Can you help me identify this Pinup Angel Painting and its Artist

[cbotw27]

I bought this at an auction because I thought it was unique.  The signature is scribbles and I can't read it. Can you help? Thanks a bunch!

[sonomabarn67]

I was feeling bad that I might have overly criticized this painting and had another look...on the internets... I checked in with many online references using the phrases "vintage, bad, very bad, hand-painted, portrait artwork" and found not just one or two but many offerings. The good news is that there are many available, the bad news is that there are many available. There is even a museum of bad art. Many of these emanate from thrift stores so provenance is a bit dodgy. In your favor, there are many 19th/e 20th/late 20th etc. folk art... Please understand that I was not trying to be hurtful, just realistic. Bad art exists as does good art, and much in between.  The one commonality is that all artists, at any level, seem to be doing the best they can, at that time and,  keep in mind there are always exceptions.

"Lady With Two Wings Coming Out Of The Right Side Of Her Neck" may be worth contacting the museum about.

[alienicandy]

After reading through this thread I find relation to the true meaning of what makes art subjective.  "The individual's reaction to something is based on and influenced by personal feelings, tastes, or opinions. Art is created for beauty and emotional reaction being appreciated by individuals, using personal feelings and tastes to form an opinion."  My synopsis is that this MAY have been done by a master painter who took a bad hit of acid at a grateful dead concert in the 60's hence the masterpiece "Lady With Two Wings Coming Out Of The Right Side Of Her Neck"  !  Joking but I did find the discussion quite entertaining:):) 

[maxine*j]

I maintain there is a difference between a well-trained and/or innately talented painter who knows and has mastered the rules of art but decides to break them and a painter who simply doesn't know, or hasn't mastered, the rules.

With the former, we can argue about why it did it, if he should have done it, how well he did it, what influenced him to do it, how much it will influence others to do the same, how it fits in with the development of art, et cetera.   (Think Picasso, classically trained, superb at drawing, etc.)   With the the latter, we can only point to the broken rules as flaws, in the hope that the painter is still learning them.  (Think the painting in question here.)

No one dismisses comments as merely subjective if one points out that a mechanic's brake job failed because he didn't know to always replace calipers in pairs, that an engineer's lack of understanding of deck flexibility caused a bridge to collapse, that the handle came off a mug because the potter didn't know how to apply it, that the jacket doesn't fit well because the tailor couldn't sew a dart properly. 

But if one points out that a painting fails because the painter can't draw at all and doesn't even copy very well, hasn't given himself a foundation, doesn't know the fundamentals of perspective, say, or composition or tone, one is labelled a snoot, a mocker, an unkind know-it-all.

Whether or not I  like  a painting comes down to personal taste, but my assessment of artwork is more than a statement of my personal taste.

And I agree that discussions of art are always entertaining, and sometimes even informative.

[ribitz]

I see Nong Jin in the signature,

but the angles of the picture of it hard to see.  I would take another set of pictures of it and better angles, and then play with it in a photo editing software to see if the "g" is followed by a "J"

Then try to find out the dating of when it was made and where if at all possible.

[maxine*j]

I did a little work on it.  The letters remain ambiguous, to my eye.

[alienicandy]

I agree but even Picasso had his work severely criticized as “schizophrenic” and even “satanic” in the beginning. Carl Jung, a Swiss psychiatrist labeled his technique as an “underworld form,” something that was evil and did not belong in art galleries. I am no expert and in no way challenging the assessment of this painting but I do agree to disagree about the subjective topic... Maybe the wings being the the wrong place is a statement of the artist? Ok like I said I am far from an expert so I will stick with my first assessment of hallucinogenics or most likely a lack of talent:):):)  

[alienicandy]

I see Nongvi maybe the wall mural artist from zanzibar, Tanzania?

[maxine*j]

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@alienicandy wrote:

I agree but even Picasso had his work severely criticized as “schizophrenic” and even “satanic” in the beginning. Carl Jung, a Swiss psychiatrist labeled his technique as an “underworld form,” something that was evil and did not belong in art galleries... 

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I think that sort of makes my point that when an artist knows and has mastered all the rules but breaks them, people argue about the whys and wherefores of it. 

None of them said Picasso couldn't paint.  They said he was a classically-trained and innately- talented artist who was painting in such a way as to make them think he had perhaps gone mad, or had lost his moral way. 

As for Jung, he said: "If I venture to voice an opinion on the subject at all, it is with the express reservation that I have nothing to say on the question of Picasso's 'art' but only on its psychology.  I shall therefore leave the aesthetic problem to the art critics, and shall restrict myself to the psychology underlying this kind of artistic creativeness."

A couple of years later, he added a note to the article from which that is quoted that he wished to make it clear that he did not consider Picasso psychotic, that "the designation 'schizophrenic' does not, therefore, signify a diagnosis of the mental illness schizophrenia," etc.

http://web.org.uk/picasso/jung_article.html

I will gladly afree to disagree, too, although, really, I don't think we're so much disagreeing as we are emphasizing different aspects of art criticism / appreciation. 

[ribitz]

When I first saw it, I saw the goddess Artemis.

I asked another person, and they saw Artemis too.

Does anything in it look like Orion?

My opinion, trying understand what the artist is trying to say is the true beauty of art, not the visual.

Understanding what Artemis is known for brings in a whole new view of the piece.

[ribitz]

I have seen images of Artemis with gold wings before, but they are hard to find.

[maxine*j]

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@ribitz wrote:

When I first saw it, I saw the goddess Artemis.

I asked another person, and they saw Artemis too.

Does anything in it look like Orion?

My opinion, trying understand what the artist is trying to say is the true beauty of art, not the visual.

Understanding what Artemis is known for brings in a whole new view of the piece.

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It's possible, of course, but it would be an odd representation of Artemis, in my view.  Neither Artemis nor her twin brother Apollo had wings.   Artemis was also the goddess of chastity, the protector of young girls, a goddess (rare among them) who remained a virgin.

It is good to try to think about what a painter was trying to say, and it's equally good that the painter be skilled in the visual medium he's chosen to express himself, otherwise all his errors distract from meditations on message.

The same is true of writers, dancers, singers, sculptors, et al.  Happily, there are so many good painters, writers, and all the rest, that I needn't spend time trying to sort out what the bad ones might possibly be trying to communicate.

Interesting conversation.

By the way, are you sure you aren't thinking of Nike with the golden wings?