THOMAS JEFFERSON AT MONTICELLO by Bob Kessel

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Bob Kessel’s art series “AMERICAN ICONS” features pictures of American presidents and historical figures like “THOMAS JEFFERSON AT MONTICELLO” shown above. These pictures are available as signed and numbered limited edition fine art prints. Contact Bob Kessel for pricing and availability.

In the thick of party conflict in 1800, Thomas Jefferson wrote in a private letter,
“I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.”

This powerful advocate of liberty was born April 13, 1743 in Albemarle County, Virginia, inheriting from his father, a planter and surveyor, some 5,000 acres of land, and from his mother, a Randolph, high social standing. He studied at the College of William and Mary, then read law. In 1772 he married Martha Wayles Skelton, a widow, and took her to live in his partly constructed mountaintop home, Monticello.

When Jefferson assumed the Presidency, the crisis in France had passed. He slashed Army and Navy expenditures, cut the budget, eliminated the tax on whiskey so unpopular in the West, yet reduced the national debt by a third. He also sent a naval squadron to fight the Barbary pirates, who were harassing American commerce in the Mediterranean. Further, although the Constitution made no provision for the acquisition of new land, Jefferson suppressed his qualms over constitutionality when he had the opportunity to acquire the Louisiana Territory from Napoleon in 1803.

LIBERTY BELL AND BEN FRANKLIN by Bob Kessel

Bob Kessel’s art series “AMERICAN ICONS” features pictures of American presidents and historical figures like “LIBERTY BELL AND BEN FRANKLIN” shown above. These pictures are available as signed and numbered limited edition fine art prints. Contact Bob Kessel for pricing and availability.

Benjamin Franklin (1705 – 1790) was one of the Founding Fathers of the United States of America. A noted polymath, Franklin was a leading author and printer, satirist, political theorist, politician, scientist, inventor, civic activist, statesman, and diplomat. As a scientist, he was a major figure in the Enlightenment and the history of physics for his discoveries and theories regarding electricity. He invented the lightning rod, bifocals, the Franklin stove, a carriage odometer, and the glass ‘armonica’. He formed both the first public lending library in America and first fire department in Pennsylvania. He was an early proponent of colonial unity, and as a political writer and activist he supported the idea of an American nation. As a diplomat during the American Revolution he secured the French alliance that helped to make independence of the United States possible.

Franklin became a newspaper editor, printer, and merchant in Philadelphia, becoming very wealthy, writing and publishing Poor Richard’s Almanack and The Pennsylvania Gazette.

“He that is conscious of A Stink in his Breeches,
is jealous of every Wrinkle in another’s Nose.”

- Benjamin Franklin, Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1751

Bob Kessel drew this illustration of Kinky Friedman for an article written by the Kinkster in Texas Monthly Magazine.This picture is available as a signed and numbered, limited edition art print. Contact Bob Kessel for pricing and availability.

Bob Kessel’s American Icons art series also includes art prints of Muhammad Ali, Marilyn Monroe, Miles Davis, Charles Bukowski, Marlon Brando, Elvis Presley, John F Kennedy and many more.

PORTRAIT OF CHARLES BUKOWSKI by Bob Kessel

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Bob Kessel has created an art series titled “American Icons” featuring a portrait of Charles Bukowski. Appropriately, Buk is shown drinking a bottle of beer. This picture is available as a limited edition art print. Contact Bob Kessel for pricing and availability.

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BEER
from: Love is A Mad Dog From Hell
by Charles Bukowski

I don’t know how many bottles of beer
I have consumed while waiting for things
to get better
I dont know how much wine and whisky
and beer
mostly beer
I have consumed after
splits with women-
waiting for the phone to ring
waiting for the sound of footsteps,
and the phone to ring
waiting for the sounds of footsteps,
and the phone never rings
until much later
and the footsteps never arrive
until much later
when my stomach is coming up
out of my mouth
they arrive as fresh as spring flowers:
“what the hell have you done to yourself?
it will be 3 days before you can fuck me!”

the female is durable
she lives seven and one half years longer
than the male, and she drinks very little beer
because she knows its bad for the figure.

while we are going mad
they are out
dancing and laughing
with horney cowboys.

well, there’s beer
sacks and sacks of empty beer bottles
and when you pick one up
the bottle fall through the wet bottom
of the paper sack
rolling
clanking
spilling gray wet ash
and stale beer,
or the sacks fall over at 4 a.m.
in the morning
making the only sound in your life.

beer
rivers and seas of beer
the radio singing love songs
as the phone remains silent
and the walls stand
straight up and down
and beer is all there is.