VAN WEYENBERGH FINE ARTS

468 N. CAMDEN DRIVE # 220

BEVERLY HILLS
CA 90210
USA

APPRAISAL ANTIQUE FURNITURE AND FINE ART

CLIENT :

JAMES D’AQUISTO
4990 Cambridge Blvd #106
Palm Harbor
FL 34685
APPRAISAL TERMS AND POLICIES

The use of abbreviations

RPV = Replacement value gallery value

The replacement value is the amount it would cost to replace an artwork
with the same or similar image,
and of the same or similar substrate, image size, and edition.

- One of the most common situations for collectors involves appraisal for
insurance coverage. With valuable antiques, decorative arts, fine art
insurance companies require these items to be appraised separately and
to have the amount of coverage supported by an independent appraisal.
The type of value that usually is required in this circumstance is
replacement value. This means the amount of money that would be
required to be paid in the marketplace to replace a property with one of
like kind and quality.

- Replacement value includes not only the cost of acquiring or replicating

the property, but also all the relevant costs associated with replacement.
These other costs may include all applicable taxes and duties, framing
and transportation.

The replacement values are all justified and refer to dealers well known
in the USA and in England. The address for each dealer is mentioned
and his website can be viewed easily by consulting the internet.
These values were considered by comparing the existing furniture or fine
art and available information for similar items or similar artists.

FMV= Fair Market Value auction value

Fair market value is the price that property would sell for on the open
market.
It is the price that would be agreed on between a willing buyer and a
willing seller, with neither being required to act and both having
reasonable knowledge of the relevant facts.
We refer usually to results and documentation available on SOTHEBY’S
Website. For this purpose we always add the reference # to the sale and
the reference # of the lot as well.
CREDENTIALS

Gerard Van Weyenbergh has spent the last 25 years working as an

independent broker dealing with galleries throughout Europe. Working
together with his son the two have been traveling extensively throughout
the world, appraising and researching contemporary and old masters.
Gerard Van weyenbergh is a recognized expert in 17th - 20th century
European Fine art , while his son's expertise: modern and international
contemporary painters.
Together their education includes art history degrees from- Ecole du
Louvre, University of Montpellier and Ecole Saint Luc. With an extensive
background in architecture Gerard’s vision in art incorporates the total
aesthetics of art placement and environment for his client’s collections.
He is also developing the catalogue raisonne for the abstract artist
Georges Carrey.

EDUCATION.

Our educational background of our associates includes combined art

history degrees from:
Ecole du Louvre, Paris - Art History and Symbolist Painting in Europe.
Ecole Saint Luc, Brussels –Architecture.
University Paul Valery, Montpellier - Assistant.
ULB, Universite Libre de Bruxelles- Art History.

EXPERTISE.

As experienced private art brokers and art appraisers dealing with major
galleries in Paris, Brussels and New York, and recognized art experts of
19th and 20th Century European paintings we have contacts with
auction houses in Europe and the US and a history of work with the
experts : Comite Picasso ( ex ), Les Amis de Miro, Schmitt, Guillon
Lafaille, Galerie Bailly, Gros Delettrez, etc.
Art appraisals and art authentication are our specialization for 30 years.
IFAA ( International Fine Art Appraisers, certified appraisers ) member.
ART APPRAISALS & ART AUTHENTICATION RESOURCES.

We have extensive art appraisal resources from our private collection of

Collection, Paris over 3000 fine art books and catalogues, 2000 international
auction catalogues in Europe and US, an electronic database with over
13,000,000 auctions results for paintings. We are privileged readers at
following libraries and research centers:
Ecole du Louvre, Paris,
Getty Foundation, Los Angeles
Frick
Museum Pompidou, Paris
Musee d’Orsay, Paris
University Paul Valery, Montpellier
Musee de la ville Beziers, France
Frick Collection,

We have collaborated with the following gallery and auction houses

proposing and buying art and antiques;
France:
Galerie Charles Bailly
Galerie Andre Gombert
Galerie Francony
Galerie Horta
Galerie des Beaux - Arts
Auction Houses in-
Drouot Auction,Gros- France Christies-
London, France, USA Sotheby’s – New
York, London, Monaco

Gerard Van Weyenbergh has extensively collaborated with governmental

and para governmental administrations in several countries.
DESCRIPTION ITEM TO ANALYZE

OIL ON CANVAS

36” x 108”

AUTHOR : THOMAS KAY ( TOMMY KAY )

CONVERSATION: In original state, no repaints, no damages

CLIENT’S DOCUMENTS USED FOR THIS APPRAISAL:

The Original 1973 D’Aquisto Strings Oil Painting

 This original 1973 D'Aquisto oil painting is the only one of its kind in
existence.
It was commissioned by James D’Aquisto to be painted by artist and
professional guitarist Tommy Kay, in the 1960s Pop Commercial Style.
This original D’Aquisto painting holds an important piece of history in
the early years of D’Aquisto Strings. It represents the time period when
Jimmy D’Aquisto was venturing into producing his own brand of guitar
strings.

The man who created the painting, Thomas Kay, know as Tommy Kay,
was my father’s first photographer and advertising artist from the early
60’s until Tommy’s death in 1977.
The paintings were created in his studio, located in Sea Cliff, LI, NY,
where he lived and did all of his photography and painting. Tommy Kaye
was not only an expert artist and photographer; he was one of the most
respected professional guitarists in the business.
He was the staff guitarist on the Dick Cavett Television Show through the
1960’s until his death in1977, and played D'Aquisto guitars exclusively.
He did studio work and recorded with Tony Motolla, Don Arnone,
Mundell Lowe, Tommy Lucas and Jimmy Raney.

To have an important work of art commissioned by James D’Aquisto,

from one of the most respected guitarist in the business, is without
precedent.

There is not much memorabilia that exists and is intact from the early
years of D’Aquisto Strings. I’m sure there are some old strings insert
covers floating around but to have something as substantial as this
painting available to the D’Aquisto exhibit is a blessing and it must be
included.

At one point my father had a custom D’Aquisto neon sign as John

D’Angelico did.
It hung in the window of his first shop in Huntington Long Island but
unfortunately it was lost. It was most likely was damaged in various
moves. My father never spoke of it.
We are very fortunate that this painting survived 37 years without any
damage.

This original D’Aquisto Oil Painting includes the only 4 remaining original
Tommy Kay custom made D’Aquisto advertising posters. I have included
for provenance purposes ten 2” 3/8 original negatives taken by Tommy
Kay of the art work. As I previously mentioned the Mel Bay photograph
with the Tommy Kay poster board in the background is included. Also
included is a framed and matted colored photograph of Jimmy D’Aqustio
standing in front of the original oil painting at the 1973
NAMM show. For exhibition purposes I am also including negatives in
mint condition (stored in archival packets) of very rare shots of Jimmy
D’Aquisto in his shop taken by Tommy Kay in the 1960’s.

This original 1973 36 x 9’ D'Aquisto oil painting is the only one of its
kind in existence.
It was commissioned by James D’Aquisto to be painted by artist and
professional guitarist Tommy Kay, in the 1960s Pop Commercial Style.
This original D’Aquisto painting holds an important piece of history in
the early years of D’Aquisto Strings. It represents the time period when
Jimmy D’Aquisto was venturing into producing his own brand of guitar
strings.

The man who created the painting, Thomas Kay, know as Tommy Kay,
was my father’s first photographer and advertising artist from the early
60’s until Tommy’s death in 1977.
The paintings were created in his studio, located in Sea Cliff, LI, NY,
where he lived and did all of his photography and painting. Tommy Kaye
was not only an expert artist and photographer; he was one of the most
respected professional guitarists in the business.
He was the staff guitarist on the Dick Cavett Television Show through the
1960’s until his death in1977, and played D'Aquisto guitars exclusively.
He did studio work and recorded with Tony Motolla, Don Arnone,
Mundell Lowe, Tommy Lucas and Jimmy Raney.

To have an important work of art commissioned by James D’Aquisto,

from one of the most respected guitarist in the business, is without
precedent.

There is not much memorabilia that exists and is intact from the early
years of D’Aquisto Strings. I’m sure there are some old strings insert
covers floating around but to have something as substantial as this
painting available is a blessing.

It is very fortunate that this painting survived 38 years without any

damage.
HISTORY:

JAMES D”AQUISTO

James L. D'Aquisto (November 9, 1935 - April 18, 1995) was an American

guitar maker best known as the premier maker of custom guitars. He
served as an apprentice to John D'Angelico from 1952 and was
considered his successor after the latter's death in 1964. From his shop
in Huntington, New York then in Farmingdale, New york and later during
his "golden period" in Greenport Long Island, New York, D'Aquisto
became known as the world's greatest guitar maker from the late 1960s
until his death in 1995. D'Aquisto's name is attached to many guitar
models from brands like the Fender "D'Aquisto Elite" "D'Aquisto Ultra"
and the Hagström Jimmy, and his blue "Centura Deluxe" was the
inspiration for the book Blue Guitar. There is another book titled
"Acquired of the Angels:The Lives and Works of Master Guitar Makers
John D'Angelico and James L. D'Aquisto Today, his guitars sell for tens
of thousands of dollars to over $400,000. And the first to be worth a
million dollars.[
D'Aquisto was a 2006 inductee to the Long Island Music Hall of Fame.
His tools and work bench — passed down to him from D'Angelico — are
on display at the National Music Museum. 'The D'Aquisto Foundation'

Information Wikipedia

In the world of custom-made guitars, few instruments are as highly

regarded, or fetch as high a price, as those made by the late James L.
D'Aquisto. A guitar maker who had studied with the renowned John
D'Angelico, D'Aquisto created archtop acoustics that were favored by jazz
guitarists and collectors.
Following his untimely death at age 59 in 1995, the market for D'Aquisto
guitars exploded, the more so because he only made about 370 guitars.
Collectors, particularly in the U.S. and Japan, were soon paying as much
as six figures for one. The guitar pictured here, a Model Centura, is being
auctioned off May 30 at Christie's New York. One of only 10 Centuras in
existence, it is also the last guitar D'Aquisto ever made. Inside, it is
signed James L. D'Aquisto and bears the date 2/21/95. D'Aquisto died
several months later in April.

What made his archtop guitars so sought after were their dynamic range
and a broad tonal color. At a time when acoustic guitars were losing out
to electric and mass-produced ones, D'Aquisto tried to reinvent the
guitar so it could compete as a completely modern one. Nevertheless, he
forsook fancy inlays, believing that such ornamentation detracted from
the sound, and instead concentrated on such innovations as step-
pattern metal tailpieces, small pickguards and redesigned f-holes. One of
his most significant ideas was the adjustable ebony tailpiece, which
adjusts up and down in order to vary string tension on the bridge.

This guitar, which was exhibited at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston
as part of the exhibition "Dangerous Curves: The Art of the Guitar," from
November 2000 to February 2001, has an estimate of $70,000 to
$120,000.

Information Forbes

APPRAISAL

Why this painting is classified as Pop art:

Pop art is an art movement that emerged in the mid 1950s in Britain and
in the late 1950s in the United States.[Pop art presented a challenge to
traditions of fine art by including imagery from popular culture such as
advertising, news, etc. In Pop art, material is sometimes visually removed
from its known context, isolated, and/or combined with unrelated
material. The concept of pop art refers not as much to the art itself as to
the attitudes that led to it.
Pop art employs aspects of mass culture, such as advertising, comic
books and mundane cultural objects. It is widely interpreted as a
reaction to the then-dominant ideas of abstract expressionism, as well as
an expansion upon them.And due to its utilization of found objects and
images it is similar to Dada. Pop art is aimed to employ images of
popular as opposed to elitist culture in art, emphasizing the banal or
kitschy elements of any given culture, most often through the use of
irony. It is also associated with the artists' use of mechanical means of
reproduction or rendering techniques.
Much of pop art is considered incongruent, as the conceptual practices
that are often used make it difficult for some to readily comprehend. Pop
art and minimalism are considered to be art movements that precede
postmodern art, or are some of the earliest examples of Postmodern Art
themselves.
Pop art often takes as its imagery that which is currently in use in
advertising. Product labeling and logos figure prominently in the
imagery chosen by pop artists, like in the Campbell's Soup Cans
labels, by Andy Warhol. Even the labeling on the shipping carton
containing retail items has been used as subject matter in pop art, for
example in Warhol's Campbell's Tomato Juice Box 1964, or his Brillo
Soap Box sculptures.
The origins of pop art in North America and Great Britain developed
differently. In America, it marked a return to hard-edged composition
and representational art as a response by artists using impersonal,
mundane reality, irony and parody to defuse the personal symbolism and
"painterly looseness" of Abstract Expressionism. By contrast, the origin in
post-War Britain, while employing irony and parody, was more academic
with a focus on the dynamic and paradoxical imagery of American
popular culture as powerful, manipulative symbolic devices that were
affecting whole patterns of life, while improving prosperity of a society.
Early pop art in Britain was a matter of ideas fueled by American popular
culture viewed from afar, while the American artists were inspired by the
experiences, of living within that culture. Similarly, pop art was both an
extension and a repudiation of Dadaism. While pop art and Dadaism
explored some of the same subjects, pop art replaced the destructive,
satirical, and anarchic impulses of the Dada movement with
detached affirmation of the artifacts of mass culture. Among those artists
seen by some as producing work leading up to Pop art are Pablo Picasso,
Marcel Duchamp, Kurt Schwitters, and Man Ray.

Although Pop Art began in the late 1950s, Pop Art in America was given
its greatest impetus during the 1960s. By this time, American advertising
had adopted many elements and inflections of modern art and
functioned at a very sophisticated level. Consequently, American artists
had to search deeper for dramatic styles that would distance art from the
well-designed and clever commercial materials. As the British viewed
American popular culture imagery from a somewhat removed
perspective, their views were often instilled with romantic, sentimental
and humorous overtones. By contrast, American artists being
bombarded daily with the diversity of mass produced imagery, produced
work that was generally more bold and aggressive.
Two important painters in the establishment of America's pop art
vocabulary were Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg. While the
paintings of Rauschenberg have relationships to the earlier work of Kurt
Schwitters and other Dadaists, his concern was with social issues of the
moment. His approach was to create art out of ephemeral materials and
using topical events in the life of everyday America gave his work a
unique quality. Johns’ and Rauschenberg’s work of the 1950s is
classified as Neo-Dada, and is visually distinct from the classic American
Pop Art which began in the early 1960s.
Of equal importance to American pop art is Roy Lichtenstein. His work
probably defines the basic premise of pop art better than any other
through parody. Selecting the old-fashioned comic strip as subject
matter, Lichtenstein produces a hard-edged, precise composition that
documents while it parodies in a soft manner.
The paintings of Lichtenstein, like those of Andy Warhol, Tom
Wesselmann and others, share a direct attachment to the commonplace
image of American popular culture, but also treat the subject in an
impersonal manner clearly illustrating the idealization of mass
production. Andy Warhol is probably the most famous figure in Pop Art.
Warhol attempted to take Pop beyond an artistic style to a life style, and
his work often displays a lack of human affectation that dispenses with
the irony and parody of many of his peers.

VALUE APPRAISAL

There are no results in auction for this artist.

For this reason we can only give a subjective estimate of the value of this
painting.

Because of the quality, the size, the perfect state of conservation of the
painting we estimate the replacement value at $ 100,000.00 -
120,000.00.

We definitely think that this painting, perfectly marketed, may obtain a

more important price than the one mentioned

Made in Bona Fide, December 23 2011

This file was reprinted completely today with the crown added in
watermark.

Gerard Van Weyenbergh

Beverly Hills September 5, 2017

In addition to the appraisal made in 2011, new information showed up on the

work of Tommy Kay author of the large painting we analyzed.
Tommy Kay made the logo for the famous Dick Cavett show, which show
interviewed only very important celebrities.
Besides this poster we did find other important images :

In this image we see the composition for the Dick Cavett show and the painting
we analyze as well

In this last image we see the logo of the Thomas Kay studio , which was a very
elaborated logo for that period.
In this image we see the logos Thomas Kay made for the Show in the
background. Dick Cavett takes an interview of Mel Brooks.

another poster Kay made for the Cavett show , which proofs that Kay made the
complete composition of the posters , not only the head but also the flower
and the special design of the letters .
In conclusion ,

It shows that Thomas Kay was a very good designer and artist.
This discovery comforts our appraisal made in 2011.

Made in Bona Fide

Gerard Van Weyenbergh

PS. The file from 2011 was reprinted today with the watermark of the crown
added to the file.
4 pages were added to the appraisal from 2011.