"End of the Trail"

(MJ Meketi; lithograph ~ 1970)

While my Grandfather's style of painting or subject matter is not my favorite, i am very proud of his work & wanted to share one of his most well-known pieces. The quality of the lithograph i own is terrible. The original oil on canvas painting has much better color & detail.

My grandparents were not very business savvy & they sold the rights to this print in the mid-1970s and were taken advantage of. My mother tried unsuccessfully to buy back the rights in the 90s.

When i was twelve i went to eastern Tennessee for the first time. I was in an art gallery thumbing through a box of prints when i came across my grandfather's "End of the Trail". I noticed that the name signed in the lower right-hand corner was not his. I immediately showed my mother and she confronted the shop-keep as to whose signature was on the painting. The man proclaimed it was his and when my mother and i challenged him, he became red-faced and hostile. He all but threw us out of his store. After we left my mother was pissed off and teary-eyed. I wanted to beat the man senseless with my pink fluorescent fanny pack.

During that vacation i saw plates, clocks, belt buckles, coffee cups with this print on it - and no name. That was the hardest part - knowing it was my grandfather's work and was not getting credit. Not to mention the profits we were losing out on because we did not own the image rights.

I purchased my lithograph off of EBay a few years ago. The online merchants nowadays almost always credit my grandfather for the image and his name is back on the prints. One time i found a girl selling homemade charm bracelet pieces with the image shrunken to less than a half inch. I emailed her & gave her his name and she then sent me a charm. I thought that was pretty darn cool.