The Simon & Antonino
Museum Design Project

Antonino Museum Design Project

In the middle of 2001, I came across a painter in Salvador, Bahia, and fell immediately and utterly in love with his work. His name is Antonino.

Now I’m creating a museum, and this is what it will look like (roughly, colors may vary ;o).
To view in larger format, click to open in new window.

Who is Antonino?

Antonino is a totally unknown painter from Brazil.

But he’s bloody good.

 
Going from this… … to this, in a couple of years.

And one of the reasons Antonino is a totally unknown painter is because I wanted it that way. Keeping him under wraps was the only way to ensure we had the largest possible number of his paintings for exhibition.

The Museum

We’ve bought two buildings in the Loire valley of France:
    . a 200-year-old, 1000-m², 5-storey watermill, and
    . a sixties’-built, 1800-m², 3-storey factory
… set in 2 acres of land.

On the left is the mill, with Antonino’s studio on the top floors. On the right is the factory. The first floor - 600 m² with a 2.4 m balcony all the way round - will be the main exhibition area.

 

The location is perfect.

The Château de Chenonceau is only 8.4 km downriver as the pike swims.

 

And although he doesn’t live there any more, Clos Lucé, Leonardo da Vinci’s last home, is only 17 km away.

 

In the other direction, the Château de Chaumont hosts annual flower festivals that draw in thousands.

 

We have set up a company to manage and commercialize his work, registered under French law as Simon & Antonino SARL.

For funding, we are offering prime real estate of a digital kind. Over the next few years, As well as creating new paintings and sculptures for inside the museum, Antonino will be painting every available square meter of the outside too. Some of it (and the poor bastard doesn’t know what he’s letting himself in for) will be plain ole schlap it on with a roller, then a second coat and don’t forget to clean up afterwards. But the main panels will be actual paintings. They will, of course, be beautiful, in his usual style, and with the same attention to detail.

As we dodge and weave between bank and Newgate, we are selling a mixture of patronage, pride, reproduction and your name on the website’s interactive architectural drawings. Hover over the paintings and your name will appear on the square you sponsor. Buy two squares, your name comes up twice. You get the picture. And you do get the picture. Each sponsored square, 25 cm x 25 cm, will be photographed, printed, signed by the artist, and sent to you as one of the museum’s valued primary patrons.

OK... How much?

€250.

Anyone in sales knows the old refrain: WIIFM, what’s in it for me?

Well, what is in it for ye?

Payment is simple:

And while we wait for the website to be ready, here are a couple more paintings to look at.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This one was not by Antonino. It was by Gerhard Richter (who?) and sold at Christies for £3,177,250

Makes yer think, dunnit?

Last words: In 1962, this guy invested a few dollars in a business better known for losing money: shirts.

Today, Warren Buffet is worth more than the federal reserve. (He also cut his hair.)

Sometimes, it pays to get in early...

 

 

For further information, please contact Simon Hamilton at email address coming here, or by phone on +33 6 89 69 13 56