‘Killer Clown’ John Wayne Gacy’s Chilling Painting Goes Off The Market

From 1967 to 1978, John Wayne Gacy tortured and murdered at least 33 young men and boys, mostly after luring them to his house.

Yet, he still found time to work as a clown at children’s hospitals and charity events under the moniker ‘Pogo the Clown’ or ‘Patches the Clown’. This gave him the nickname of the Killer Clown when he was finally caught.

While waiting for death row, Gacy created at least 2,000 paintings behind bars and sold them to people on the outside through his lawyer and a collector named Andy Matesi.

Now, one of these artworks has gone under the hammer at Philadelphia-based auction house Material Culture. Pogo the Clown, painted in 1985, is an eerie self-portrait of Gacy’s clown persona standing in front of snow-topped trees.

Although the work was estimated to sell for US$5,000 to US$10,000, it ended up going to an anonymous buyer for US$12,800, according to Hyperallergic. 

The auctioneer listed the piece as part of its Halloween Dark Shadows sale, joining other rarities “of fresh-to-the-market vampire-killing artifacts.”

The self-portrait was accompanied by a typewritten letter, in which Gacy seemed self-conscious about his painting skills. He wrote to the work’s recipient, attorney Leo W. Dymowski, that he didn’t see himself as an artist, “but what talent I have I consider a gift from God, and what I do with it is my gift to God.”

[via Hyperallergic and The Mirror, cover image via m01229 / m01229 / Flickr (CC BY 2.0)]