Pennies from Heaven Vernacular Photo Album
Sullivan, IL: s.i., 1972. Very Good +. Item #47041
[Sullivan, IL: 1972]. Quarto (25cm); comb-bound vernacular photo album, heaavy coated cardboard with collaged covers and black and white photos pasted to every page, including cover versos; [12]pp. Comb missing the first single and last two teeth, otherwise intact. Superficial scratches and light soiling to covers with toning and foxing throughout; photographs lightly finger smudged. Overall Very Good or better.
Most likely compiled as a presentation piece for the artist Bill Brumfield, the photographs pasted throughout show the unloading and unveiling (from under a floral bedsheet) his multimedia sculpture "Pennies from Heaven." The piece was displayed at the Sullivan, Illinois, branch of the First National Bank in February of 1972, as reported by the Moultrie County News. Smoking a pipe (likely decorative, though it is the '70s), Brumfield stands proudly next to his piece, representing "the close knit organization at the top and the flow of money into a sea of commerce below." The artist was a local who had ventured off to the Art Institute of Chicago where he met his wife and eventually moved back home to run the family furniture store. The bank, now the First Community Bank of Moultrie County, still stands on Main Street, though where the sculpture ended up is anyone's guess. .
Price: $550.00