You know you have been in the art business for quite some time when a painting you had originally sold in 2000 comes back around and you get a chance to sell it again in 2011… More than a decade later.

This is the case with this original oil on canvas painting “Time Transfers” from surrealist master Gil Bruvel, one of my favorite artists. “Time Transfers” is arguably his finest work in oils. Which is quite a heady statement, given the various media which he has distinguished himself in, oils, graphite, gouache, watercolor… heck, he has even done some fantastic editioned bronzes.

This painting was an object of fascination for me when I was working for a gallery in Tampa, FL. Spirits, or what one viewer called “memories”, float in, around and through the female figure. She gently coaxes them upward with a wave of her hand and a soft breath of air. They descend from her helmeted head and embrace her torso as tightly as her own skin. She sustains the floating “memories” through the time which clicks ever-forward.

After staring at the work for hours on end, I sold the work to a couple in the area. In the intervening years, I longed to see it again and had to settle for a print of the work and seeing it in one of Gil’s books on portraiture.

After being provided with the opportunity to find yet another home for the work, I finally have it in my sight-line again. While finding a home for it will not be difficult, giving it up might be.