My mothers step mother acquired the painting from whom she thought was the actual artist in either Clearwater or Sarasota, FL around the 1960’s time period.
Growing up (early 70’s) I remember looking at this amazing clown painting my parents owned. Many times I would stop, stare and endlessly gaze. This my have been my youthful attempt at appreciation however I was always found myself captivated by the painting. Over the years the painting traveled with us and was always hung up in each home we lived in.
In 2017 my parents began a basic search to find out who the artist actually was and what was his story. It was a bit of a challenge as all we had to go on was his signature which we thought was signed as “Philippe” or “Philippi”. Was this a first or last name, we weren’t sure.
In May of 2019 my parents decided a journey was needed a planned a trip to visit galleries in Clearwater and Sarasota to see if they could finally find the answer which eluded everyone for over 60 years. Being a data scientist and expert information gatherer I dove in to see what I could find. After numerous attempts and an exhaustive multi-variant search I finally found him. His last name was Philipp and his first name was Walter. Once I had this I quickly began piecing together his life and within 36 hours have complied every known piece of information about him into one place on this site.
Special thank you to “guest” and the website Artifactcollectors.com because of them I was able to quickly identify and confirm that yes the artist name was in fact, Walter Philipp. The “guest” had posted a painting that was remarkably close to the painting we have. It’s listed here https://www.walterphilipp.com/private-owner/untitled-clown-similar-to-ours/
