Lot 197 Oil On Canvas By Lee Reynolds (Large) Original Reproductions By Vanguard Studios

Oil On canvas
Sea gulls on the docks by Lee Reynolds
Burr was born in Los Angeles and graduated with a BFA from UCLA in 1962. He initially created artwork for Bertini Studios but soon decided to go out on his own. Two years later, he founded Vanguard Studios with his business-savvy brother Stuart to give average American families the chance to own a “real” oil painting, much like the etchings that had democratized the art-owning experience in America a century earlier. With paintings sold through a network of Vanguard showrooms, furniture stores and interior decorators around the country, business started booming, and 10 years later, both men were multimillionaires with a publicly traded company.

Burr never set out to be part of the contemporary fine art movement. His product was decorative art: pieces that would look nice over couches in middle-class homes, with an actual artist’s signature (usually “Lee Reynolds” or simply “Reynolds”) to make them seem more exclusive and genuine. Vanguard tackled many different styles and subjects—landscapes, bullfighters, supercute or sad children, boats at sea, flowers, architecture, still lifes, romantic images of old Europe, and more—very well, with the representative pieces often mirroring the illustrative style of the day. Burr painted original works that were then copied by his crew of artists, but as business grew, he hired Americana painter Harry Wysocki as Vanguard’s chief designer and employed Argentine artist Aldo Luongo to contribute designs. Burr periodically traveled to Europe (where he hung out with Salvador Dali) to buy paintings at auctions that he could then replicate at his LA studio for mass consumption.

At any one time, Burr had between eight and 20 artists working at Vanguard, copying paintings by Wysocki, Luongo or himself—works that became officially known as “original reproductions by Vanguard Studios.” The young artists were paid by the painting and often churned out ten 48” x 60” canvases a day, sometimes with wildly different interpretations of the master designs. Most bore the name “Lee Reynolds,” but specific accounts, such as furniture stores, wanted exclusive artists’ signatures, so “Vanguard” morphed into the Dutch master-ish “Van Gaard,” and the fictional “Stuart” signature was a tribute to Burr’s brother.

Dismayed by his artists’ inconsistencies, Burr created a new assembly line system: Each canvas would be hand-painted with a two-color background, then, the black lines of the master design would be silk-screened onto the canvas, followed by more hand- painting done by the production artists. (The number written on the back of the canvases referred to the painting master, while the initials belonged to the studio artist.) All the master paintings were eventually destroyed systematically.

Burr’s nephew Christopher recently created a Web site to set the record straight about his uncle’s work, but unfortunately, the site is now down. He invited owners of paintings, prints and wall sculptures signed by “Reynolds,” “Lee Reynolds,” “Lee Burr,” “Van Gaard,” “Stuart,” or “Burton” to submit photos and stories about where and how they acquired the artwork, in exchange for background information about the collectible, which he then posted for all to see. His site featured hundreds of works and got more than 30,000 hits a month, and the emotional attachment people revealed about their paintings made it clear that these artworks were an important part of their lives. One collector noted that his horseracing-themed Lee Reynolds painting was featured in an interior on TV’s I Dream of Jeannie. Burr himself often commented on the displayed works, and it was easy to read between the lines about what he remembered fondly and what made him wince. While it’s estimated there were more than half a million Lee Reynolds paintings created, Burr has only painted around 350 original canvases of his own in his lifetime with precious few, if any, ever available for sale by Vanguard.

Notes: Good Condition

Fine Art, Paintings

10%

Tyler Parker | (206) 450-7247 | Tyler@Epicestateservices.com

Pickup Details

Private Residence

Redmoond, WA 98052

When to Pickup

Saturday, 4/6, 12:00 pm to 3:00 pm
Sunday, 4/7, 11:00 am to 2:00 pm

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