Interesting topic. I can remember playing a board game called “Masterpiece” when I was little. Its premise is that the players are art buyers. You get little cards showing the art you’re bidding on. You don’t know what the pieces are or what their value actually is. I didn’t realize I was looking at famous works of art. But I liked some of them, and I didn’t like others. The object of the game was to amass the largest fortune in paintings and cash. But for me the object was always, always, to buy my favorite of the bunch, no matter what it cost me. If I ended the game bankrupt, but owning that piece, in my mind I’d won.

Now I realize looking at those actual masterpieces when I was a kid actually influenced me a great deal. Imagine my shock when I stood in front of Jackson Pollock’s “Greyed Rainbow” at the Art Institute of Chicago and understood for the first time that the painting was real, and huge, and waaaaayyy more than just a postcard in a Parker Brothers game.

By the way, I own the game now, thanks to eBay. Want to play sometime for #pfn?

Interesting topic. I can remember playing a board game called “Masterpiece” when I was little. Its premise is that the players are art buyers. You get little cards showing the art you’re bidding on. You don’t know what the pieces are or what their value actually is. I didn’t realize I was looking at famous works of art. But I liked some of them, and I didn’t like others. The object of the game was to amass the largest fortune in paintings and cash. But for me the object was always, always, to buy my favorite of the bunch, no matter what it cost me. If I ended the game bankrupt, but owning that piece, in my mind I’d won.

Now I realize looking at those actual masterpieces when I was a kid actually influenced me a great deal. Imagine my shock when I stood in front of Jackson Pollock’s “Greyed Rainbow” at the Art Institute of Chicago and understood for the first time that the painting was real, and huge, and waaaaayyy more than just a postcard in a Parker Brothers game.

By the way, I own the game now, thanks to eBay. Want to play sometime for #pfn?