HMS Bounty

 Ever since I was a very young boy, I've been fascinated by the story of the mutiny on HMS Bounty.  Before I made it to high school, I had already read Charles Nordoff's and James Norman Hall's novel Mutiny on the Bounty more than once.  In my college years, I travelled to England and visited the grave of Captain (later Admiral) Bligh in a Lambeth churchyard.  While I never got to personally visit the movie prop reproduction Bounty used in the 1962 movie, I have watched all the various movies through the years, read all the biographies and other books on the topic, and even read the facsimile copy of Bligh's log that he kept after the mutiny, when he was set adrift in a small boat with other loyalist crewmembers.  So I was especially proud to acquire an original oil painting of the storied vessel.  This artistic triumph was painted by Patrick O'Brien, an award-winning marine artist living in Baltimore, Maryland.  (He is not to be confused with the British novelist Patrick O'Brian, author of the "Master and Commander" series of novels.)  The artist O'Brien is president of the American Society of Marine Artists, and is a wonderfully talented painter and book illustrator.  His interpretation of the ill-fated Bounty now sits in my home and each day I can view it and think back to those tumultuous days in 1789 when a disaffected portion of the ship's crew took possession of the ship from its commander.

HMS Bounty Approaching Tahiti by Patrick O'Brien