This is probably the most popular of all my paintings. This has appeared on the covers of MAGIC Magazine and also ELAN Magazine which is an art magazine. It's a fairly small painting of Cardini and I'll tell you why. I was sitting in my old studio and decided to go ahead and paint. The only thing I had handy was a small canvas board and I threw a sketch on and just started throwing colors down, not really expecting anything to come out of it. In fact, there was a second painting that I had done first and it was junk so I didn't expect this to be anything either.
In this case, I happened to get up to get a drink and when I came back I saw the painting at a distance and marveled at what how it was taking shape. I had to fix the monocle as it didn't look right at first. The top hat he is wearing is mostly out of the frame of the canvas, but for some reason it works. I've had offers of a couple thousand dollars for this one and so far I've turned down the offers. This is one of the few that I probably won't sell anytime soon.
The painting is of Richard Pitchford, better known as CARDINI. He was the greatest stage magic manipulator in the history of the art. His act was copied by hundreds of performers but no one ever got close to the charm that Cardini possessed. This is actually my second Cardini painting. The first was a commission that is very different than this one. Today the commissioned piece sits in a private collection in California.
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