SF/Fantasy art paintings and the Saddam connection...
Elana Who?
Soooooooo... I wonder what her next appearance at a Worldcon or
somesuch will be like from now on? Will congoers tease her or
commiserate with her? Inquiring minds want to know!
Then again... the publicity can't hurt either... one would hope... :)
http://www.nydailynews.com/front/story/75594p-69826c.html
********
N.Y. Painter is Shocked by Find at Saddam Pad
By DAVE GOLDINER
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER
The artist known as Rowena Morrill admits her fantasy-art paintings -
filled with snarling dragons, Fabio lookalikes and buxom damsels - can
attract an offbeat clientele.
But Saddam Hussein?
The upstate painter was stunned to learn two of her campy, sexually
charged artworks wound up at the tyrant's love shack in Baghdad.
And now she wants her '80s-vintage paintings back - taloned serpents,
bare-breasted babes and all.
"I would give anything to get them back," said Rowena, whose last name
is Morrill but prefers using only her first name. "I am so upset that
they are there."
"I utterly hate Saddam Hussein," she said. "I loathe everything he is
and everything he stands for."
Rowena, 58, said she did the oil paintings that hung in the dictator's
den about 15 years ago as covers for bodice-ripper paperbacks with
titles such as "King Dragon" and "Shadows Out of Hell."
A busty blond is depicted in one painting conjuring up a
forked-tongued serpent to wrap itself around the body of a hunky
bare-chested warrior. In another, a chained woman clad in a tattered
bikini arches her back as a dragon's talons reach toward her.
Rowena knows no one would ever confuse her with Picasso or Goya - and
insisted her more recent works are much better.
"I know they're not the Madonna by Leonardo da Vinci," she said. "They
were high camp. I always found them hilariously funny."
Rowena was a classically trained artist who studied in Italy but took
up the fantasy genre to support herself after moving to New York in
the late '70s.
"I was looking for a way to make a living, and it paid the rent," she
said by phone from her home near Albany.
She sold the two paintings years ago - the one with the dragon went
for $20,000 to a Japanese collector - and hadn't heard about them
since.
On Sunday, Rowena's sister called to say she had seen one of the
paintings on TV hanging in a secluded townhouse in Baghdad. The pad is
believed to have been used by Saddam to squire his girlfriends.
Rowena said she still can't believe something in her artwork might
have touched a chord in someone as evil as Saddam.
"That would be a horrifying thought," she said. "He in his twisted
mind must have read something into it."
Though she knows she likely has no legal claim to the paintings, she
wants them back. "I don't like the idea of them being in that
country," she said.
Navy Lt. Charles Owens, a spokesman for the U.S. Central Command in
Qatar, said Rowena will have to wait to take her case to a new Iraqi
government, which will take control of all of "Saddam's assets."
Jim Hetley
> YEEEK!!!
>
> Soooooooo... I wonder what her next appearance at a Worldcon or
> somesuch will be like from now on? Will congoers tease her or
> commiserate with her? Inquiring minds want to know!
>
According to discussions in SFWA circles, Saddam's paintings may be
copies or forgeries. But yes, she will be in for some teasing. And
sympathy. But, "The only bad publicity is no publicity." Bet her
commissions go up....
Jim
Denny Wheeler
wrote:
>Though she knows she likely has no legal claim to the paintings, she
>wants them back.
Darn right she has no legal claim. She sold them. Now, it may be the
original buyer has a claim.
--
-denny-
"I don't like it when a whole state starts
acting like a marital aid."
"John R. Campbell" in a Usenet post.
D.J.
falc...@excite.com (Elana Who?) wrote:
] But Saddam Hussein?
]
] The upstate painter was stunned to learn two of her campy, sexually
] charged artworks wound up at the tyrant's love shack in Baghdad.
The love shack I keep seeing mentioned on telly belong's to one of
his sons.
D.J.
--
Updated: April 6, 2003 my 1E AD&D game world.
Over 420 maps and pages of info and sf poems
http://blue7green.crosswinds.net/crestar/index.html
drive-in theatres: http://www.drivein-jim.net/
Margaret Whittleton
I understand that she's not the only one. Saddam 'wrote' a bodice
ripper of some sort a few years ago, and the cover art was copied from
an artist's website (a male artist, IIRC).
Marg