Scrap metal doorstop by Haitian artist L. Y. Alaby, 1981

This piece is about 11" high x 6.5" wide, in front, and signed "L Y Alaby '81". It is made of rusty scrap sheet metal. It is possibly intended to be used as a doorstop or art object. It appears to be too rusty to be used as a bookend. Alaby was a Haitian artist who was active in the 1970s-1980s. He was a prolific producer of colorful, fanciful acrylic paintings made with scrap materials for the tourist trade.

This cat was the first non-painting item I have seen that was made by him. I keep an eye on his work on e of the bay. After a bit of research, I turned up three more, similar objects by him, a horse, a fish and a bird, all created from recycled sheet metal. I was very attracted to this piece but the seller wanted more than I would ever have considered paying for it. I made a couple of much lower offers which were rebuffed. After several months, the seller was getting ready to end offering this item so I tried my much lower offer one last time and was surprised (happily) that it was accepted. It is interesting to see that the price I paid is not reflected in the auction result. I wonder if that is a ploy on the part e of the bay to maximize profit? I posted a small $1 thrift shop painting find on CW a few years ago.

There seems to be an effort to raise the price of his work by resellers, but it doesn't appear to be having much success. His work is very colorful, attractive and entertaining, though. I'm all for it, since I have a few pieces by him but not very optimistic.

I am not planning to use it as a doorstop, so will probably use it to prop "something" up. Not sure what, yet. Categorizing it as a doorstop.