Exciting Find in the Art World!

I’m still awaiting confirmation from the Picasso estate, but I’m fairly confident that I have in fact found a long lost and very rarely seen painting that many art historians see as an important and heretofore missing link between the famed artist’s Blue Period and his later, more abstract work.

I swear to you this is no Nigerian scam (I do all that under a different website) – but I am going to need one or possibly more investors to help me acquire the piece.

I was in that dingy thrift store across from CVS in Reseda the other day looking for a sturdy pair of hip-waders (best kept secret among those who butcher our own meat) and I happened to glance up – I don’t know why, I think something flew by my head, but thank God I did look up! – and there she was, way up on a shelf in the corner of the store next to some framed piece of crap poster of Mickey & Minnie Mouse in ugly 80s clothes. I nearly had a trauma when I realized what I was looking at.

My God, it’s breathtaking. Breathtaking. Notice how the nostrils seem to follow you from whatever angle you look at it on your computer. I don’t have to tell you – finding something like this in some filthy thrift store is what every boy dreams about!

…And me without the 99¢ they were asking for it! (I’d just come from the grocery store and had no cash on me  – and it would have been obnoxious to use a credit card for something less than a buck.)

If I know my modern art history, this is very likely the legendary Portrait of Madame Pineau Wearing Hipster Glasses (1911), which Picasso reportedly sold to pay off a Monopoly debt (though some accounts have him trading it for a Milky Way Midnight to satisfy a late-afternoon dark chocolate craving).

So here’s where you come in: You go to the store, buy it, and then if it’s the masterpiece I believe it to be, we split the profits. And if it’s worthless, hell, you’re only out a dollar. You can paint over it and use it as a sign for your yard sale next weekend. And if you’re getting rid of your hip-waders, let me know.

Posted by Ted on June 29, 2011, 9:00 AM.