Facebook Finds Lost Art

Facebook Finds Lost Art

Facebook has become a household name as it is the most popular social networking website to date. With over 600 million active users, Facebook has proven to be an excellent tool for finding people outside of your own network of friends.

Drawings and paintings by the late Jerry Jasinski who passed away 13 years ago, were recently recovered using the social networking site Facebook. Until now, much of Jasinski’s commercial print art had been sold previous to his passing, or ended up proving itself to be too obscure to recover from commercial magazines or advertising agencies. This left Jasinski’s only son, Christian Jasinski in possession of very few pieces of his father’s art in which to remember him by.  A large amount of Jasinski’s art was reunited with Christian through Faceboook by an ex-lover of his father.

Jerry Jasinski, a successful graphic artist, worked in the commercial print and advertising field for more than two decades.  Over the course of his career, in addition to his professional work, he produced hundreds of personal pieces, both finished and unfinished.  At the age of 18 Christian Jasinski lost his father. “I was never that close with my dad, but I respected him,” says Christian, “He was an amazing artist and I was lucky enough to learn a lot from him, I wish that I had taken his work more seriously while he was alive.”  Because of this, Christian found himself possessing little of his father’s art after his passing.

In February of 2011, Christian was contacted by Betty*, ex-lover of his father, after she had found him on Facebook.  Betty had been trying to get in contact with Christian for some time using other means but to no avail.  It was then that she decided to turn to Facebook for her search.  Though the two had never met, they were both aware of each other’s existence  due to the fact that Jasinski and Betty had dated when Christian was a young teen.  Christian was not alarmed but was pleasantly surprised to find a message from her in his inbox.  Previously, Christian had not been in touch with anyone from his father’s past.

After speaking back and forth for a couple of days Christian learned that she had quite a collection of his father’s paintings, drawing, and prints, totalling almost thirty pieces. This collection amounted to far more than Christian had inherited when his father passed away.  He was astonished to learn that this much of his father’s art still existed. When Betty learned of how Christian possessed only a few pieces of his father’s work, she came to realize how important her collection would be to Jasinski’s only son. She then came to grips with parting with Jasinski’s art, which she had grown to cherish. Betty decided the best thing to do would be to mail all the works to Christian. Upon receiving the art, Christian was overwhelmed with appreciation, and did not know how to thank Betty.

As an artist of many mediums, Christian decided to take advantage of this rediscovered collection. In order to pay homage to his late father, Christian plans to share the completed works, as well as commission other artists to restore or complete the unfinished or uncolored pieces.  Upon restoration, the collection will be displayed in a small public gallery in downtown Los Angeles in the coming months.

*name changed at request for privacy