h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

And-

http://www.groupofsevenart.com/Lismer/Images/Arthur_Lismer_A_September_Gale_Georgian_Bay_L.jpg

(blame my sticky keyboard and sausage fingers)

End with another song:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hC_j8EysOxA

For the kitchen, I'd have to go with The Son of Man by Magritte.

http://imgc.allpostersimages.com/images/P-473-488-90/37/3774/85DIF00Z/posters/Rene-Magritte-The-Son-of-Man-1964.jpg

Although, I actually prefer this version by Kathleen Denson:

http://blogs.ajc.com/radio-tv-talk/files/2011/08/bowler-hat-chicken-224x300.jpg

I wouldn't swap any of my current pictures. One's an art-deco themed piece by L's aunt, who's an artist, and two are local landscapes by my great-grandfather, an artist who out-sold his famous contemporary LS Lowry.

There's a large painting of a dog pointing toward his prey on the wall of my parents' living room. It was painted by my father's aunt's husband, and has been beloved for many years. The painting is rich with images of a river that winds into the distance. In the right foreground is a grassy area, but you can see swampy areas and trees to the left, the directiion the dog is pointing in. The sky overhead looks so real you can almost believe you're there in the picture.

That sounds excellent Paul. I love your description.

I have a variety of my own made stuff in my flat and some from friends and some stuff from my travels.

But in the kitchen my favourite is a print I was given for my Christening apparently. Its a simple watercolour of English wild flowers.

In response to one of clzoomer's choices, rather than Lismer, I'd likely go with a late phase Lawren Harris landscapes: Mt. Assiniboine http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-hpTYtbEQNt4/TVbADsteJWI/AAAAAAAACfM/2HUS4fvL0Fc/s1600/lawren%2Bharris.jpg or Mt. Lefroy http://www.zwoje-scrolls.com/zwoje29/rm04.jpg although I also like some of his abstract work.

But, what I would really like is a particular piece in the Art Gallery of Alberta by H. G. Glyde: "Edmonton, 1943" http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com/media/edmonton-1943-5068.jpg (I already have a small print framed on a wall)


And, if I got to choose another, also of local character, a view of the same city a century earlier, Paul Kane's "Fort Edmonton" from around 1856, now in the ROM -- http://www.boulderpavement.ca/issue001/bp_content/011_kane/011_img_enlarge_005.jpg


But I'm fortunate to have made some extravagant purchases in my youth, particularly these three very limited edition (signed and numbered by the artist) prints by an Anishinaabe fellow named Miskwaabik Animikii (Copper Thunderbird) now, sadly, deceased:

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_lD54Ve5CBEU/TEfmVj8A3PI/AAAAAAAAB-4/Of_R2bjpLBo/s1600/Metamorphosis+Man+Into+Thunderbird+by+norval+morrisseau.jpg
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-7eCSzNi2_0E/TaxtlIQWk3I/AAAAAAAAARo/Qn8ZmSNKQVY/s1600/Metamorphosis+Man+Into+Fish+by+norval+morrisseau.jpg
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-rd954X9yEvg/Tj4LmyZORzI/AAAAAAAAIzk/JfEJfwTEBFM/s400/Me+and+my+Daughter+Lisa_Edition+of+99_30x22_1977_by+Norval+Morrisseau.jpg

These three are perhaps my dearest possessions.

Yes I can understand those being very dear posessions. In the first of the last 3, I noticed the bird head imagery. I remember some years ago seeing a very old black and white film to do with native Americans. It showed a lot of dancing and ceremonies that went on in the winter time with them wearing the most amazing bird masks like that.

I'm just so glad that I was able to (barely) afford them when I came across them -- there's no way I could now.

When I was very young I remember taping pictures from a calendar all over my room -- perhaps Daphne Odjig pieces. And when I was in high school, Alex Janvier was commissioned to do a remarkable mural in the local municipal building. I've grown up surrounded by and steeped in the First Nations artistic traditions, as I suspect all Canadians have, although many might not know or admit it.

I made a mistake. That one you mention effers, the first of the last three, is not one I have. In my haste I linked to Man into Thunderbird instead of Man into Bear.

"Metamorphosis - Man into Bear" should be the first link of the last three:
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-JEUcLXp5Oks/TVyxUYmIK0I/AAAAAAAAALo/9s72ZAaIcD8/s1600/Metamorphosis++Man+Into+Bear+by+Norval+Morrisseau.png

clzoomer's beaten me to it but I'd really like Van Gogh's Starry Night for my bedroom

I have no idea at this stage what painting I'd like, but I'm loving seeing all these different ones.

Mainly I'm drawn to Monet and van Gogh.

Deb

I'm looking for a painting I saw in a gallery thirteen years ago in St. Ives. So far the hunt goes poorly. I shall buy it when I find it. I have no idea who painted it, or where it is, but I shall, by hook or crook, find it.

Anyway, it wasn't in a great gallery. If I could pick any painting from a great gallery, it would be one of two.

First: the fairy feller's master stroke, by Richard Dadd.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/95/Image-Dadd_-_Fairy_Feller%27s.jpg

No jpg can possibly do it justice, unfortunately. It took him nine years, and it's not finished. I could look at it for hours. Indeed, I have probably spent longer looking at the real thing than any other painting in the Tate(s).

The other is this:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9e/Madame_de_Loynes.jpg

I was leaving the Musee d'Orsay when this woman looked at me, and I was transfixed. I've never seen anything like it before or since. Again, no jpg does it justice. It helps that it reminds me strongly of someone, but I saw and was transfixed by the painting long before I saw and was transfixed by her.

Hoo, did you meet anyone on your way to St. Ives?

OK, it was

'As I was going to St Ives
I met a man with seven wives
I know this sounds absurd and loony
But that poor man was Mickey Rooney!'

I'm dating myself even more, aren't I?

You're dating yourself these days zoomer? Will you be sending yourself a Valantine's card this year then?

http://www.metrolyrics.com/better-off-without-a-wife-lyrics-tom-waits.html

I'll see your Waits and raise you a Steeleye Span: http://www.wtv-zone.com/phyrst/audio/nfld/12/bachelor.htm

Oh Hoo thank you so much, when this thread started I thought 'actually I want that picture we saw in that programme on TV ages ago ... the desert one' only I had *no idea* who painted it. And of course it was Richard Dadd's 'The Halt in the Desert' but I would never have remembered that and found it if you hadn't mentioned him

I've bookmarked the page now

Mol

By the way if you have a painting you cannot identify Google search is your friend provided you have a copy of the picture on your PC.you just click on images on Google search and drag and drop the image into the search box.I managed to identify two pictures and the artists I had been trying to identify for years this way.