honoluluadvertiser.com

Sponsored by:

Comment, blog & share photos

Log in | Become a member
The Honolulu Advertiser
Posted on: Monday, April 29, 2002

Wall Street Journal portraits up for bid

By Alex Armitage
Bloomberg News Service

NEW YORK — For a little more than $100 on eBay Inc.'s auction site, you can buy a small portrait of Larry Flynt, Hustler Magazine publisher and founder.

A portrait of golfer Tiger Woods that appeared in the Wall Street Journal sold for $860 on the online auction site eBay.

Bloomberg News Service

You can also buy a portrait of Fred Rogers of "Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood" fame. Allow three to four weeks for delivery.

The portraits are part of the Wall Street Journal's six weeklong sales of more than 582 so-called hedcuts of individuals including sports stars, chief executive officers, celebrities and, of course, porn kings. These portraits have graced the Journal's pages since 1979.

All are hand-drawn using a method called stipple, which uses dots and dashes instead of lines, giving a look similar to an engraving technique. The style is used because of its close tie-in to stock certificate illustrations and U.S. dollar bills.

Penthouse Publisher Bob Guccione's portrait is for sale, as is radio personality Rush Limbaugh's. Portraits of golfer Tiger Woods already sold for $860 and basketball star Michael Jordan sold for $733.45.

"We were a little shocked when we first heard about the auctions," said Noli Novak, an artist at the paper since 1987. "Because they're our drawings, it's a little hard to see them auctioned away. I guess it's sort of cool."

The Journal publishes about 10 hedcuts a day from "live" shots and from an electronic archive of more than 9,000 portraits. The money raised from the sales will go toward newspaper-education scholarships.