Art & Inspiration Is this real? (Von Dutch)

If it was real, it would be worth at least 4 figures.

 

Well, "patina" wasn't an in look in '57 so presumably this would have have been a clean panel when striped. If that was the case the striping and signature should have the same dings and scratches as the base paint rather than lying on top of them.

 

I got shit faced just watching him! But he did have some skills, but a weird view of the world around him.

 

It looks real to me. I've been looking at his stuff in car magazines since I was able to read.

Lots of insane stories about the guy. One shop owner locked him in his shop overnight with a case of beer and a carton of smokes, he wanted a certain car DONE when he opened the shop in the morning. Well, the morning comes and everything BUT the car is striped. Filing cabinets, even the phones. The car was not touched.

 

Looks like a victim of 'rock and a hard place' to me. The work, aging, that's legit. The sig? Smells funny to me. Ride this out a minute, not long ago everything this poor excuse for a man did was 2nd only to Davinci in the eyes of the low brow art market. Thinking this one example might be some iconic masterpiece "discovered" and likely the real deal, somebody signed it later to give it some legitimacy. Coulda been one of his heirs, someone handling the sale of his estate, someone that knew him and had the twisted idea to make it more legit. If I was told here's a real 'Dutch piece and this was it, I'd believe it. Sadly the signature, even if done with the best intentions, fucks it up and leaves skid marks on its bloomers. My take, FWIW.

 

It looks to me like the stripes are old. There is age and rust throughout the striping. The signature is over the rust.
Just my opinion.

 

The more I look at the lines and the ends of the pulls it looks sloppy and amateurish. While he may not have been symmetrical he was neater and more consistent in line thickness in the same line. Not Von Dutch!

 

After 3 minutes of scrutiny and zooming in on the pictures, it looks legit to me. Some are saying the signature looks touched up but I don't see that, chips of paint and scuffs over signature. Notice the lines seem to be done with one pull. The overall look has an artistic feel. If it is a fake, someone took a lot of time and effort.
All this from someone with little artistic knowledge

 

A real Kenny Howard story/myth, He was asked to stripe a 50 Ford by the owner and "Do what you want" so he painted "Bird Shits" all over the car. Anybody else remember this story?

 

That’s the “good stuff” ….. Brew 102 was $1.25 a 6-pack of tall 16 oz.

 

Not real. Von Dutch never dated his work.

 

Makes sense that he never dated his work. I gather he wasn't that structured. I think his soul transcended time and space and he didn't give a flip about the date. Maybe even the time of day.
Conversely, I think maybe someone trying to produce a counterfeit would be more likely to date it.
Then again, when I was a little kid, I thought I could breathe under water. So I could be wrong.

 

Oooo cheap beer. It was always a quest for us in our teen years. Bohacks had "Little Bo" Cream Ale, 79¢ a 6 pack. King Kullen had "Little King" for the same price... horrid stuff.

 

I used to drink Pfeiffer beer. The p was silent...

 

what's that

 

Not true. Sometimes he would add the year after his name.

 

Depends what you're p'ing on.

 

Over the last few years, I'm beginning to wonder if Von Dutch was even real.

 

If you want to authenticate Von Dutch stuff, you need to consult the experts:

 

Not the style but the sloppyness

 

Bull **** ! ..............

 

NOT LIKE THIS ...

 

Exactly. But we didn`t see everything that he did.

 

The best Milwaukee had to offer ("Milwaukee's Beast") would give you "the back door trots" but it was cheap. Cheaper still were the white cans of generic beer with BEER printed on the can in block letters. Oy vey, just the thought makes me a little queasy. We managed to disable three vehicles in one night. None of which had anything to do with alcohol. That generic BEER was just bad luck I tell ya.

 

I bet that gave him the shlitz also...

 

Mister Beer

 

It's patently obvious that the Von Dutch bug was painted a loooong time ago, long before he was a famous hat, and chipped and scraped over the years. And he didn't consistently sign his work one particular way, but he was all over the place with that. Some of the thumbs-down comments are like imagining fly poop in the pepper.
My vote is real deal.

 

Hell, I'd just hang the thing up high on the garage wall an let it be a conversation piece.
The old original dash out of my old 51 Merc was pinstriped in Cali in the 50's but there is no signature anywhere. That will get sanded off when I go to use the dash though. I knew that it was far from a great pinstripe job when I bought the car in 1963 but my buddies thought it was cool. It may actually have been done by Chuck Darlington the crafts shop teacher I bought the car from who ended up in the Leavenworth Wa area.

 

Yes I did. I saw many things he did. Cars, Bikes, lawn mowers, guns, lunch boxes, helmets....I spent lots time at Roth's shop, in Maywood. I will say, I only know about the stuff he did after 1965. He used to say, he didn't want to date stuff, cause people would say his work got worse as he got older. But, he was pretty weird. Never know what he was gonna do.