I think the name of the piece is, “The Poet Keene Wallis.”
He was a translator, at least of Dante’s Inferno.
He could be found almost any evening on Emilio’s restaurant, where he spent his evenings drinking red wine and talking to whoever else happened to be there.
I have corrected typos below.
Creative work is a gift to the world and every being in it. Don’t cheat us of your contribution. Give us what you’ve got.” – Steven Pressfield
Which of these three people created the wood carving in this picture?
The answer is the person on the left: artist Syd Ginsberg.
The name of this amazing work is “Keene.” It’s a portrait of poet Keene Wallis.
For many years, “Keene” (the wood carving) lived in NYC. “Keene” then lived in Croton-on-Hudson, NY.
That’s where I met him. He stood around as my best friend and I whirled through our childhoods, dressing her long-suffering cat in doll clothes and setting up lemonade stands on a road where two or three cars might pass in a day!
And the last 3 decades, “Keene” has lived in a storage unit in North Carolina.
Today, artist Onicas Gaddis onicasart.com will be driving “Keene” to Asheville, NC, where he will grace Abacus Art Acquisitions. abacusartofasheville.com
I hope you will come visit “Keene.” Apparently he was a Greenwich Village character in his day, as well as a poet and, translator, notably of Dante’s “Inferno” with illustrations by Rockwell Kent.
And who knows where he will live next? It may be with you!