January 2012 - Page 17 of 21 - Auction Central News

Alex Brown (American, b. 1966-), ‘Presence Chamber,’ 1998, 68 x 60 inches. Est. $6,000-$9,000. Clark’s Fine Art image.

Clark’s Fine Art to host auction with Hollywood connection, Jan. 21

January 9, 2012/in Upcoming Auctions/by Catherine Saunders-Watson

Alex Brown (American, b. 1966-), ‘Presence Chamber,’ 1998, 68 x 60 inches. Est. $6,000-$9,000. Clark’s Fine Art image.

SHERMAN OAKS, Calif. – On Saturday, Jan. 21, Clark’s Fine Art of Sherman Oaks (Los Angeles), Calif., will conduct its first auction of 2012 – a 270-lot auction of premier modern and contemporary artworks from three significant collections, plus additional select consignments. Two of the featured collections are from the estates of Hollywood luminaries who played key roles in the production of TV and film classics known the world over. The third collection consists of contemporary works of art donated by supporters to the Silverlake Independent Jewish Community Center, a Los Angeles nonprofit that will benefit from its portion of the auction proceeds.

One of the sale’s key collections was amassed by Harold Berkowitz, a prominent entertainment lawyer whose A-list clients included Robert Mitchum, Shelley Winters, Jack Lemmon and even the canine superstar Rin Tin Tin. Maintaining offices in Beverly Hills and Paris to accommodate his international clientele, Berkowitz had a hand in the deals behind the Pink Panther movie series and 1975 horror-thriller Jaws, as well as many of television’s most enduring shows, including Lassie, Flipper, The Donna Reed Show and All in the Family.

“Mr. Berkowitz, who passed away in 2010, lived in Malibu and collected contemporary and modern art that suited the décor of his home. His refined taste is reflected in the artworks he personally chose for his collection,” said Clark Cierlak, owner of Clark’s Fine Art.

The second major art collection in the sale comes from the estate of Hollywood director Jerrold “Jerry” Bernstein (1930-1979), whose TV credits included The Flying Nun, Gidget, Nanny and the Professor, I Dream of Jeannie, and scores of other popular shows.

“Like Mr. Berkowitz, Jerry Bernstein favored contemporary and modern art. He also liked and, to a lesser extent, collected African art. His art collection has remained in the family for the past 32 years. We are honored to be presenting it at auction,” said Cierlak.

The contemporary art collection consigned by the Silverlake Independent Jewish Community Center blends perfectly into the trifecta of auction headliners. It is comprised of quality contemporary artworks that were gifts from generous supporters.

“The Silverlake center has been a respected institution within the Los Angeles Jewish community for more than 60 years and provides early childhood education and social programs for people of all backgrounds who have an interest in Jewish culture,” said Cierlak. “Over the years some very nice artworks have been donated to the center. There are paintings with previous appraisal values of $30,000 to $40,000 that we will auction with estimates of $4,000 to $5,000 each.”

One of the sale’s top highlights is a 1988 Monique Frydman (American, b. 1943-) pigment, color pastel and oil painting on canvas titled Jaune Majeur III. The 86 x 76 inch work is artist-signed and dated on verso, and comes with provenance from Galerie Baudoin Lebon in Paris. It is estimated at $12,000-$18,000.

Another fine American work is Alex Brown’s (b. 1966-) oil on canvas titled Presence Chamber. The 68 x 60 inch painting – titled, signed and dated “1998” on verso – renders a three-dimensional op art effect. With an appraised value of $37,000, it is cataloged with a $6,000-$9,000 estimate.

A wonderful cast-bronze sculpture titled Colloquio was created in 1962 by Italian sculptor Alfio Castelli (b. 1917-). The signed 60 x 40 x 48 inch depiction of two angular figures in a perpendicular arrangement was previously in the collection of the late David E. Bright and is estimated at $20,000-$40,000. Cierlak noted that David Bright was “a renowned collector who bequeathed 23 paintings to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, where a wing was named after him. There are also 11 works from his estate at the Murphy Sculpture Garden at UCLA.”

Standing Nude Woman, a 70-inch-tall welded metal sculpture by Californian Gene Logan (1922-1999), comes with provenance from the Ankrum Gallery, which opened in 1960 and for decades was a favorite haunt for art collectors in LA. Estimate: $1,000-$2,000.

Alida Margolis (American, b. 1975) created the oval oil on canvas titled We Love You All. Signed and dated on verso, the 64½ x 106 inch painting has an appraised value of $20,000. It will be offered at Clark’s on Jan. 21 with an $8,000-$12,000 estimate.

Norwegian artist Haavard Homstvedt’s (b. 1976-) acrylic-on-linen wrapped over panel work titled Nudes (Double Step) measures 64 x 48 inches and was previously appraised at $35,000. Some sharp-eyed collector could take away a bargain if it sells within its estimate range of $4,000-$6,000.

Two signed multicolor acrylic columns by Yugoslavian artist Velizar Vasa (b. 1933-) will be offered individually in consecutive lots. Each incorporates a spectrum of colors – blue, green, yellow and purple – and measures 101 inches tall, inclusive of stand. The presale estimate on each column is $4,000-$6,000.

Clark’s Fine Art welcomes all forms of bidding for its Jan. 21 auction, including live at the gallery, absentee, by phone, or live via the Internet through LiveAuctioneers.com. The gallery is located at 14931 Califa St., Space A, Sherman Oaks (Los Angeles), CA 91411. The auction will begin at noon Pacific Time. Preview 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday, Jan. 16 through Friday, Jan. 20, and from 10 a.m. till noon on auction day.

For additional information on any lot in the sale, call 818-783-3052 or e-mail gallery@pacbell.net. View the fully illustrated catalog online at www.LiveAuctioneers.com. Visit Clark’s website at www.estateauctionservice.com.

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View the fully illustrated catalog and register to bid absentee or live via the Internet as the sale is taking place by logging on to www.LiveAuctioneers.com.

ADDITIONAL LOTS OF NOTE

Alex Brown (American, b. 1966-), ‘Presence Chamber,’ 1998, 68 x 60 inches. Est. $6,000-$9,000. Clark’s Fine Art image.

Alfio Castelli (Italian, b. 1917-), ‘Colloquio,’ cast bronze sculpture, 1962, 60 x 40 x 48 inches. Provenance: David E. Bright collection. Est. $20,000-$40,000. Clark’s Fine Art image.

Monique Frydman (American, b. 1943-), ‘Jaune Majeur III,’ 1988, 86 x 76 inches. Provenance: Galerie Baudoin Lebon, Paris. Est. $12,000-$18,000. Clark’s Fine Art image.

Iva Guerorguiva (Bulgarian/American, 20th century), ‘Gasoline the Sunlight,’ 2004, 77 x 87 inches. Provenance: Karl Berg Gallery. Est. $4,000-$8,000. Clark’s Fine Art image.

Haavard Homstvedt (Norwegian, b. 1976-), ‘Nudes (Double Step),’ 64 x 48 inches. Est. $4,000-$6,000. Clark’s Fine Art image.

Gene Logan (Californian, 1922-1999), ‘Standing Nude Woman,’ welded metal sculpture, 70 inches tall inclusive of hydra-stone base. Est. 1,000-$2,000. Clark’s Fine Art image.

Alida Margolis (American, b. 1975), ‘We Love You All,’ 64 ½ x 106 inches. Est. $8,000-$12,000. Clark’s Fine Art image.

Triple-angle view of Velizar Vasa (Yugoslavian, b. 1933-) multicolor acrylic column, two to be auctioned, 101 inches tall inclusive of stand. Provenance: Mrs. David E. Bright. Est. $4,000-$6,000 each. Clark’s Fine Art image.

Picasso stolen from Athens’ National Gallery

January 9, 2012/in Crime & Litigation/by Catherine Saunders-Watson

ATHENS (AFP) – A painting personally gifted by Spanish-born master Pablo Picasso to Greece was stolen from Athens’ National Gallery early Monday along with two other important artworks, officials said.

“Woman’s Head,” a 1939 oil on canvas, had been given by Picasso to the Greek state in 1949 in recognition of the country’s resistance to Nazi Germany, the police said in a statement.

“Mill,” a 1905 oil painting of a windmill by Dutch abstract artist Piet Mondrian was also stolen, along with a sketch of St Diego de Alcala by 16th century Italian artist Guglielmo Caccia, better known as Moncalvo, the police said.

Authorities said the thief, or thieves, had knocked out the alarm system and forced open a balcony door at the back of the building, which is located across from one of Athens’ top hotels.

A guard told police that a burglar alarm went off shortly before 5:00 am and that he saw the silhouette of a person running from the building.

He told police that he ran after the thief, who dropped another Mondrian oil painting, “Landscape,” depicting a farmhouse and painted around 1905, according to the gallery’s website.

The break-in lasted only around seven minutes.

The police added that the guard had been distracted earlier in the evening by alarms that were triggered at various entry points, but when he went to investigate he found no one in the gallery.

The police said the theft occurred on the final day of an exhibition titled “Unknown Treasures” that included prints and etchings by Duerer and Rembrandt.

The gallery in the center of the Greek capital planned to close its doors following the exhibition for expansion and renovation work.

It has a vast permanent collection of post-Byzantine Greek art, as well as a small collection of Renaissance works and some El Greco paintings.

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Finely carved and rare pale celadon jade altar set. Estimate: $20,000-$30,000. Image courtesy of Cowan's Auctions Inc.

Cowan’s to host 2nd Asian Art auction, Jan. 27

January 6, 2012/in Upcoming Auctions/by Tom Hoepf

Finely carved and rare pale celadon jade altar set. Estimate: $20,000-$30,000. Image courtesy of Cowan’s Auctions Inc.

CINCINNATI – Cowan’s will conduct their second auction dedicated solely to Asian Art on Friday, Jan. 27. The auction will feature over 500 lots including a wide selection of ivory, jade and porcelain, prints, Chinese furniture, scroll paintings, and reference material. Some of the highlights in the sale include a finely carved and rare pale celadon jade altar set and an archaistic jadeite lidded wine vessel.

The auction will begin at 10 a.m. Eastern LiveAuctioneers.com will provide Internet live bidding.

“With the beginning of 2012, we are very pleased to announce that several important American collections of Asian Art will be offered. These were primarily amassed during the 1960s and 1970s, and are surfacing as a result of the strengthened market for Chinese decorative arts,” said Graydon Sikes, director of Fine Art at Cowan’s.

Cowan’s will offer a finely carved and rare pale celadon jade altar set set estimated at $20,000-$30,000. This Chinese set is dated to the Qianlong Period, 18th century. It includes three separate finely carved jade vessels, including a small rectangular lidded vessel with lobed corners.

An archaistic jadeite lidded wine vessel is estimated to sell between $10,000-$15,000. Chinese and dated to the 19th century, this vessel is inlaid in emerald green and lavender tones, having a dragon chasing a pearl finial, with two mythological beast-headed handles each with loose rings. The body is covered in archaistic and stylized chilong designs on a wooden stand with metal inlay.

A pair of spinach jadeite octagonal bowls are estimated to bring $10,000-$15,000. The bowls, Chinese early 20th century, are highly polished and highly translucent. Each has a wide flat rim with borders, the exterior sides with lotus flowers surrounded by foliage carved in relief. Both have two handles carved in the shape of a flower supporting loose rings and are on elaborately carved compound wooden stands.

An 18th-century Chinese cloisonne gu-form vase is expected to bring $12,000-$15,000. The top rim of the vase has lotus flowers and plantain leaves mirrored on the bottom.

A Chinese spinach jade marriage bowl is estimated at $10,000-$15,000. The interior is inlaid with a traditional double fish motif together with peonies and foliage in relief. The exterior is ornately carved with interlocking foliage, having two ornately carved peony handles, each supporting a loose ring. The bowl has an incised six character Qianlong mark on the bottom and sits on a 20th-century teakwood stand.

A large jade boulder is estimated at $10,000-$12,000. The front of this boulder has three seated figures in a mountainous landscape, the reverse with a similar scene of figures in a landscape, all on a carved and pierced wooden stand.

A white jade hu-form lidded vase is expected to bring $10,000-$15,000. The side has an ornately carved phoenix standing on a rocky ledge and surrounded by scrolling shaped vines.

A large collection of chinese jade seals are estimated to bring $2,000-$4,000.

Cowan’s will conduct a preview on Thursday, Jan. 26, from noon to 5 p.m.

For details visit Cowan’s website at www.cowans.com or phone 513-871-1670.

View the fully illustrated catalog and register to bid absentee or live via the Internet as the sale is taking place by logging on to www.LiveAuctioneers.com.

ADDITIONAL LOTS OF NOTE

Finely carved and rare pale celadon jade altar set. Estimate: $20,000-$30,000. Image courtesy of Cowan’s Auctions Inc.

Archaistic jadeite lidded wine vessel. Estimate: $10,000-$15,000. Image courtesy of Cowan’s Auctions Inc.

Two spinach jadeite octagonal bowls. Estimate: $10,000-$15,000. Image courtesy of Cowan’s Auctions Inc.

Chinese cloisonne gu-form vase. Estimate: $12,000-$15,000. Image courtesy of Cowan’s Auctions Inc.

Chinese spinach jade marriage bowl. Estimate $10,000-$15,000. Image courtesy of Cowan’s Auctions Inc.

Large jade boulder. Estimate $10,000-$12,000. Image courtesy of Cowan’s Auctions Inc.

White jade hu-form lidded vase. Estimate $10,000-$15,000. Image courtesy of Cowan’s Auctions Inc.

Stencil Vandal by Nick Walker. Photography by Kelsey Savage Hays.

Reading the Streets: Nick Walker’s ‘Vandal’ in Williamsburg

January 6, 2012/in Reading the Streets/by Tom Hoepf

Stencil Vandal by Nick Walker. Photography by Kelsey Savage Hays.

I walked a little off my usual route in Williamsburg the other day and made a happy discovery—one of Nick Walker’s Vandal characters hanging out on a wall. One of the best-known graffiti artists creating work today, Nick Walker has been using his alter ego character, the Vandal, to enhance street space across the world. The Vandal disguises himself as a true English gentleman with a bowler and suit to break artistic boundaries. He even appeared in the background of the Black Eyed Peas’ video for I Gotta Feeling. This Williamsburg Vandal demonstrates a more cautious attitude than other renditions, peering out from behind his fingers.

Nick Walker emerged from the Bristol graffiti scene in the early ’80s, and began combining stencils with freehand work in the early ’90s. The stencil allowed him a level of control that spray-painting didn’t and it enabled him to take any image and recreate it on all types of surfaces. Alongside Inkie and Banksy, two other artists to come out of Bristol, he contributed to the 1998 Walls on Fire graffiti jam, which involved painting a 1.4-kilometer space around Bristol’s historic docks. In 2008, Walker’s Moona Lisa sold for 54,000 pounds ($83,290) at Bonhams Urban Auction, more than 10 times the estimated worth. But despite his success, Walker continues to practice his roots—as the Williamsburg Vandal pieces prove.

ADDITIONAL IMAGES OF NOTE

Stencil Vandal by Nick Walker. Photography by Kelsey Savage Hays.

The larger Magritte Museum in Brussels is not the same museum where thieves stole a painting by the surrealist artist two years ago. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.

Thieves return Magritte painting after failing to find buyer

January 6, 2012/in Crime & Litigation/by Tom Hoepf

The larger Magritte Museum in Brussels is not the same museum where thieves stole a painting by the surrealist artist two years ago. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.

BRUSSELS – A painting by Belgian surrealist master Rene Magritte, stolen at gunpoint two years ago, has been returned after the thieves apparently failed to find a buyer, the Rene-Magritte museum said Friday.

The work, titled Olympia and depicting the artist’s wife nude with a giant shell lying on her stomach, was stolen in September 2009 by two armed gunmen from Magritte’s former house, which is open as a museum by appointment only.

Said to be worth around 3 million euros at the time, experts had said the highly recognizable oil would be difficult to sell.

More than two years later, a person contacted an expert working with the insurance company and offered to hand it back with no strings attached, museum curator Andre Garitte told AFP.

“They’d visibly understood they wouldn’t be able to sell it because it was too well-known,” he said. “It became an embarassment and they preferred to get rid of it. Luckily they didn’t destroy it.”

The museum, which has been returned the painting, has not yet decided whether to hang it.

The daylight theft of the 1948 work was blamed at the time on two men, one of them said to be Asian, one a French-speaker, the other an English-speaker.

They entered the museum shortly after it opened and at gunpoint forced staff to lie down in the courtyard as one of the men climbed over a glass panel protecting the work to steal it.

The museum, set in a house where the painter lived and worked for 24 years, is far smaller than the bigger Magritte museum opened in central Brussels.

ADDITIONAL IMAGE OF NOTE

The larger Magritte Museum in Brussels is not the same museum where thieves stole a painting by the surrealist artist two years ago. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.

Eve Arnold shot many pictures of Marilyn Monroe from 1951 onward. She took this picture, a vintage Ektacolor print, of Marilyn reading a book circa 1960. Image courtesy of LiveAuctioneers.com and Clark's Fine Art & Auctioneers Inc.

In Memoriam: Photojournalist Eve Arnold, 99

January 6, 2012/in People/by Tom Hoepf

Eve Arnold shot many pictures of Marilyn Monroe from 1951 onward. She took this picture, a vintage Ektacolor print, of Marilyn reading a book circa 1960. Image courtesy of LiveAuctioneers.com and Clark’s Fine Art & Auctioneers Inc.

LONDON (AP) – Eve Arnold, a world-traveling photojournalist whose subjects ranged from the poor and dispossessed to Marilyn Monroe, has died, the Magnum photo agency said Thursday. She was 99.

Magnum spokeswoman Fiona Rogers said Arnold died peacefully Wednesday in a London nursing home.

Born in Philadelphia in April 1912 to Russian immigrant parents, Arnold lived on Long Island when she became interested in photography while working in a photofinishing lab.

After taking a six-week photography course at the New School for Social Research in New York, she began her career in the 1940s, working for publications including Picture Post, Time and Life magazine during a golden age of magazine photojournalism.

Her subjects included migrant laborers, New York bartenders, Cuban fishermen and Afghan nomads; celebrities such as Joan Crawford and Elizabeth Taylor; and political figures including Jacqueline Kennedy, Malcolm X and Margaret Thatcher.

Arnold was renowned for her rapport with those she photographed.

“If you’re careful with people and if you respect their privacy, they will offer part of themselves that you can use,” she told the BBC in a 2002 interview.

Her most famous shots include portraits of Monroe—both vulnerable and glamorous—taken over a decade and collected in her book Marilyn Monroe: An Appreciation.

“Themes recur again and again in my work,” Arnold once said. “I have been poor and I wanted to document poverty; I had lost a child and I was obsessed with birth; I was interested in politics and I wanted to know how it affected our lives; I am a woman and I wanted to know about women.”

Arnold joined the Magnum agency in 1951—the first woman admitted to the cooperative —after her images of fashion shows in Harlem caught the attention of photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson.

Arnold settled in London in the 1960s, working for the Sunday Times Magazine and other publications. In the 1970s she photographed and filmed Dubai’s ruling family for Behind the Veil, and was one of the first American photographers to work in China.

The photos she took there were exhibited in her first solo show, at the Brooklyn Museum in 1980, and published as In China. Other volumes of her work included In America and The Great British.

Her work was exhibited at Britain’s National Portrait Gallery and was the subject of a retrospective show at the Barbican in London in 1996.

Arnold was a fellow of the Royal Photographic Society and in 1995 was named Master Photographer by New York’s International Center of Photography.

In 2003 she was named an officer of the Order of the British Empire, or OBE, by Queen Elizabeth II for services to photography, and in 2009 received a lifetime achievement prize from the Sony World Photography Awards.

Long divorced from husband Arnold Arnold, she is survived by her son, Frank, and three grandchildren. Funeral details were not immediately available.

ADDITIONAL IMAGE OF NOTE

Eve Arnold shot many pictures of Marilyn Monroe from 1951 onward. She took this picture, a vintage Ektacolor print, of Marilyn reading a book circa 1960. Image courtesy of LiveAuctioneers.com and Clark’s Fine Art & Auctioneers Inc.

A page from a letter from Alexander Graham Bell explaining how to avoid damage from lightning. RR Auction in Amherst, N.H., sold the signed seven-page letter for more than $92,000. Image courtesy of RR Auction.

Alexander Graham Bell 7-page letter dialed in for Jan. 18 auction

January 6, 2012/in Technology/by Tom Hoepf

A page from a letter from Alexander Graham Bell to his father explaining how to avoid damage from lightning. RR Auction in Amherst, N.H., will sell the signed seven-page letter Jan. 18. Image courtesy of RR Auction.

CONCORD, N.H. (AP) – A New Hampshire dealer is auctioning an 1878 letter from Alexander Graham Bell to his parents instructing them to ground the telephone he invented by running a copper wire from their house to the duck pond. RR Auction in Amherst, N.H., will close the auction Jan. 18.

The seven-page letter contains two drawings by Bell of the phone and how to run its elaborate wiring system to avoid harm from lightning strikes.

Bell was responding to a letter from his parents telling him about how a lightning strike had damaged their wiring between several poles. Bell writes that he was “quite troubled” by the news and proceeds to instruct them how to avoid such an incident in the future.

“If you have good connection with a permanently moist stratum of earth, you need never fear lightning and your posts will be safe,” Bell writes. His drawing shows a strand of wire running to a rectangular box, above which is written, “Bury in duck pond.”

The letter is more than a tutorial on how to ground his new invention.

He opens with “My dear Papa and Mama” and tells them their new granddaughter is developing into “a healthy-fat-nice-looking baby with tremendous eyes.” He signs the letter, “Your loving son, Alec”– a nickname used only by the family.

The letter is dated June 10, 1878, and was written just two years after Bell obtained the patent on the telephone and made his first call to his assistant, Thomas Watson.

ADDITIONAL IMAGE OF NOTE

A page from a letter from Alexander Graham Bell to his father explaining how to avoid damage from lightning. RR Auction in Amherst, N.H., will sell the signed seven-page letter Jan. 18. Image courtesy of RR Auction.

Larry Thompson, former U.S. Deputy Attorney General, and his wife are donating 100 works by African-American artists to the Georgia Museum of Art. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

Georgia Museum of Art to get major collection

January 6, 2012/in Museums/by Tom Hoepf

Larry Thompson, former U.S. Deputy Attorney General, and his wife are donating 100 works by African-American artists to the Georgia Museum of Art. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

ATLANTA (AP) – A couple who has amassed one of the nation’s major private collections of African-American art is donating 100 works to the Georgia Museum of Art in Athens.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, which first reported the plans, says Larry and Brenda Thompson also will fund a new curatorial position at the museum.

Museum board Chairman Carl Mullis called the couple’s contributions “transformative” for the official state art museum of Georgia and an amazing gift to the people of the state.

The donations include pieces by Hale Woodruff, Beauford Delaney, Henry Ossawa Tanner, Wadsworth Jarrell and Radcliffe Bailey.

Larry Thompson, a former U.S. deputy attorney general based in Atlanta and retired general counsel and secretary for PepsiCo, lived in Georgia for 30 years. His wife is a retired clinical school psychologist.

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Information from: The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, http://www.ajc.com

AP-WF-01-05-12 1223GMT

ADDITIONAL IMAGE OF NOTE

Larry Thompson, former U.S. Deputy Attorney General, and his wife are donating 100 works by African-American artists to the Georgia Museum of Art. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

The Navajo Code Talker Monument in Window Rock, Ariz. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

In Memoriam: Keith Little, Navajo code talker, 87

January 6, 2012/in People/by Tom Hoepf

The Navajo Code Talker Monument in Window Rock, Ariz. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. (AP) – Keith Little envisioned a place that would house the stories of the Navajo Code Talkers and where people could learn more about the famed World War II group who used their native language as a weapon.

His family now hopes to carry out his dream of a museum near the Arizona-New Mexico border that also will hold wartime memorabilia and serve as haven for veterans. Little, one of the most recognizable of the remaining Code Talkers, died of melanoma Tuesday night at a Fort Defiance hospital, said his wife, Nellie. He was 87.

Little was 17 when he joined the U.S. Marine Corps, becoming one of hundreds of Navajos trained as Code Talkers. They used a code developed by 29 tribal members that was based on the then-unwritten Navajo language. Their code helped confound the Japanese and win the war.

“My motivation was to fight the enemy with a gun or whatever,” Little told The Associated Press in a July 2009 interview. “When I went into the Marine Corps … I knew nothing about the Navajo code. It was really astonishing to me to get to Camp Pendleton and there were a bunch of Navajos there, and they were working with a Navajo code.”

Little, the longtime president of the Navajo Code Talkers Association until his death, traveled the country seeking funding for the museum and veterans center that is expected to cost nearly $43 million. He preached about the preservation of Navajo traditions, culture and the language that the federal government tried to eradicate before he and others were called on to use it during the war.

It was a story he never tired of telling, association secretary Yvonne Murphy said.

“That was his life. That was the drive behind him,” Murphy said Wednesday. “It didn’t matter where he was. If there were people who came and wanted to sit and talk with him, he would share with them.”

Nellie Little said her husband hoped the museum would be open by 2014 at its proposed location just outside the Navajo Nation capital of Window Rock. But she said more money is needed.

She is asking people to send museum donations rather than flowers for his memorial.

Keith Little’s health had been deteriorating over the past year, as he went in and out of hospitals between speaking engagements and appearances in parades—the last time in New York in November for Veterans Day, the association said. When he wasn’t traveling, he was tending to his family’s ranch in Crystal, N.M.

A video on the association’s website features Keith Little speaking about the importance of the unbreakable code. Fellow platoon members referred to the Navajos as “walking secret codes,” with each message having to be memorized and destroyed after it was sent or received, Keith Little says.

“That is something that in itself was marvelous,” he said in the AP interview. “It was so proficient and safe.”

AP-WF-01-05-12 0040GMT

ADDITIONAL IMAGE OF NOTE

The Navajo Code Talker Monument in Window Rock, Ariz. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

Covered bridge in Guilford, Vt., from which an antique sign has been removed for safekeeping. Aug. 20, 2004 photo by Jared C. Benedict, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.

Antique sign on Vermont covered bridge shows up again

January 6, 2012/in Crime & Litigation/by Tom Hoepf

Covered bridge in Guilford, Vt., from which an antique sign has been removed for safekeeping. Aug. 20, 2004 photo by Jared C. Benedict, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.

GUILFORD, Vt. (AP) – An antique traffic sign that disappeared from a covered bridge in Vermont warning teamsters not to drive their horses across the bridge faster than a walk has mysteriously reappeared.

The theft from the Green River Covered Bridge in Guilford was reported on Christmas Eve. Passers-by saw it back again on Tuesday.

The 2-by-3-foot sign is believed to be a century old.

The Burlington Free Press reports Addie Minott, who can see the bridge from her bedroom window, took the returned sign to the town clerk’s office for safekeeping.

The sign says “Two dollars fine to drive on this bridge faster than a walk.”

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Information from: The Burlington Free Press, http://www.burlingtonfreepress.com

AP-WF-01-05-12 1229GMT

ADDITIONAL IMAGE OF NOTE

Covered bridge in Guilford, Vt., from which an antique sign has been removed for safekeeping. Aug. 20, 2004 photo by Jared C. Benedict, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.