Today I begin my research to find a buyer for an elusive poster that was recently found at my work. This poster is unique in that it is signed by the artist, Man Ray. Normally a museum does not auction off a peice of it's collection, but this case is unique. The staff and board were completely unaware of its exsistence in our collection and it has not been accessioned (officially numbered) into the collection. It is being sold simply because a poster is not a "museum appropriate" object to accession into a collection. It seems more appropriate to sell the peice to a collector and use the profit of the sale for purchasing objects that would add to our collection. This makes my new assignment rare, unique, intriguing and, to me, incredibly fun and fascinating.
Man Ray was an American Modernist painter and photographer that lived in Paris in the early 1900s. This artist continues to be a big deal throughout the art world today known most noteably for his photography (I was destined to deal with this poster somehow as I wrote an entire final 8 page paper on Man Ray's works).
Now I begin the exciting adventure of researching this peice to see if the signature is athentic and if so, how much the signed poster is worth. As nerdy as it sounds, I am very excited to see what I discover.
The question is..... how much would you pay for these sweet lips?
