According to a recent article on the Huffington Post, the Holocaust Museum shooting suspect, James W. von Brunn, was a frustrated artist, as well as a white supremacist. Read the whole article here.
This is an example of von Brunn’s work above. Needs some photoshop cropping on the edges I’d say.Selections from the Huff Post Article: A frustrated artist and an angry man, the suspect in the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum shooting once tried to kidnap members of the Federal Reserve board, a “caper” thwarted when a guard captured him outside a board meeting carrying a bag stuffed with weapons. James Von Brunn, 88, a white supremacist and Holocaust denier, describes the assault with apparent pride on his Web site, the source of fulmination against Jews and races other than his own.
Von Brunn applied to have his art shown at the Troika Gallery in Easton, Md., around the time the gallery opened about 12 years ago, two of the owners, Laura Era and Jennifer Wharton, told The Associated Press. They said they turned him down because it was not up to their quality and that made Von Brunn angry.
“He stomped out,” Wharton said. “You don’t normally get that reaction from artists.”
They say his work was not strange or violent, but the artists they show have many years of professional experience.
Era and Wharton said they had heard that Von Brunn had been in jail because of his political beliefs and knew that he had prejudices. They did not feel comfortable around him, but said they didn’t want to make him an enemy.
One time Von Brunn arrived at the gallery livid because he had just seen a mixed race couple getting married at the garden of the historical society nearby, Era and Wharton said.
Von Brunn was not around for years, but turned up a year or two ago. He did not spend as much time at their gallery as before and they did not encourage him to, the women said.
They said Von Brunn’s work depicted images such as horses and buffalo in the American West or an eagle with the U.S. flag.
Von Brunn’s biography on the artists’ directory askart.com says his father, Elmer, was superintendent of Scullin steel mill of St. Louis, and their family, on both sides, migrated from Germany and Austria in 1845 or near that year. He is listed as producing portraits, illustrations, graphics and more.
