In Honor of the Oscars -- Movie Star Signboards from Nepal
March 07, 2010
Nepali signboard artists often use photos of movie stars from magazines for their beauty shop signage.
Nicole Kidman gets her hair done here. Whilst in Nepal, she has black hair. And probably a henna tattoo.
Penelope Cruz frequents the Sherpa Beauty Parlor while she is in Pokhara. If you look closely, you can see that she was wearing a racy top that the local censors decided would be better painted over. This happens to be by one of the Nepal Art Dog artists - Santosh Shrestha.
Also by Santosh, is his version of a young pre-Governator Arnold Schwartzenegger for the Fewa Gym. Nice veins Arnold!
Angelina Jolie, by Jit Gurung, is what made me hire Jit in the first place. This is right outside of his shop near Mahendrapul in Pokhara.
Other famous ladies include this portrait of Kate Moss that I commissioned as part of an experiment to see if I could expand the Nepal Art market. I think this looks more like Tatum O'Neal than Kate Moss. And Sufraj gave Kate a snaggle tooth! This photo was taken from a Versace magazine ad.
This is the wave of the future for Nepal signage. I'm sure that Jennifer Aniston would look just as good hand-painted, original sign. And I'm sure Jennifer would prefer to be paid for her image.
Princess Di is featured on this old beauty shop sign in Boudha. I wish she DID have a facelife!
My former editor and a co-worker on the Spider-man trilogy are nominated this year for their editing of 'The Hurt Locker'. Best of luck to Bob Murawski and Chris Innes. I can't wait to hear your acceptance speech.
The Nepal Art Dog project aims to stem the trend in Nepal to replace these hand-painted signboards with plastic pre-printed signage.
You can help...
Nepal Art Dogs are
hand-painted enamel portraits of pets on recycled metal, approximately 1 foot square. Made in Nepal by 58 different
artists’ studios.
This is a Fair Trade
Art project that promotes the endangered signboard artists of Nepal.
For pet lovers who
collect art and would like to make a difference.
Commissions available
starting at $250
Send your Pet’s photo
– get 3 choices from 3 different artists – pick your favorite