Sylvester Stallone, the Rocky and Rambo actor-turned-artist, has presented a series of paintings he produced nearly 60 years ago that he sold for $5 to help pay for the bus fare to and from school. The sculptures, which were part of an exhibition that premiered over the weekend at the Osthaus Museum in Hagen, Germany, have been hidden in Stallone's wardrobe ever since.
The artist, who turned 75 earlier this year, said he used to buy cheap canvases for $2 and then sell them for $5 at a press conference on December 4th. "I had a couple left," Stallone adds, "but I was kind of embarrassed by [them] because the style was pretty different [...], so I kept them in my closet." "There was no pretext or scholarly schooling; it was just painted flowing on canvas with a great deal of feeling, and they hadn't been seen in 55-60 years." They've been hiding in my closet for a long time, so it's nice to get them out."
The show encompasses his early works, which he signed "Mike Stallone," to contemporary paintings. Finding Rocky (1975), which precedes the movie script and the film, is among the self-portraits presented. "Stallone is a very visual person, his thoughts form visually, and painting has been the most intimate intricate part of him," says Mathias Rastorfer, the chief executive, and co-owner of Galerie Gmurzynska, which has represented the artist for a decade. It's the real deal when skill and imagination meet longevity."
Despite the fact that art fueled his cinematic work, Stallone was compelled to pick writing and subsequently acting overpainting due to financial constraints, and he soon made his fortune in the film industry. Following the filming of Rocky, Stallone spent time in Miami, where he collected pieces by Francis Bacon and Claude Monet. Picasso, Gerhard Richter, and Anselm Kiefer are among the artists in his collection.
In terms of the market for his own works, Stallone has yet to breakthrough. Prices at auction range from $1,500 to $3,500, while Rastorfer claims that depending on the subject matter, prices for past works can "go up to the tens of thousands." Given Stallone's reported net worth of $400 million, such figures are unlikely to concern him, who laments to the Hollywood Reporter, "You know, maybe I should have become a painter." It would have resulted in a significant reduction in stress."
Selena Mattei