Retired Buffalo Grove chiropractor Daniel Kamen is trying to crack the mystery surrounding a vintage painting of a Wrigley Field bleacher scene.
Nearly 20 years ago, a patient paid his bill with an older 4-foot by 4-foot painting populated with caricatures that might evoke memories of an older era. One figure resembles W.C. Fields.
The patient, who recently passed away, thought it would please Kamen, an ardent Three Stooges fan, because one of the characters resembled Curly Howard.
“There’s a guy that looks like Wimpy from Popeye,” Kamen added.
Kamen, a longtime Chicago Cubs fan who remembers attending Kenny Holtzman’s no-hitter in 1969, believes the painting could date as far back as the 1940s, given that one character is wearing a World War II-vintage sailor suit.
Kamen thinks he has a clue: Embedded in the ivy is a baseball glove bearing the legend “Tommy 05.”
“It clearly wasn’t painted in 2005. I’m not an art expert, but if you look at the canvas, it’s really old,” Kamen said. “And if you look at the paint, it’s probably oil or acrylic, that’s also really old. It’s clearly not from recent history.”
He speculates that the “05” might refer to Cubs outfielder Tommy Brown, who played for the team in 1952 and 1953 and at times in his career wore the number 5 in honor of his hero, Joe DiMaggio. But according to baseball-reference.com, Brown wore 12 with the Cubs, while Bob Ramazzotti had 5 on his jersey.
Kamen said he has been in touch with Tommy Brown, but the retired ballplayer now in his 90s is unaware of the painting.
Over the summer, Kamen put the painting up for sale over Facebook and Craigslist, and eventually sold it for just $50. It was a decision he regretted almost immediately.
“It cost me ($2,000) to get it back,” he said of repurchasing the painting five weeks later. “I’m never going to part with it again.”
Kamen reached out to Sotheby’s auction house, which told him the painting could be valuable, but the firm could not price it without an artist’s signature. But the firm agreed that the artwork likely references a ballplayer from the 1940s or 1950s.
“If you saw it in person, it’s spectacular. It’s colorful,” Kamen said. “I just want to find out who the artist is.”
