Eagle Rock Artist on a Roll After $25,000 eBay Sale

Alex Schaefer, the Eagle Rock artist who paints burning banks, as our previous story about him was headlined, is taking Friday off to unwind from the busiest couple of days in his life.

On Wednesday, Schaefer’s much-publicized en plein air painting about the Van Nuys branch of Chase Bank in flames sold for an astounding $25,000—and he’s been busy talking to the winning bidder and arranging for the painting’s shipment.

“I’m not used to doing so much stuff,” says the artist, who is 41 years old and has been painting for the past 22. “I haven’t had a lot going on in the past 10-12 years,” he admits, adding: “I’ve been selling my paintings on occasion and rarely getting more than four figures for them.”

What’s particularly pleasing to Schaefer is that his “Chase Burning” painting has moved a lot of people. “It’s a visual outlet for them to express their frustration about things that everybody has started to feel,” he says, referring to the double-dip recession into which our economy appears to be spiraling. “I’ve been getting a lot of mail from people congratulating me.”

Although he has been “amazed, happy and thrilled” by the sale, Schaefer says he also feels humbled by the publicity he has gotten lately.

In fact, hardly anybody had heard of Schaefer until an Aug. 28 Los Angeles Times article about his “Chase Burning” painting catapulted him to fame as an artist whose work symbolizes widespread public anger over the banking industry’s role in the 2008 financial meltdown.

On the day his 22-inch by 28-inch canvas painting sold on eBay, Schaefer was interviewed for three hours on CoaguLAradio, an internet radio station that is part of the Coagula Art Journal, a contemporary art magazine. Articles about him have appeared in the Huffington Post, the New York Observer and LA Weekly.

Given that Chase is an American bank and that the global financial downturn began in the U.S., you’d think Schaefer’s “Chase Burning” painting must have been bought by someone in this country.

So it might come as a surprise—and one that no other media outlet appears to have focused on—that the winning bid for the painting came not from America but from someone in Germany.

“The buyer wants to remain anonymous,” says Schaefer, whose wildly successful eBay sale has inspired at least one other artist to put up for auction on eBay a watercolor depicting a burning bank (see photo).

“I think it’s cool,” says Schaefer, referring to the watercolor. “I don’t think I’m going to bid on it, though.”

On Thursday, Schaefer sold another of his bank-on-flames paintings on eBay—a smaller canvas that depicts the on Colorado Boulevard in Eagle Rock aflame—for $3,601.

“I sat there on Eagle Rock Boulevard and Colorado, had a coffee and painted it in three or four hours,” says Schaefer, adding that he worked on the painting a day or two after the L.A. Times article about his “Chase Burning” work.

But could it be art if takes just three or four hours to finish? “When people ask me how long it took to paint a painting, I say, 'oh, four hours and 22 years,’” counters Schaefer. His work, he explains, is analogous to that of a musician who may have spent 500 hours perfecting a piece.

“I know a lot of artists who say they paint better if they spend a lot of time on a painting,” says Schaefer. “I just don’t believe it—Van Gogh used to do two paintings in a day.”