I Bought My First Painting

I always owned prints of paintings, but never a painting itself.

But the thought that those dimensional oil paint swaths on a canvas came from one exact moment in time over 100 years ago when the artist stood there with a blank canvas, pouring their heart into create art... the thought felt like night-before-Disneyland-trip excitement that connected me to the artist. I completely geeked out. Like, no shame, full geek out.

Now having seen that first painting from Willy Tiedjen in the antique store, I was going to figure out a way to get my hands on it. But, I couldn't get emotional about it. Gotta do research.

I took a pragmatic approach. If I was going to negotiate with the owner, I would need some comparables to understand if I was getting a deal or if this painting was even worth it.

Off to the internet.

I searched Willy Tiedjen to bring up his wikipedia page. No wikipedia page.

The rest of the results were from a few auction houses who included a Tiedjen painting in their shows, mostly from a few decades ago (2000 is still just a few years ago, right?).

I found one auction at Christie's (yes, that auction house) that listed Cart Horses at Rest for GBP 1,000-1500 with a price realized of GBP 2,860. No photo of it. Wait, could that be those two horses at the trough that I saw in the antique store? That'd be wild. (Spoiler alert: it wasn't.)

In 2000, one went for as high as €4,105 at auction! Others well above €1,000 mark, maybe 5 or 6. And there were dozens, if not hundreds out there as sold, but only for a few hundred Euro, or actually passed over in the auction.

Hmm, anything sold on eBay?

Ding! Yes, a few. Same style of art, all from Willy: impressionist scenes from the countryside. Ducks in a pond, chickens feeding in the yard, a Winter scenes, and ships from Hamburg Harbor. Oh, he painted nautical items, too. Interesting… Everything sold at less than a few hundred Euro, though. Kind of difficult to justify 1,600€ painting in the antique store.

One seller was even offering a Willy Tiedjen, starting at only €14.99. That couldn’t be right, it was a Tiedjen painting. "Must be a print or small painting then, let’s check the size,’ I thought. "Oh!" With frame, it was 128 cm x 148 x 7 (painting was 94 x 124) and over 10 kg. Wow. I clicked around for more seller info. Turns out, they were legit: over 1.2 million items sold and over 97% positive reviews. It was some sort of estate clearing resale place in southern Germany. They start most of their auctions out at €14.99.

Abendstimmung im Atlantik (Evening Mood in the Atlantic), 1925, Willy Tiedjen, 95x125 cm

It was a gorgeous sailing ship out in rough seas. Again, the detailed light work from Tiedjen just pulled me in.

I decided to go for it.

BUT WAIT. I have to confess, though. I put in a bid on it a few days out from the end, and someone else outbid me pretty quickly. It was at that moment that I set my sights on it; I knew I was going to be one of those ugly eBay snipers and try to snag it at the last minute. I had to! And I didn't want to drive up the price doing it.

I set my alarm for the last fifteen minutes of the auction, logged in, waited and watched the activity. It crept up a bit... I stayed calm. Two minutes out. I submitted a bid for €100. Highest bidder! Yesss! Nope - outbid. Who do they think they are?! Only one shot to submit a final bid. I go to €150. Green! Highest bidder! The auction was counting down... 5... 4... 3... 2... Heart racing. Refresh, refresh, refresh. I was still highest bidder! I won it for €122.

It felt SO good, I remember cackling like an old witch. I still got it baby!

I laughed and enjoyed that thrill for a moment, but then it set in... It was a feeling like I was being called to a higher purpose. I had just become the protector, the discoverer. I was going to be the caretaker, I was going to research more about Willy Tiedjen, and I was going to tell the world his story.

Fine print: they wouldn't ship this piece. Time for a roadtrip!

That weekend, I gassed up the car, packed a cooler with drinks and snacks, and cruised down the autobahn to the village where this place was. After showing them a QR code on my phone, two men brought it out to my car. One man said, “Will it fit in your car?” laughing. I quickly laughed along with him (can't show my panic), but in truth, I hadn’t even thought of that.

What do you mean? What do you mean? Do you remember the Jennifer Lawrence meme?

Luckily, after laying seats down and placinig it diagonally, it did.

That was it. Someone just handed me a giant painting. A real one, from a real artist. And I owned it. It could have been in a museum but nope, it was in my car.

And I had no idea what I was doing...

But, I felt an instant connection I couldn’t explain. I’m not artsy-fartsy, heebie-jeebies but there was a high I was riding on, a smile across my face and a tickle in my chest.

I got it! It was mine!

After I started to drive off and turned a corner, not even bothing at this point to set up GPS for home because I was so excited, I couldn’t help but say, “Hi Willy! Hello! Nice to meet you!" as though he just got into the back seat of my car. All I could think was, "I got you friend, we're gonna figure this out together!" It was at that point I knew I had crossed the great divide and there was no going back.

I think I smiled almost the whole way back. I knew nothing at that point of the months of research, auction catalogs, and archives that lay ahead of me.