Original Oil Painting by Norman Adams: Golden Grand
Golden Eagle and Grand Canyon: Two-paintings for one image: 36”x24”, 36”x52”

The Biggest Bargain in Art, for now, $15,400,000

For anyone who fathoms the message of Atman's Big Bang, of Modern Art's (History's) Black Hole, and the message of Norman Adams' story of "Time and Place" ... the $15.4 million price tag for his biggest and also by far the most significant painting is a bargain.

This is because the best paintings of other artists/illustrators of Norman Adams’ caliber are already forever lost to most buyers but billionaires.

Compared to the roles Robert Fawcett, Harold von Schmidt and John Atherton ... but especially Norman Adams played in Atman's Big Bang... compared to these giants of Atman's Big Bang Norman Rockwell was little more than a propaganda machine for the Saturday Evening Post, and the United States Government.

Norman Rockwell's role is "art" was the same as was the role the Communist illustrators in Russia served for Lenin and Stalin. Indeed, if one looks at the propaganda illustrations that fed Stalin’s Communist tyranny ... they were much like, if not identical to, the paintings Norman Rockwell painted for the Saturday Evening Post -- during the exact same period. 

The Biggest Bargain is Norman Adams' by far most significant work that also happens to be his largest non-illustration painting: Golden Grand. It is a life-sized painting of a Golden Eagle in the Grand Canyon.

The Biggest Bargain price will follow the highest price paid for a Norman Rockwell "Illustration." In 2007 Rockwell's best prices jumped from  $9.2 Million to $15.4 Million.

"One of Norman Rockwell's most famous oil paintings, discovered hidden behind a fake wall in its owner's Vermont home, has sold for $15.4 million ... Breaking Home Ties.... Sotheby's said the price eclipsed a previous Rockwell record set by "Homecoming Marine," which it sold for $9.2 million in May."
 

The biggest prices for Norman Rockwell’s originals need clarification:

1: They were NOT his major works.

2: They were ILLUSTRATIONS. This simply means, amongst a lot of other things, that the published image looked far better than the originals.

3: They were not only illustrations but “propaganda illustrations” -- if the paintings that Norman Rockwell did for the Saturday Evening Post had any artistic value it was always secondary to the propaganda the US needed to go from one World War into another ...and then all sorts of other wars.

4: Unless history changes the morals of the con-artists who call themselves art-collectors/investors: Norman Rockwell's prices will guarantee that over 80% of his originals will be FAKES -- fakes that the best experts in arts can no more separate from originals than they can guarantee that the Mona Lisa in the Louvre ... is no more "original" than all the other thousands of fakes; and even if the Mona Lisa in the Louvre is "original" then it has OBVIOUSLY been altered if not butchered on numerous occasions. The story of the Norman Rockwell fakes starts with the story behind the "fake wall": "One of Norman Rockwell's most famous oil paintings, discovered hidden behind a fake wall in its owner's Vermont home, has sold for  $15.4 million." Norman Rockwell’s portrait of Nehru also echoes this prolific subject of fakes.

5: Until Norman Adams' prices get much closer to millions he will not have any fakes on the market.

 Unlike the propaganda-machine, Norman Rockwell, other illustrators like Norman Adams, John Atherton, Robert Fawcett and especially Harold von Schmidt ... the subject of propaganda rarely entered their art.

Until Norman Adams' major work "Golden Grand" sells ... its sale price will mirror the best price a Norman Rockwell Illustration sells. Thus the Current Bargain Price for Norman Adams' Golden Grand is a very rock-bottom bargain price of $15,400,000 -- UNTIL a Rockwell original/FORGERY? sells for "more" -- and then the price of the Golden Grand will go up to this same "more" and continue to do so until it sells to one multimillionaire or billionaire or another. 

 Norman Adams painted this his Golden Grand for himself -- he painted it during the Chukar Press period 1983 - 1987.. Back then he was paid to paint any painting that he thought would be the best ... it was in a period of time he was totally free to paint for nobody but himself. Before, and certainly after, this Chukar Press period Norman never did have the complete luxury to paint for himself to the same degree and on the same level.

Probably the only other comparable artist-illustrator who enjoyed the same unbridled liberty to paint for his own creativity, on the same level as Norman Adams, was John Atherton. Atherton's creativity took him from painting illustrations into "Magic Realism" and then Surrealism.

Most of John Atherton's originals are lost to collectors, and his best paintings are beyond the reach of even the big auction houses, let alone ordinary buyers. 
With the explosion of the art market that foreign money is now fueling to insane levels: When John Atherton's best originals start surfacing their prices will most likely make the prices of Norman Rockwell's propaganda illustrations look cheap.

Until it is sold, Norman Adams’ most significant and impressive painting, Golden Grand, will echo the best price the art market is willing to pay for a Norman Rockwell illustration.