Rare Bentbone Is Highlight of Sale

Further evidence of Professor Thrupiece's travels in - as well as deep cultural impact on - the United States of America in the 1960s emerged today as a portrait by Kansas artists Thomas Hart Bentbone was unveiled by Sotherbones the Fine Art Dealers and Auctioneers in their new Winter catalogue.

Followers of the Professor will need no reminding of his lasting - indeed pivotal - contribution to the US Space Programme of that era. Indeed it is arguable that the Soviets would have been the first to put a man in space [They were [Ed]] and the first to imprint their communist space-boot on the pristine surface of the moon had it not been for the young English Culinary Bioethicist's tenacity, inventiveness and sheer comic genius. [Anyone needing reminding of the facts is referred to Professor Thrupiece and the Space Race HERE]. Perhaps rather less remarked - and certainly less celebrated - is the Professor's impact on the artistic culture of the times - an impact recently highlighted in Art Historian Paynter Byenumberz's [2018] The Impact of Professor Brian Thrupiece on the Culture of the United States 1961-1969 [The Threadbone Press Inc]. Amidst Dr Bynumberz detailed adumbration of the Professor's iconic influence on leading musicians, sculptors, photographers, playwrights and artists of the period on both the East and West Coasts is a tantalising reference to his especial significance to the primitive realist artists of the Kansas school of which the leading exponent was undoubtedly Thomas Hart Bentbone.

The only other extant Bentbone Thrupiece, The Professor Plays Poker, sold in 1998 for $2.4.

Bentbone [1926-1998] was the son of simple farming folk and was destined to be a saloon bar decorator before he won a short course at the Kansas Art School in a local hoe-down after-supper charity raffle. Since the prize also included a set of paints and a brush, he was better placed than most of the other students to take advantage of the lessons offered and, once he mastered the art of matching particular colours to the corresponding numbers in the shapes on the pre-printed canvass, he "flew out of the blocks like a bull on heat". [The Lord only knows what the world might have been denied had he won only the second prize - tickets for two to a regional clam-bake.] Bentbone is known to have "captured" the Professor at least 5 times, though hitherto only two paintings have come to light: The Professor Plays Poker and the current Sotherbone's lot: The Professor at Bongos.

A spokesperson for Sotherbone's - Head of American Art Sales and primitive-realist school expert Mr U S Dawdlings - declined to offer a view on the provenance of, and likely fetching-price for, the recently rediscovered Bentbone suggesting only that the guide price of £250 was probably "a little short of the mark", "But then again", he added, "I'm no expert". [The Professor Plays Poker sold in 1998 for $2.4 million.]

The Professor at Bongos by Thomas Hart Bentbone is expected to attract lively interest - especially from those with an interest in Culinary Bio-ethical percussionists.

Visit the Sotherbone's online digital portal/website HERE