Paintings by White Supremacist and Alleged Murderer James von Brunn

This art website listing says that white supremacist James W. von Brunn-- who also dabbled in painting -- lived in Maryland, and was "known for: [land]scapes, portrait, illustration, graphics." Well, not so much anymore.

Related: A white supremacist pal says he started sending increasingly more violent emails in the weeks before he is reported to have opened fire at the Holocaust Memorial Museum in DC on Wednesday, killing a guard. He gave away his computer just before the attack. Here's a Salon article on why he tried to kidnap the Fed earlier. (Thanks, Richard Metzger)

• [Anonymous]

  #21 Glad your GF and the kids are OK.

  And everything you say is true.
  I’m with you pal!

  My heart goes out to the family of the guard, the museum staff and once again, and all to often, to Jews everywhere.

• [tboot]

  He’ll certainly have plenty of time to paint now.

• [ill lich]

  Looks like the discussion board related to von Brunn’s art on AskArt got shut down for “going septic” (as the boingers often describe it).

  Whodathunkit?

• [Anonymous]

  What if we (you, me, the media, blogs) gave as much attention to the guy who was shot doing his job instead of the guy who did the shooting?

  Why give the criminal so much more mindshare than the victim?

  Can we re-humanize these horrible events?

  Could we make just one person think, before they embark on a fit of anger (even if that fit is lashing out verbally), that the objects of your anger are people with stories and families and friends?

• [Takuan]

  have to concentrate on the killers because they represent a threat to the rest of us.

• [DWittSF]

  Norman Rockwell meets …???
  Beyond the most cursory glance, you can’t even call that a Picasso imitation, after seeing the real thing:

  http://www.moma.org/collection/browse_results.php?object_id=78311

  Otoh, I’d say it’s too late to tell von Brunn not to quit his day job.

  Also, DBARAK, was that Ted de Nugent?

• [ill lich]

  Like others here, I actually like this painting, but there is a dilemma: if one buys his paintings are they supporting racism? Certainly whether he lives or not his paintings are going to be more valuable now than before the shooting.

  • [Antinous / Moderator]

    He’s 88. This was basically a slightly time-delayed suicide bombing. What are his chances of living to see either a trial or money from his paintings?

• [Takuan]

  plenty of art out there, this undistinguished dauber now has notoriety to serve in lieu of talent. Any who buy his art are tainted.

• [failix]

  I don’t see how people can appreciate this crappy art. The composition seems rather amateurish and the symbolic value stinks already at the sight of the cross. Maybe they don’t know the originals which are the work of Picasso and Fragonard conveying a very different and actually way more interesting message.

• [Keeper of the Lantern]

  Actually I kinda dig that picasso-clone painting. Of course, he doesn’t seem to realize that the style Picasson was using (and this guy copied) was itself directly derived from African woodcarvings.

  That aside, I’d say there’s a lot we don’t know about mental illness. This painting seems to come from a nice place within this dude…perhaps he’s schizophrenic and then latched out to white supremecy as some sort of perceived panacea?

• [Anonymous]

  A Picasso/Fragonard mashup?

  Not a good painting.

  Why does Bad Art & craziness go together? It’s a shame this putz’s ‘art’ is getting more attention than it deserves.

• [Landowner]

  I think it’s pretty good for an amateur. He should have focused more on art and less on, you know, killing people.

• [DWittSF]

  I was close on Rockwell earlier…not Norman, but George Lincoln, the ür-neonazi. From Wikipedia:

  After the war ended, Rockwell became a commercial artist. He applied to the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York, and was accepted for the following year. …While at Pratt, Rockwell was introduced to the modern art movement, which he considered foreign and Communist. He also saw Jews as promoters of the movement, and thus felt even more contempt towards it.

  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Lincoln_Rockwell

• [Takuan]

  art reveals the humanity of the racist killer?

• [Anonymous]

  The dicksmack drove a hyundai!

• [feltmountain]

  @DWittSF

  Actually the Picasso clone in the back is based on Picasso’s Girl With a Book’, http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/culturemonster/2008/10/next-week-in-ne.html

  We used to have a huge print of this when I was little.

• [Anonymous]

  Actually I’d guess the point here is a contrast between the representational/nonrepresentational. With his intention being to show the folly of Modern Art.

  • [Antinous / Moderator]

    Actually I’d guess the point here is a contrast between the representational/nonrepresentational.

    They’re both representational.

• [SamSam]

  My girlfriend was in the museum at the time, leading a school trip. They were right next to the shooting — she was about 100 feet away and many of the kids were closer.

  What might have happened if the guards hadn’t been so quick is almost impossible to think about.

  #10 is right: if all the attention was on sorrow for the dead guard, we wouldn’t be encouraging other nutjobs to start thinking about their own day in the spotlight.

  The lunatic fringe have been on the rise since November.

• [Takuan]

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-6tCERMLv4&feature=related

• [Anonymous]

  Well, even Hitler had a girl friend….doesn’t prove much!

• [davevontexas]

  Okay, I’ll say it: this looks like protest art to me. The girl in the foreground, complete with crucifix hanging on the wall, is contrasted against the decadent, colorful Picasso.

• [SamSam]

  The Times managed to end on one note of ironic humor:

  Mr. von Brunn was also an artist, whose biography appears on the Web site AskART. The last sentence of the entry reads, “von Brunn paints and plots.”

  (Well, I was guessing humor because I was guessing that “plots” referred to drawing by a plotter. But actually now I’m thinking maybe Brunn was just being straight…)

• [sculptedpixel]

  what’s the deal with crummy artists turning into madmen?

  Does shite-art really lead to megalomania?

• [acb]

  Wouldn’t the Nazis have classified this sort of thing as “degenerate art”?

• [Anonymous]

  Pretty funny that there should be a Picasso in the background seeing as the Nazis were against all modern art.

• [Anonymous]

  Fragonard, A Young Girl Reading at the NGA

  http://www.nga.gov/collection/gallery/gg55/gg55-46303.html

• [flwombat]

  I sort of enjoy this piece, which is probably evidence that it is decadent, Western-Civilization-destroying Marxist/Liberal art, much to Mr. Von Brunn’s chagrin.

  The little autobiography he provided to AskArt is, uh, interesting reading.

• [dbarak]

  Just like Hitler, except this guy got his start too late, so he won’t have time to make the transition to genocidal tyrant.

• [Brainspore]

  I guess we can made an exception to Godwin’s law for this one.

• [Anonymous]

  very recursive painting. I might be wrong but if you look closely, the red chair the “painting” is leaning on, is also a painting, I think its a painting of a painting leaning against a chair which shows a puritan white girl reading a book beside Picasso’s painting of girl with book, which also has a painting in it. Disturbed minds, while potentially dangerous sure are interesting.

• [apoxia]

  #10 and #21

  When someone is killed here in New Zealand the media find their facebook, bebo etc. pages and broadcast people’s photos, posts and dreams for the future. I have instructed my partner not to make public statements about myself if I end up the victim of some crime the public is interested in. Leave the victim out of it, I’m sure their family don’t need or want any media attention.

• [DWittSF]

  @Feltmountain – thanks for pointing me in the right direction. Von Brunn’s copy still sucks, though. It’s all in the eyes;)

• [dbarak]

  Interesting last line of the computer give-away story:

  “de Nugent says all “responsible white separatists” should condemn von Brunn’s actions.”

• [Xeni Jardin]

  @DBARAK I loled at that also.