'Antiques Roadshow' guest tears up after expert revealed the real value of his $1,000 collage
"Antiques Roadshow" not only brings forward the actual value of artifacts, but also the reactions of guests after appraisals, which show emotions attached to the items. In a special episode, the Roadshow visited Hollywood Actor Gbenga Akinnagbe to take a look at his unique auction find. The avid collector, who was on the board of a museum in Brooklyn, apparently had no idea how valuable his $1,000 collage was. When the show's expert, Betty Krulik, shared the provenance and the value of the item, Akinnagbe was in tears, and this time, he wasn't acting.
In the episode, Akinnagbe, a Nigerian American actor and writer, best known for playing the character Chris Partlow on the HBO series "The Wire," shared how he came across the interesting collage that told a story of 'Black History' in the U.S. He told Krulik that at the time, there was "a lot of buzz" about the artist who created the piece but he didn't know much about who he was. Krulik then revealed that the creator of the piece was very much "flavor of the month" at the time. She further shared that one of the artist's large-scale paintings sold for a record $4 million in 2020.
By this time, Akinnagbe had figured out who it was as he asked, "Titus!?" The expert confirmed that it was Titus Kaphar indeed. This left the guest shocked as he had realized his prized possession could be worth a lot. Krulik then took over to explain the origin story of the item. "This is a work in collage. Only one collage by Titus Kaphar has come on the market in the past five years. It sold in December of 2020 and it sold for $27,000," she told Akinnagbe, who paid about $1,000 for it.
"You did really well. You're a great stock picker," Krulik told the actor. The expert then shared that Kaphar was still a young artist, but he had gained incredible notoriety in the industry. Thus, she recommended Akinnagbe to hold on to his find for a bit longer as its value could rise exponentially in the future. Coming to the subject of the collage, the appraiser explained, "Titus in particular looks at the canon in art history, and takes these well-known works of art and overlays the African American experience." She then added that in this case, the collage is an Annunciation, and the artist had titled the work "New Annunciation."
"It's a collage work, and he found this image of an early French 19th-century artist named Amaury-Duval, and he collaged it in with this wonderful image of this working woman. So the angel of the Annunciation is announcing the God Child. So, in many ways to me, I read this as an, almost an adoration of the shepherds," she explained. She further added that the artist used pre-Renaissance art as the symbol of "the new world order with the birth of Christ" and juxtaposed it with African American merchants and working people.
"It's an incredibly rich, multi-layered-- not only art-historically, but culturally-- image," she said. Coming to the appraisal, Krulik estimated that the insurance value of the Titus Kaphar collage would be about $30,000. This left Akinnagbe shocked and at a complete loss for words.
The guest only chuckled before saying, "This is what... This is what I do when I'm, like, like, at a, at a loss for words, or nervous." He then wiped the tears off his face, thanking the artist for creating such a masterpiece. "Titus, I love you," he said in the end.
