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Otis Kaye

Otis Kaye is considered the last of the great trompe l'oeil painters, recognized primarily for his pictures of American currency. Born in 1885 to European immigrants Kaye lived briefly in the United States before enrolling in engineering school in Dresden, Germany. Although Kaye sustained a successful engineering career up until the great stock market crash of 1929, his short stay in New York City from 1904-1905 sparked a life-long passion for art, specifically tromp l'oeil.

Otis Kaye continued the tradition of the great nineteenth century trompe l'oeil painters, William Michael Harnett, John Frederick Peto, John Haberle and Nicholas A. Brooks. He even went as far as signing two of his own works "N. A. Brooks." His explanation lies under our nose in his painting entitled Trompe L'eil for Bessie Hoffman: "To the critic the artist replied, 'Imitation was the highest form of compliment to art, man, or nature.' One critic rose to complain of mere deception; however, he quickly sat down when the painter offered him a brush. The presence of this clipping not only explains the signature of Brooks, Kaye's "mentor"; it also strongly suggests that Kaye knew of the existence and meaning of Haberle's Imitation..." (B.W. Chambers, Old Money: American Trompe L'oeil Images of Currency, New York, 1988, p. 88)

It is no surprise that Harnett, Peto and Haberle explored the subject of American currency at length through trompE l'oeil. It was only at the end of the nineteenth century, during their lifetime that the Federal Government began issuing paper money that could not be redeemed in precious metal. As Bruce Chambers writes, "It is easy today to overlook the passion with which not only bankers and industrialists but also farmers and factory workers approached the subject of paper money a hundred years ago. Monetary value for us is as often contained in a coded plastic rectangle or a series of electronic signals sent to a computer as it is in the bills we carry in our wallets, and over fifty years have passed since anyone could show up at a nationally-chartered bank and actually obtain gold in exchange for those bills." (Old Money, p. 14) Kaye, born only one year before Harnett stopped painting currency, preferred the subject of money thirty years later, continuing the tradition of his predecessors. Kaye commonly utilized currency as anthropomorphic symbols to illustrate social or historical events, past and present.

Biography courtesy of Roughton Galleries, www.antiquesandfineart.com/roughton

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