Famous artist’s painting found in Circuit City’s closet

Stashed away in a closet in the former Circuit City headquarters, a piece of work by a world-famous artist was found by the liquidation firm.

Now the hand-signed lithograph by Alexander Calder is for sale by the firm on eBay.com. As of Monday at 4:19 p.m., the bid was $2.25 with two bids.  The reserve price is not listed and hasn’t been met. Shipping is $100.

Similar prints by Calder have asking prices between $5,000 and $10,000 from online art dealers.

Calder is best known for inventing the mobile, and examples of the large hanging sculptures can be found suspended from museum ceilings around the world, including the National Gallery of Art in Washington and the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

The piece found at the old Circuit City headquarters is a limited reproduction by the artist of his 1970 painting “Wave.” It is numbered 113 out of 120.

In an interesting coincidence, the liquidation firm, Liquid Asset Partners, is based in Grand Rapids, Mich., where in 1969 the first federally funded piece of public sculpture was created by Calder and installed in a plaza in front of city hall. The sculpture, “La Grande Vitesse,” is defining symbol of Grand Rapids and appears on its flag, street signs and logo.

Comic book dealer’s secret hideout

Surrounded by hundreds of thousands of comic books, Brett Carreras shows the crown jewel of his inventory. The restored copy of Batman No. 1, the first appearance of the Joker, is protected by a hard plastic case (Batman first appeared in Detective Comics #27). Carreras shares ownership of this particular comic 50-50 with a business partner. First published in 1940 and sold for 10 cents, Carreras is hoping that the rare issue will fetch $10,000 when it sells on an online auction site. Read more

Distracted delegates exposed

And you think you have a productivity problem.

A video by a Virginia Commonwealth University journalism student Tracy Kennedy shows how state delegates make use of official time—they check Facebook and shop online using the Capitol’s wireless network.

Kennedy photographed legislators surfing the Internet on their Dell laptops during a formal session of the General Assembly. While covering one day’s session in the hallowed halls of state government, she noticed about 20 delegates browsing various websites. None of which had any bearing on the business of the commonwealth.

Delegate Chris Peace (R-Mechanicsville), along with several others, was checking Facebook. Delegate Bob Brink (D-Arlington) was shopping for furniture at Crate & Barrell while Delegate David Albo (R-Springfield) was looking at the real estate listing for a $3.5 million house in Mason Neck,Va.  Other delegates were found shopping for guns, Civil War memorabilia, and items on eBay.  Below is a video presentation of the legislator’s “on-the-clock” activites on the world wide web.

Kennedy was one of the many reporters contributing to the Capital News Service, a student-staffed news service that covers state government during each year’s General Assembly session. Their stories appear in more than 70 papers through out the state, as well as Richmond BizSense.