Hi, 

I am looking for the name of a painting I saw recently in an art book.
I think it was about a German or American artist. The painting was
about a  middle aged man enjoying cactuses in his backyard. The
painter is known for his paintings of realistic situations showing
people in their daily lives, with a bit of humour.

My father is a cactus lover and if I can find a poster to buy or half a
decent jpg on the internet to print for him, it would be a great
present. I ordered a lot of baby cactuses for him and will be taking
them with me tomorrow.

For those who know about my 2,5 months off: I am off to Turkey now and
will be going to a Spanish language school in April for a month. The
rest of my time till 1 June I will enjoy travelling with my
girl-friend, I hope.

Looking forward to hearing from you,

Can1972

Dear can1972,

There can be almost no doubt that the painting you have in mind is
"Der Kaktusfreund" (The Cactus Lover), by the German romanticist
painter Carl Spitzweg (1808-1885). He painted "Der Kaktusfreund" in
about 1858; today, the painting is owned by the Museum Georg Schäfer
in Schweinfurt, Germany.

Please follow this link to see an image of the painting [1]:
http://www.carl-spitzweg.de/Galerie/Bilder/WV-0891.htm

If you would like to buy a high-quality print "Der Kaktusfreund", you
might be interested in this (unfortunately rather expensive) art
print, available from Postershop.com:
http://www.postershop.com/Spitzweg-Carl/Spitzweg-Carl-Der-Kaktusfreund-9300593.html

There are also less expensive options if you prefer an ordinary poster
print. If you decide to order a poster from a German online shop, you
could get it, for example from Kunstgalaxie, for 17,59 Euro (about
$13.22), excl. p&p:
http://www.kunstgalaxie.de/shop/detail/1015/3733.html


Hope this helps!
Regards,
Scriptor



Sources:

[1] Carl Spitzweg - Leben und Werk: Galerie
http://www.carl-spitzweg.de/galerie.htm

Thanks scriptor. This IS the painting I was looking for. The
postershop is a bit too salty, I will try the Kunstgalaxie (I live in
Germany).
I do feel a bit awkward about the question: the answer was in the
title. I am not too lazy to search on my own - I did that but the word
lover did not occur to me as I was searching.. Thanks..