Works of Anna Delvey and Donald “C-Note” HookerCourtesy of Anna D. Smith Fine Art and Real Estate Broker
This article is about a 2022, Silicon Valley, California, art event superfluously featuring two of America’s most famous bi-coastal prisoner artists, Donald “C-Note” Hooker and Anna Delvey.
Like most Americans outside of NYC, Anna Sorokin aka Anna Delvey wasn’t on my radar until the Netflix docu-drama Inventing Anna. In Anna, I saw another queen of the con artist, Silicon Valley’s very own Elizabeth Holmes.
Something about Holmes just made my skin crawl. But then I had an attitude adjustment when I realized how our two-tiered criminal justice system has never held anyone accountable for this millennium’s wars, financial crises, and botched handling of a once-in-a-century pandemic. As a Fine Art broker who keeps her eyes and ears attuned to the Underground contemporary art world, Delvey’s musings into the art world had not gone unnoticed. So, when a Delvey press release crossed my desk, I became curious.
I was aware Delvey and her team wanted to take her art road show outside of New York City. To me, Silicon Valley would be the perfect place for a not too obvious somewhere in California to tour. Why should Los Angeles or San Francisco get first dibs? We are Silicon Valley darn it! The global power center of technology, without us, there would not be the interconnectedness we come to rely on today.
So, it’s been a dream of mine to pair Delvey with my client C-Note and to give the East Coast a real West Coast welcoming by giving Silicon Valley a powerhouse art show. This became apparent after I published Delvey’s press release of her cover on Flaunt Magazine.
Here are two great incarcerated storytellers, C-Note and Delvey. To feast one’s eyes on their Works would be something like an indulgent contradiction.
Indulgent Contradictions: Art Show Preview
The following includes Works of Anna Delvey published in August of 2022 by Flaunt Magazine:
Anna Delvey | But I Never Thought That You Would Take It This Far — Flaunt Magazine
https://flaunt.com/content/anna-delvey-first-time-offenders
Delusions of Grandeur, 2022, Anna Delvey
Delusions of Grandeur, 2022Courtesy of Flaunt Magazine
Strange Fruit, 2017, Donald “C-Note’s” Hooker
Strange Fruit, 2017Coursey of Anna D Smith Fine Art and Real Estate Broker Online Art Gallery
Delvey’s Delusions of Grandeur next to the prison fashion garb of C-Note’s Strange Fruit exemplifies the visual storytelling of these two artists and the psychosis of their subjects. Delvey’s work with no eyes and C-Note’s with no life.
Postcard From The Edge, 2022, Anna Delvey
Postcard From The Edge, 2022Courtesy of Flaunt Magazine
Today We Are Sisters, 2018, Donald ”C-Note” Hooker
Today We Are Sisters, 2018Courtesy of Anna D Smith Fine Art and Real Estate Broker Online Art Gallery
When it comes to throwing a ruckus behind prison walls, it can get no wilder than at Delvey’s Corrections Collection or C-Note’s California Prisoner Eugenics, Defective Progeny Sterilization Program.
The Delvey Crimes Company, 2022, Anna Delvey
The Delvey Crimes Company, 2022Courtesy of Flaunt Magazine
During the Flood, 2017, Donald “C-Note” Hooker
During the Flood, 2017Courtesy of Anna D Smith Fine Art and Real Estate Broker Online Art Gallery
“Extra, extra, read all about it!” Whether it’s The Delvey Crimes making a public service announcement or through social media, both of these artists are warning us of pending threats.
The Retired Intern, 2022, Anna Delvey
The Retired Intern, 2022Courtesy of Flaunt Magazine
My Dilemma, 2022, Donald “C-Note” Hooker
My Dilemma, 2022Courtesy of Anna D Smith Fine Art and Real Estate Broker Online Art Gallery
Whether it’s Delvey’s The Retired Intern or C-Note’s My Dilemma these artists would have made any of the great surrealists proud.
Postcards From The Edge, 2022, Anna Delvey
Postcards From The Edge, 2022Courtesy of Flaunt Magazine
Life Without the Possibility of Parole, 2016, Donald “C-Note” Hooker
Life Without the Possibility of Parole, 2016Courtesy of Anna D Smith Fine Art and Real Estate Broker Online Art Gallery
Whether it’s Delvey’s Postcard From The Edge, or C-Note’s Life Without the Possibility of Parole both of these artists are telling us the same courtier fashion, but from opposite sides of the room.
Delvey versus C-Note
Prisoner artist C-Note with fashion models wearing McKenzie Stiles “Mercy”.Courtesy of Columbus of Art and Design.
Maybe the real Cali in the Valley, is who can out fashion draw who? Pencil on paper versus Pencil on paper. I know first hand C-Note won’t be playing second fiddle, as 2020 Covid health restrictions prevented him and Fashion designer, McKenzie Stiles, from making fashion show history with Stiles’s fashion line Mercy, by it becoming the first fashion line in the history of the Catwalk to have models walk the runway in clothes with Prison art.
Delvey versus “C-Note”
Maybe the real Cali in the Valley, is who can out fashion draw who? Pencil on paper versus Pencil on paper. I know first hand C-Note won’t be playing second fiddle, as 2020 Covid health restrictions prevented him and Fashion designer, McKenzie Stiles, from making fashion show history with Stiles’s fashion line Mercy, by it becoming the first fashion line in the history of the Catwalk to have models walk the runway in clothes with Prison art.
Paula Picassa, 2021, Donald “C-Note” Hooker
Paula Picassa, 2021Courtesy of Anna D Smith Fine Art and Real Estate Broker Online Art Gallery
“Look Up! 2” Hope and Beauty Billboard Art Exhibition (2022)
“Look Up! 2” Hope and Beauty Billboard Art Exhibition (2022)Courtesy of Dan Powers Sound +Vision
Whether it’s Picasso or Warhol, C-Note can pull off high fashion art with the best of them, despite having been incarcerated for the past quarter-century. Now, who wants to see that art show?
I’m just saying!
