Black-eyed dog art up for auction

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Updated: August 4, 2011 4:20PM

When artist Jamie Wyeth’s yellow Labrador, Kleberg, got too close to his easel back in the 1980s, he painted a black circle around the dog’s eye — a la Pete the Pup of the old comedy “Little Rascals.”

The unusual marking became so “endearing” that the lab became the subject of numerous studies and paintings. One, titled simply “Kleberg,” is owned by the Terra Foundation for American Art in Chicago. Another of Wyeth’s works, “Study of Kleberg,” is scheduled to be sold at Christie’s on March 3 for an estimated $40,000 to $60,000. The seller is a collector from Fort Lauderdale, Fla., who has owned it for 20 years.

Wyeth, son of the great American painter Andrew Wyeth, found moustache dye was better than paint for Kleberg’s black eye because it would last a month. “So every month we would have to touch up his circle,” which remained a permanent fixture for the rest of Kleberg’s life. AP