KUALA LUMPUR, March 7 — Actor Johnny Depp is enjoying a lucrative revenue from selling his collection of silk-screen prints of public figures.
The four-piece collection titled Friends & Heroes II is a series of hand-painted portraits of iconic people including late actor Heath Ledger, musician Bob Marley, actor River Phoenix as well as American journalist, Hunter S Thompson.
The collection which is currently on sale at Castle Fine Art via their website, is being sold for US$20,416.67 (RM91,405.43) per set and the portraits were also available individually for US$5,250 (RM23,504) per piece.
However, a spokesman from the gallery told Daily Mail that all 780 individual prints have now sold out in just five days.
“On Friday they had virtually all gone, there were just a handful of the River Phoenix prints left.
“I expect they will have sold out as well by now,” he said.
This marks Depp’s second instalment of the Friends & Heroes series with the first one being sold out within hours last July.
The first collection features folk musician Bob Dylan, Rolling Stone’s Keith Richards, actress Elizabeth Taylor as well as actor Al Pacino.
The Pirates of the Caribbean actor was reported to have collected over US$9 million (RM40 million) in total sales from his paintings.
Depp, who's currently in the UK, said that he was really touched that people were interested in his paintings.
“For many years, I really held myself strictly to just the day job of the film business, even though I’ve always needed to escape into a blank piece of paper, whether it be writing, drawing or painting a blank canvas.
“Tackling something for the first time with no idea of what’s about to commence and what it will come out to be is deeply fulfilling.
“For people to actually see this stuff now for the first time, to react the way that they have, so positively, to whatever I have made is very moving,” he said.
Meanwhile, in an interview with Castle Fine Art, Depp shared more on why he had chosen the four subjects and how he wished to see all four of them together.
“It would be fascinating. All legends absolutely. The early demise of Heath, the early demise of River, those are tragedies.
“They didn’t have enough time on this earth, but in the time that they did have, they certainly planted their individuality, their uniqueness, their world, their heart, their emotions, their sense of humour out there into the world so we know them.
“So they said a lot in their short lives. Hunter, of course, had a bit more time on the planet than some of those guys, and his voice will always live through his books as Heath and River will always live through their films, and Bob through his music,” he said.
Depp is also currently set to direct his first film — a biopic about the life of penniless Italian painter and sculptor Amedeo Modigliani which Al Pacino will be producing.
