I inherited my brother's art collection 2 years ago and now need to
liquidate most of it.  He collected for about 40 years while he lived
in New York City.  He didn't care at all about investment
considerations.  He simply acquired works he enjoyed seeing regularly
in his apartment.  I know little about art.  In most cases I know
nothing of the artists:  where they worked, how much their works sold
for, or whether they are living or dead.  My internet searching skills
are undeveloped, to put it mildly.  Here are the names I can make out
with what I know about each artist: Kinjosa Saintro (or Sainto),a
person  and a black cat (heads only) eyeball to eyeball; "Kelman,
Paris'46"; Sheila Flinn, animal woodcut(?)I did find a place on the
net that sold posters of her work but could find out nothing about her
originals; Dennis Vannerson (deceased)--I think he sold most of his
paintings (of deserts in the western United States) in the El Paso,
Texas area or maybe Arizona; Wichim Zol, an oil of a Jamaican port
scene; Malt Isodore, Jamaican blacks, an ink and water color; Henri
Neizeux, a water color titled "La Madeleine"; Bob Berry; Arthur Smith,
a water color.  I was able to learn a lot about one artist, Mabel
Dwight, because the Smithsonian published a book in 1997 exclusively
on her works.  I did not learn anything, however, about what her works
have sold for.
The lithograph of hers is signed and dated 1929.  I don't have the
money to have the works appraised.  I did put up a small website with
pictures of six of the items, with  the idea of calling local
galleries and others to give the website address
(www.compu-wise.com/art) and invite people to come look at the
collection in my home after viewing samples on the website.  I've just
started that but it would certainly help if you could dig up any
information on the artists that might help in establishing appropriate
prices.  If these turn out to be totally unknown artists, I'd
appreciate any ideas on how to reach people like my brother who cared
only about the quality of the work and not about the track records of
the artists in terms of sales value of their work. I need informatiion
just as soon as I can get it.

First of all bad news:
I could not find anything neither in several online sources (not just
google) nor in the Encyclopedia Britannica cd rom version) about the
following names (related to arts)
Kinjosa Saintro (or Sainto)
Sheila Flinn (only the poster site)
Dennis Vannerson
Malt Isodore
Henri Neizeux
So these artists seem to be unknown to a broad public.

I could however find the following info on the artist names you gave:
About Bob Berryn (are these pictures related to wildlife art in any
way ?):
Roth Angling
( http://www.rothangling.com/custom-fly-framing.htm )
and more about him  (including prices ) at:
Wooden fish sculpture 
( http://www.gillandfinn.com/troutspectrum.html )

Mabel Dwight:
Mabel Dwight on the Internet:
( http://www.artcyclopedia.com/artists/dwight_mabel.html )
YouŽll find results of auctions of her works at (her works seem to be
of some value)
Artprice.com
( http://web.artprice.com/en/start.aspx )

Arthur Smith
( http://www.artcyclopedia.com/artists/dwight_mabel.html )
YouŽll find results of auctions of his works at the same site:
Artprice.com
( http://web.artprice.com/en/start.aspx )


Let me recommend the following:
Your start with a web page is a good way to get into contact with as
many art friends or collectors as possible. The problem however is how
to make a personal webpage very popular. What about another way :

Let me propose to auction the items via
Ebay – auctions
( http://www.ebay.com )
Their fees are low and you may contact millions of customers that way.
ItŽs possible to make the auctions world-wide – so you can reach even
more people. Certainly youŽll  have to place a picture of every item
in the auctions, but as you already have the webpage you can simply
link the pictures.
ItŽs not complictaed to auction things at ebay. YouŽll find all the
necessary info on how to sell at ebay at:
(http://pages.ebay.com/community/aboutebay/index.html )

On your page it shows only 6 images. It would be helpful if youŽd list
all items.

Another proposal:
There are a lot of forums on the internet where art friends meet and
discuss. Why don’t you try to join some of these forums and make your
offers there ?
Some examples:
Art Forum
(http://artnetwork.proboards.com/ )
Art Mecca
(http://www.artmecca.com/ArtMecca02/community/messageboard/default.asp?Path=Community)
Favorite Artists
(http://killdevilhill.com/z/yartd/FavoriteArtists,hall/shakespeare1.html


Search Strategy:

Art auction prices:
( http://web.artprice.com/en/start.aspx )

( ://www.google.de/search?sourceid=navclient&hl=de&q=Paintings+forum
)
And google, yahoo and altavista with all the artist names.

till-ga

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Request for Answer Clarification by nona75-ga on 12 Aug 2002 02:41 PDT

I'm not too happy with the answer.  I had put a $50 price on the
answer figuring a couple hours of work.  Maybe there wasn't much to
find but what bothers me is that on a site the searcher mentioned
(artprice.com) two names of artists that I had asked about--Sheila
Flinn and Kelman--appeared but were not mentioned by the searcher.  It
doesn't give me confidance that the names were thoroughly searched
for.  Another thing--the searcher said that I'd find info on Arthur
Smith on artprice.com but there are several Arthur Smith's.  To be
helpful I'd need to see a signature of the right Arthur Smith to match
it to my picture.  Same for "Kelman", who shows as Benjamin Kelman on
artprice.com but only as Kelman on my picture.  I don't want "to kill
the messenger" because I didn't get much help if, in fact, there
wasn't helpful information out there.  The searcher knows how much
time was put in.  If the searcher can find out signature samples of
Kelman or the Smiths, or some idea how to get them, and tells me that
a good two hours was spent on trying to get answers, I'll accept the
answer.

---

Request for Answer Clarification by nona75-ga on 13 Aug 2002 09:02 PDT

Do I get a response to my previous request for answer clarification? 
I wish to support Google Answsers because I think it's a wonderful
idea.  I do not want to request a refund. Please address my concerns
expressed in my previous request for clarification.

---

Clarification of Answer by till-ga on 14 Aug 2002 02:21 PDT

First of all sorry that you had to wait for this clarification.
I spent my morning (I am not in the US) with more and intensive
research on the subject.

As you may know detailed information e.g. biography are not available
for free at artprice.com. Maybe a registration (for a fee) could help
you.
My google search for “ “Arthur Smith” painting” yielded 507 results.
and  “ “Arthur Smith” painting signature” 
yielded 22 results ,but none of them contained a signature of an
artist  Arthur Smith.
Benjamin Kelman yielded 2 results but none was helpful.
I tried the same in altavista.com, metager.de, metacrawler.com (about
20 results).
I found a painting by an Arthur Smith but this did not show a
signature. Same about Benjamin Kelman.
So I donŽt see any way to provide the signatures. I am sorry but this
seems to be the first time I canŽt satisfy a customer here.


till-ga

I am very sorry that you have to wait. I had a day off yesterday and I
already spent quite a few hours on finding the signatures.
But you have to be a little bit patient. Finding an Arthur Smith is a
tough job as the name is not rare.
By the way: of course I searched all the names at artprice.com. I
canŽt find a reason why they did not appear when I searched.
If you have the opinion that my work was not of any use for you feel
free to request a refund. Maybe another researcher may "take the
biscuit" then. My aim is it to satisfy all our customers here.

IŽm posting this as a comment and I will try the clarification within
the next 16 hours. I hope you can wait these few hours.

till-ga