Late actor Nehemiah Persoff’s paintings up for auction in SLO County. What’s for sale?
The paintings of late actor and San Luis Obispo county resident Nehemiah Persoff are being auctioned off on the virtual auction site, SLO Cal Estate Auctions.
Persoff — known in his decades-long career on the silver screen and television for his gravelly voice and distinctive face — died in San Luis Obispo in 2022 at the age of 102.
Born in Jerusalem in 1919, he moved to the United States when he was nine years old. According to a news release from SLO Cal Estate Auctions, he first became interested in acting when he was deployed in World War II and was tasked with entertaining his fellow soldiers.
At the height of his career, he was most known for his half-dozen roles as Prohibition-era gangsters and his appearances in enduring classics such as “Gunsmoke,” “The Twilight Zone,” “Gilligan’s Island,” “Mission: Impossible,” “Hawaii Five-O,” “Yentl” and “Columbo”.
His acting career continued into the ‘90s with parts on “Law & Order” and “Chicago Hope.”
Persoff didn’t start painting until he moved to Cambria in 1990, when he quickly became a prolific artist, dedicated to capturing the coastal landscape with his paintbrush.
Soon after the move, he retired from professional acting, and painting became his main focus, Persoff’s son Dan Persoff told The Tribune.
“He was extremely prolific,” he said. “It was a source of joy for him in his old age. I remember he mentioned that if he couldn’t sleep at night, he would get up and do a painting.”
According to the release, he completed more than 250 paintings in his lifetime.
Dan Persoff told the Tribune that from the time he was little, he remembered creativity and the arts being a daily part of his father’s parenting style.
“At the dinner table he would do impressions of people he had seen out,” he said. “He would do the voice of the woman that he met at the bank.”
He added that his father’s creativity inspired him to expose his own children to the arts.
SLO Cal State Auctions co-owner Jennifer Ketels-Little told The Tribune her company was first contacted by Persoff’ estate last year. She said once the auction house connected with Persoff’s children, they went out to his house to see his work and in-house studio.
She said the auction house ultimately took 130 paintings and brought them back to the company’s office in Morro Bay.
There, with help from Persoff’s children, the paintings were dusted off and given certificates of authenticity to verify their origin. Ketels-Little told The Tribune all of the paintings appeared to have been done in oil paint, with some showing style variations but many adhering to impressionist themes and use of vibrant colors.
While many of the paintings depict scenes from the local area, a few also capture other scenes, like the grandeur of the Golden Gate Bridge or worshipers at the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem.
The auction went live June 14, and is expected to close Wednesday evening, starting at 7 p.m.
Bidding will close on each of the available paintings at one-minute intervals, meaning the final painting will close at 9:18 p.m. The lots have a hard closure, meaning that time will not be extended and the painting will go to the highest bidder at the time it closes.
On Thursday, Ketels-Little said it was still too soon to tell who the paintings would go to.
“I would expect these paintings to go for $400 to $800,” Ketels-Little said. “This work is really interesting. His brush strokes are so loose, they are beautiful.”
Potential bidders can find the auction on the SLO Cal Estate Auctions website at slocalestateauctions.com/auction/nehemiahpersoff_oilpainting_impressionist.
Those looking to view the paintings before they bid can reach out to Ketels-Little via the contact information on the SLO Cal Estate Website or call 805-440-0483 to schedule an appointment.
