https://www.artic.edu/artworks/229343/

https://www.artic.edu/artworks/229343/

https://www.artic.edu/artworks/229343/

Sometimes it’s the less-known works that surprise! At the Art Institute of Chicago, I immediately recognized the under image of this painting as the Met’s “Aristotle with a Bust of Home,” a celebrated Rembrandt. But this painting is done by Otis Kaye. Who? Kaye, a German engineer who settled in Chicago and was unknown as a painter until after his death in 1974, was inspired by Rembrandt’s Aristotle. Rembrandt’s painting is already steeped in meaning: fame, immortality, artistic achievement. Kaye layered on top trompe l’oeil images of money, stock certificates and letters creating biographical visual puns and moral statements. Kaye, himself, suffered major losses during the 1929 stock market crash and money became a common theme in all his work. Worth noting, two years prior to Kaye painting this work, “Heart of the Matter” in 1963, the Met had purchased the Rembrandt for a record-breaking price, making it a perfect appropriation for Kaye’s visual comments about art and commerce. #OtisKaye #Trompeloeil #Rembrandt #Aristotle #HeartOfTheMatter #MetMuseum #ArtInstituteOfChicago #DutchMaster #MoneyInArt #ArtAndCommerce #ArtHistory #HistoryOfArt #ArtOfTheDay #DailyArt #art_encounters (at The Art Institute of Chicago)

This oil on canvas painting by #OtisKaye (American artist born in Germany, 1885-1974) is entitled #HeartOfTheMatter and was done in 1963. The painting features Otis Kaye's signature coins, bills, and other forms of currency as the focus of his highly detailed, illusionistic paintings, a practice which only intensified after he lost his savings in the stock market crash of 1929. Kaye was inspired to make his paintings by tromps l'oeil paintings done in the 19th-century. In the 1950s, he began to create a series of increasingly complex works of complex money paintings incorporating celebrated works of art. #HeartOfTheMatter represents Rembrandt's #AristotleWithABustOfHomer which was purchased from the #metropolitanmuseumofart in New York for an unprecedented sum. He then tore the painting to pieces and incorporated the painting with money. At the center appears a suspended stack of bills—the literal "Heart of the Matter" which represents the close commerce between art and commerce. This painting was gifted anonymously to the #artinstitutechicago 🖼️ ➕ 💲 (at The Art Institute of Chicago)