwassers Lost Paradise Mural. I will attach so photo's of that move and must unfortunately return to my day job that is calling.

The news story by Mike Weiss that came out on 3/30 in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle has helped start the media train and the NY Times and Der Spiegle have expressed interest in the story. Hopefully this exposure will bring us the collaborative help we seek to move this project forward.

Funding for the film.

I just got an offer from from my lawyer to introduce me to a film financier who could make this whole project happen. He said the financier could lend $400,000 which would be enough for the restoration of the mural as well as the film. This is an exciting development and I am hoping that he is going to be reasonable, after all I was told that I could theoretically get grants for both. We are tired of waiting and terning down offers to sell the painting.

I placed a posting on kickstarter.com hoping to get funding, we will see what happens and keep trying to find some combination that finally succeeds in financing this project. It would be nice, if the story of our adventure in finding this painting with such a rich history that had already been saved by Jean Aberbach once before could somehow pay for its restoration. We also have four years worth photo's of this project and the painting that has not been available to the public ever. These images alone might be valuable to the art going public. Perhaps we can set up a pay pal account and a website to sell the photo's as postcards, calenders or print in limited or unlimited editions.

The news is out, in the paper and on Utube

Finaly the story is public and confirmed by two journalists . Mike Weiss of the brooklyneagleonline.com and Geo Geller on Utube with two interviews in front of the painting in storage. Please check them both out , but I have to go to sleep. Good night.

See and believe , vidio and images

I want to use images and a brief edited video of this project at the beginning when we moved the painting the day before it would have been destroyed. We have continued to document the story as it unfolds over three and a half years now. We have hours of footage that needs editing and a project that needs funding. A valuable and priceless artifact is not cash , the currency that transforms dreams into reality

This gift which was given my family came without a price tag or instructions, or a funding source for its restoration. We have been on a journey of discovery ourselves that has been and adventure and a game changer. This encounter between us promises to change both our fates for the better. One day the painting will be one view restored, in a museum or a museum tour and my family , mother sisters and brothers will be in a position to fund their individual and collective dreams.

This is a match made in heaven and a large part of the money made will go to help restore the Paradise that we collectively share on this planet. It is in disrepair and is broken The Jews have a word for this Tikkun Olam the Restoration of the world.I would like to think that Hundertwasser still lives in a Legestree that he continues to feed with his body of work. He hoped one day that he could become humus in which new green life could spring. With this project we hope to make him smile in the world of the happily dead. He watches us as does the creators eye from the branches of the tree of life. He reminds that we should behave for we are the guests of nature. We must be good stewards in the garden we have been given, sharing equitably with all of life, plant,animal and human.

For some strange reason I can not get the blog to accept the file for the documentary film. You will have to go to the second oldest posting in Feb. of 2010 to view the film clip.

Turning Dreams into Reality

Tony Pemberton a Director and Producer of film recommended I contact Witcraft a script and production company in Vienna, He said that they produced a film of his and recommended them highly. Ursula Wolschlager in particular he gave stellar reviews as a producer. I went to there website and check them out, they seem like perfect partners for our documentary film, Restoring Paradise. see for yourselves at http://www.witcraft.at/en/wolschlager.html

He said that he thought they could not only help develop the script but with the production and the fundraising through a grant from the Austrian Government. Hundertwasser is a national icon and an industry to himself. I have examined all things Hundertwasser, his creative output is phenomenal and extensive. The economic activity derived from this dead artistic icon if calculated is considerable. Like Antonio Gaudi is to Barcelona, he is to Vienna, he is the #3 tourist attraction in the city.

We acquired this painting as a gift from people who did not know its value and would have destroyed it. We saved this lost national treasure of the Austrian peoples would it be so strange to think they might appreciate that considerable effort by one American family that their government might fund the documentary film.

The film well made and well distributed would educate people around the world to whom he remains yet unknown. It would serve many functions beyond increasing the value of our painting Paradise and all his other works. I think he is undervalued and misunderstood by many including thous in his own county. There would be strings attached to the grant of course, His archive in Vienna,, archiv-office@harel.at would supervise and have oversight and the production crew and staff would be Austrians. The money spent would then circulate in the Austrian local economy and the influx of new tourism would bring in extra foreign currency.

We have chosen the best person in the world for the actual conservation work. Ralf Wittig, atelier@ralfwittig.at is a skilled Austrian citizen who knew and worked with Hundertwasser for a decade and works now with his museum and Archive. He issued a five page report on the condition and imortance of this remarkable work. The hair on his arm stood up and he got goosebumps when he first saw this painting. That kind of emotional connection can not be taught at any university. That personal understanding and chemistry uniquely qualifies him and can nor be faked

I talked yesterday with an agent of Sotheby's in NYC who said that they might fund the restoration efforts if we agree to consign the work for auction through them. Harry Rand the Smithsonian Senior curator, and Harvard Art Historian who wrote the book on Hundertwasser told me that he thought we could get a grant for the restoration as well. I told him that we could not believe that someone in ignorance of its value gifted us this painting and we had a hard time believing that others who do not know or care about us would pay for the film and the restoration. He said that we do not understand that those in the art and cultural world especially the foundations live to save what is precious. They do not care about us only about the life of a painting and its future. It not only outlived its makes it will out live us all and the ripples of its effect on the world will continue beyond our lifetimes in ways that will be seen and unseen.

This project is moving slowly in the right directing growing green and gold like moss and mold. Hundertwasser spoke often of this slow unfolding that is not in our control but driven by and unseen force in a universe where our individual and collective thought and action matters.

Restoring Paradise the documentry film.

From the beginning I knew that I had two valuable properties, the painting and the extraordinary story that surrounds it's amazing journey, since its birth in May of 1950 in the old Hunting Lodge of the Contessa Castillion in the wooded outskirts of Paris.

I had the move documented from the old mansion on the Gold Coast of Long Island where we salvaged it. We edited a 2min.30 second video that can be seen in my second posting. I have interviewed four film makers and am planing to produce the film that documents the entertaining and dramatic journey of the painting and the artists that gave it birth.

I will give you details in upcoming posts. The real world and the dentist beckons and I have to go.

Restoring Paradise , further details

The painting which is 10 ft. tall by 16 ft. wide is the largest painting don on a contiguous surface that he completed in his life time. It is also the first in the modern style that has come to define his future body of work. In it you can find many motif's that would recur in the future work of his adult life, the trans-Atlantic steamers in the upper let side of the mural being one amongst these iconic images.

The concentric spiral that he adopted as a trademark and reoccurring motif is found in its earliest form in the pupil of the eye of god that is shaped as both the eye of Horus in the cult of Osiris, and the fish that was the Ancient Greek symbol of the Soul or Christos that was latter adopted by the Early Christians. The bars within the eye are reminders that the all seeing eye of god that watches us all, bars himself from action, because he gave us free will. We are free to enjoy or destroy the Paradise we inhabit.

The eye also has a small fish etched over the pupil in recognition of the Holographic nature of the Universe. This is a manifestation of Carl Jung's Archetypal God-Self and the Atman-Brahman duality Expressed in Hindu Sacred Litterateur, The Upanishads. We are all the little fish within a larger unifying and mirroring larger reality. Hundertwasser said that Bro's Paradise was locked in a treasure chest and that the key had been lost. I think if you look closely you can begin to decipher its hidden symbols and its secrets will begin to reveal themselves.

This painting listed in Harry Rands Book Hunderwasser as in the hunting Lodge of the Countessa Castillion that was demolished in1964, was thought by many to be destroyed. Miraculously it has survived and now is in mid-conservation and is beginning to reveal its beauty for the first time to Hundertwasser fans to whom it as been largely unavailable and lost in obscurity in America. It sate forlorn in an old castle like mansion on the Gold Coast of Long Iland , unknown and forgotten to the owners until its salvaging and rediscovery.

Progress Report

It is a long time since my last posting and progress report and I want to give a brief update. On Sept 18 of 2010 we received an offer of $700,000 for the painting in its mid-restoration state , in thirteen crated pieces in storage. We have declined the offer from Christian Baha of the Austrian Hedge fund and continue to pursue funding sources for the restoration and the documentary film. We need $120,000 and $120, for the film. Cristian Baha had a difficult year and only made $85 million personally on the $1.7 billion under his management.

A friend of mine who's cousin just built a house for Carlos Slim of Mexico has promise us to contact him on our behalf. He is the richest man in the world and is building a MOMA in Mexico City. He paid $153 Mil. for one Jackson Pollack. I wonder what he might be willing to pay for the worlds largest Hundertwasser painting, for loan or purchase.

We are seeking grants for this purpose and have contacted grant writer to assist in this effort.

We have also become aware of three company's that are licenced to sell an art print of this painting by his archive for $350. We are applying for permission to do the same, but use our own , better photographic images, unavailable through any other source. We will also try to get a licence to sell all things Hunderwasser as are sold on his museum store. If people will buy though our online site, we could use the proceeds to pursue the restoration of the painting and the documentary film.

We are also getting an independent appraisal from Victor Wiener, the ex-president of the national appraisers association. We intent to approach banks who will lend against the painting as collateral. I will attach a file of a 25 page article on the appraisal of large scale art.

I will keep you posted on our progress. I have attach some close up photos that were taken of the painting that have been photo retouched using photo-shop. They are all copyright protected and can not be used for any reason without consent from us, as is any and all information on this blog.