Painting the Faces of Business

As mentioned earlier this week, Geoffrey Raymond of Annotated Murdoch fame, is downtown peddling the faces of business again, this time with a portrait of CNBC business news anchor Maria Bartiromo as the Virgin Mary — he's calling it Big Maria.

"The original reason why I painted the picture...was that I was actually kind of outraged by the...Bartiromo / Todd Thomson / Citigroup / private jet quasi-scandal," Raymond said. "It struck me as one more aspect of how the media isn't what it used to be."

Bartiromo as the Holy Mother, then, would be ironic commentary.

Raymond has been exhibiting the painting in front of the New York Stock Exchange — where the "Money Honey," herself, reportedly peeked out to take a look at the portrait — and Goldman Sachs — because "that's where the money is." Even so, the passers-by interested in acquiring the paintings Raymond has put on view always low ball him, the artist said.

Big Maria is also up for sale on eBay. Raymond bumped up the starting bid to $4,999.00 from the $3,500.00 for which The Annotated Murdoch eventually sold (to a guy in Thailand who had read about it in the paper). But he wants to see it sell for $10,000 or $15,000.

No bids yet.

Geoffrey Raymond, Big Maria, Photo Credit: The Artist

Geoffrey Raymond, Study for Big Maria, Photo Credit: The Artist