PICTURE PERFECT

Story dated June 18, 2004

How much would you pay for a pinball game? $3,000? $4,000? Perhaps even as much as $10,000?

At a recent Southeby's auction in Paris, a collector paid $412,000 just for a picture of one.

Of course for that kind of money we're not talking about any old picture but a work by photo-realist still-life painter Charles S Bell.

Bell, who was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma but worked in New York and mainly painted images of Americana such as this picture entitled "Double Bonus". He has also painted other pinball art as well as gumball machines.

Double Bonus exceeded its expected maximum of €300,000 and reached €343,200 in the Paris sale on 27th May 2004. It was part of a sale by collector Pierre Lescure who spent over twenty years collecting paintings, radios, toys and illustrations all related to 20th century America.

 

 

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