Waller-Yoblonsky Fine Art

Time and time again, you step onto the internet and find misinformation.  It is as simple as Garbage In - Garbage Out:  Auction houses misidentify artworks for their financial benefit, database companies track the auction house records, sell that information through monthly or yearly subscriptions such as: Invaluable and Mutual Art, which sells the misinformation to you.   One artist that these institutions continuously get wrong is the work by Jesus Ceballos.  They frequently say his work belongs to Rufino Ceballos.  Understandable, they are lazy and fail to do their research and due diligence, and of course Rufino is a noted artist while Jesus' art career has been overlooked by art historians and auction houses. Rufino signed some of his paintings as Cebal, a shorter version of his last name.  At other times he used his full last name, especially for his landscapes that were not necessarily sold through the gallery that represented him.  Ru...

Scriver as a Montana bronze sculptor captured wildlife, cowboys and the history of the Blackfeet Tribe.  He was born and raised in Browning on the Blackfeet reservation, studied animals and taxidermy, and loved a good rodeo.  At the Montana summer rodeos the crowd would hold their breath as the bronco rider mounted the bull in the shoot, the gate would open, and the rider and bull would gyrate up and down as they both moved out into the arena.  In the spotlight, the rider hangs on to the short rope, as the bull twists and turns, and within seconds the rider is either the winner of the competition, or taken out by the ambulance corp with broken bones.  Scriver understood and embraced his Native American influences, the anatomy of wildlife animals and cowboy country, and used his artistic talents to tell these Montana stories.    In his bronze, "Cold Maker" - Scriver depicts a winter scout, that is huddled under a buffalo skin or a heavy Hudson Bay blanket....

This article is dedicated to my Japanese (nihongo) Sensei, Atsuko Kuwana, who helped me learn to speak Japanese. Collectors come in all varieties, some plan their collections, others start by chance.  I saw my first kokeshi（こけし） wooden doll in 2005 while participating in a grassroutes exchange program between the U.S. and Japan.  I was staying with a family near Nagoya and the couple’s young daughter had one.  Years later when I was named a Mike Mansfield Fellow from the U.S. government to the Japanese government, and was living in Japan, I would see them frequently at flea markets and souvenir shops next to the natural hot spring resorts in the area known as Tohoku.  Before leaving for Japan, I studied all things Japanese at the George Shultz Foreign Service Institute (FSI), including a professor that covered domestic and family life and some short statements on kokeshi.  After arriving in Japan, the National Personnel Authority ( jinjiin ) was responsible for...

Kaufman was an American pop art icon.  His silkscreens on canvases consisted of soup cans, comic characters, famous actors, and cigars.  His subject matters were not surprising considering his association with Andy Warhol and his work at the Factory, where Warhol produced his multi-numerous prints and works of art. Kaufman had a reoccurring theme in his work, off-limits Cuban Cohiba cigars.  He toyed with images of other cigars, but mostly stuck with Cohiba.  Likewise he did a limited edition portrait of Fidel Castro, perhaps playing with the untouchable subject matter.  Unlike his art contemporaries, he accomplished his hand pulled limited editions on canvas instead of paper.  On the reverse of each canvas, was his signature "SAK" initials for Steve Alan Kaufman.  His signature was mostly in black marker and the edition numbers.  "There's nothing like a fine cigar, a good bottle of wine and a beautiful...you know me," said American Pop Artis...

Russ Conn was a celebrated Boonton, NJ and Palm Beach, FL artist. His successful early years were tracked by his hometown, Boonton. After high school, he went off to college and participated in World War I. Upon returning home from the war he joined the family business of inventors bringing early automation to Wall Street. By age 40, retiring from his career he took up his passion for painting and art. He went off to Florida's Norton Gallery and School of Art, where he studied under the who’s who of great artists: Elliot O’Hara; Adolph Dehn; William Thon; Dong Kingman. Looking at Conn's work, you can see the influence of these teachers. With his fortune he traveled the world, and painted the locations that he visited. There has been an estimate that he might have painted more than 5,000 paintings during his life. In his watercolor, “The Japanese Market”, Conn illustrates his time in Japan. The large white sign above the shop is clearly in Japanese, a combination o...