1953 Gibson ES-125 The Renaissance Cartel - Vintage guitar Art - Wassily Kandinsky

I picked up a 1953 Gibson ES-125 about 10 years ago that was a complete basket case. Broken neck, cracked headstock, missing parts (bridge, truss cover, etc...), water damaged top (I think it was rained on in an attic?), etc... It did however have the original electronics including the pup! :dude: Folks that know me well know my penchant for restoring vintage guitars to their original condition. It was however not going to be restored to original spec especially since the top was so damaged and the break in the neck. I suppose someone could take it back to bare wood at some point in the future to restore it from the ground up, I didn't modify the body. It would however be expensive to do so. It could however be made playable again.

I fixed the neck, etc... and handed the guitar to my mom to work some majick. And there it sat unstrung in her studio for 10 years..... Long story short, I have a new band called The Renaissance Cartel and I bugged my mom to get the guitar done this year so I could use it on the cover of our upcoming CD "Freestyle" which will be released next week in time for xmas. It turned out amazing and reminds me of, one of my all time favorites, Wassily Kandinsky. My mom even hand painted the Gibson logo which was basically missing back on to the headstock! Now it is a family heirloom forever.

The guitar sounds amazing! I play it through a hand wired vox with a blue in it.



Vintage purists now hide you eyes....

Looks pretty awesome! Let's hear it rip!

very unique :salude

you saved a guitar from the scrap heap so enjoy that puppy :hank

YES! YES!! YES!!! I love it. A wonderful woman I worked with at Whirlwind painted my son's Duo Sonic up Ghostbuster style. Yes, my son is a Ghostbuster, you should see his car!

I love this stuff. I would find a case and have Mom do that, too.

Love the case idea!

That guitar would fit in well with Gibson's factory-painted Moderne-style jazz boxes from 2000:

http://www.jazzguitar.be/forum/guit...stom-art-historic-l5-super-400-acoustics.html

Note the Kazimir Malevich/El Lissitzky-inspired backs at least a couple of them sported:

Wow!! Love that! I'm glad you saved it and being the husband of a pro artist(watercolours) I must say your Mom's painting is exceptional!
Thanks for sharing it!

Yup, no criticism here. Financially, fixing that guitar with that amount of damage would never have made sense. It would have ended up as a donor for another project. So, here it is, proudly serving as both a usable musical instrument and a great piece of art. Reminds me a little of "The Fool" in the sense that the sum is MORE than the parts. I hope you were able to shoot a good coat of clear over that so it'll last for the ages?