Dr. Kevorkian Gets a Gallery Show in LA

Jack Kevorkian, Coma. Photo: courtesy Galleria Sparta.

The Los Angeles Times reports that a solo show of paintings by the infamous Jack “Dr. Death” Kevorkian will run April 3–30 at West Hollywood’s Gallerie Sparta. In addition to a dozen canvases, the exhibition will showcase the Thanatron, an intravenous drip invented by the late doctor to facilitate assisted suicides.

The artwork in the show will cover a range of subjects, with a portrait of Kevorkian’s parents and brightly-colored pop art canvases sharing wall space with decidedly more morbid works with titles such as Coma and Paralysis. While prices for the paintings range from $10,000 to $42,000, the Thanatron is listed with a starting bid of $25,000.

In 2010, eBay pulled an auction listing for the 1968 Volkswagen van where Kevorkian operated the Thanatron on his patients, dubbing the item—which was up to $3,400 before it was shut down—as “murderabillia” (see this article from the Examiner).

There are 18 known works by Kevorkian, two of which have already been sold by his niece and heir, Ava Janus. Before his 1999 second-degree murder conviction, Kevorkian sent his work to the Armenian Library and Museum of America in Watertown, Massachusetts. Janus successfully sued for the recovery of all but four of the paintings.

Kevorkian, who claimed to have assisted at least 130 patients in dying, served eight years in prison and died in 2011 at age 83. He was portrayed by Al Pacino in the 2010 HBO drama You Don’t Know Jack.


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