Day 11: Tuesday Treasures Special Edition: Still Lifes - November 11, 2025

My favorite thing to thrift is artwork.  Not necessarily still lifes, but I do find those once in a while.

Still Lifes... sounds wrong, but that's the correct term for more than one still life.  It's not still lives.   What is a still life?  Art featuring inanimate everyday objects (vases, flowers, fruit, household items) with the focus on narrative rather than action.  Composition, color, and arrangement capturing a moment that showcases their beauty.

I got to thinking a while back, when I got my nut still life, that I really didn't know how many still lifes I actually had.  Paintings.  Prints.  Flowers.  Fruits.  Bread.  Nuts!  So, I checked, and decided to share them here. (Most are shown without frames.)  All of them are thrifted, ranging from 25¢ to $14.99.

First the paintings.

When I first moved in OR I had a big bare wall behind my bed, so found this big bright painting at Goodwill for $14.99 to take up the space.  No signature.  I call this Breakfast Table With Flowers.

Another breakfast table scene, Blue Shadows, by Judy Fawcett.  This was rescued from the Goodwill Bins.  There is water damage on the bottom, the results of a wet basement.  Yes, I know that for a fact, the artist told me herself! If I can make out signatures I try to contact the artists, or possible artists, to see if it is indeed their work, and if they can tell me anything about it.  If I get the right person, very rarely do they not get back to me.

By Collette from the Goodwill Bins.  

By N. Ryan, from Goodwill, $2.86.

Signed JD, from the Goodwill Bins.

Another Goodwill Bins rescue signed Danny.  I don't know who Danny is/was, but he/she was very prolific with rose paintings. If you do an online search for "painting of roses by danny," you'll get many results.   Most likely from the 1960s.

Older than Danny's Roses is this floral arrangement by Keri Krast I found rolled up in the Goodwill Bins.  The name Krast is also written on the back.  I particularly like the view out the window, which I imagine is a city neighborhood of old brick apartment buildings.

From Goodwill for $2.69 came this bouquet in a glass vase by H (or M) Dykman.  

Would you believe that bread still lifes are in?  Or were last year when Country Living mentioned them!  This one, with bread and wine, is by Lloyd Oman, an artist originally from Santa Ana, CA.  From St. Vincent de Paul, in the rustic frame, for just $1.

My latest still life is this one with nuts and a coffee pot from Goodwill by June Brite, unknown artist.  It looks so much better without the '60s era frame, since discarded.

On to the prints.  Don't worry, there are far fewer prints than paintings!

Three from paintings by Henk Bos (1901-1979), a Dutch painter who exclusively painted still lifes.   The first two are lithographs from 1960, published by Donald Art Co. (DAC).  *More about DAC below. They were found in the Goodwill Bins, still in their original board mountings, with wood-grained tape on the edges, ready to hang.  I removed that and matted and framed them. 

Still Life With Strawberries

Still Life With Tea Pot

A 1958 DAC lithograph, untitled, although some call it Nature Morte, the French equivalent to Still Life, so a description, and not the title Bos would have given.  Most of his paintings were titled, "Still Life With [object]." $1 at a local thrift store named Second Choice.  A very odd name, like your first choice thrift store was closed, or her wares are not the first quality!  Some of these prints were colored much more than mine.

Would you believe this was 25¢ at St. Vincent de Paul?  In the diamond shaped wooden frame?   I found it hard to believe.

Lastly is this 1956 Abrams Color Print, printed in Switzerland, of Henri Matisse's Still Life With Oysters.  Another Goodwill Bins find shrink wrapped in plastic with a cardboard backing.  It wasn't alone, it was with Franz Marc's Animals at Bay (painting title The Fate of the Animals).

I didn't give Bins prices because they those were based on weight.  None had glass, which would have made them 10¢ a pound, so either $1.59 a pound, or the newer price of $1.89 a pound.  So, not much.  The roses by Danny is fairly large and in a wooden frame, so that would have been the heaviest.  Although, once something is deemed "heavy" they usually just set a price.  For instance, bowling balls are $1 (yes, I get them, a friend uses them in her garden), or typewriters ($2 or $3).  Furniture is priced as well, for a few dollars.  I've been in when they announce all the furniture and other things in the back corner (vacuums, floor lamps) are 50¢.  They need to make room for new things.

*Donald Art Co. was once the largest fine art publisher in the world, mass producing reproductions between 1940 and 1984, many of which were sold in department stores, ready to hang.  Not a few families grew up with DAC prints on their wall, not knowing they weren't original paintings.  DAC licensed reproduction rights, and acquired many of the originals outright. When the founder died his children inherited them, and still run the company, where it offers original works of art as well as reproductions, and other objects of art.  Currently they have two original Bos still lifes for sale, as well as several of the original paintings of other prints I own.

Day 11 of NaBloPoMo