WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (February 11, 2009) -- Palm Beach artist Bruce Helander, whose work is in over 50 major museum collections including the Whitney Museum of American Art and the Guggenheim Museum, has created a highly unusual "commemorative limited edition fine art print" in the image of a dart board with disgraced Ponzi schemer Bernie Madoff in the bull's eye, surrounded by iconic images of Palm Beach and the fallout from the financial scandal.  

The visual satire commentary predicts an incarcerated future for the most reviled Palm Beacher in history. Other images in the design include a private jet, a Mercedes Benz hub cap, a fleet of yachts, limousines, a Worth Avenue street sign and other visual stimuli as a curious and frowning globe looks pensively down on the famous resort town, whose prominent citizens and charity foundations have lost so much to the admitted swindler.  

The  multi-colored, hand-embellished collage print measures 22 inches X 22 inches, and is titled "Bars and Stripes Forever!" referring to the stripes of a prison uniform and the steel bars on a jail cell. The print is produced by Redfish Publishing in a limited edition of 100 signed and numbered copies, which have a retail price of $900. There are ten additional appropriately named "trial proofs," which are unique and have additional embellishments and surface decoration. In addition to the other Helander works on display, the first "Jail Bird" print in the edition will be unveiled at 7:00 p.m. sharp on Friday, Feb. 13 by the artist during his opening of recent works at the Paul Fisher Gallery, located near the Norton Museum of Art (which also owns 26 original Helander collages).  The soon to be famous art prints are also available on Worth Avenue at DTR Gallery and through the artist's studio in CityPlace, West Palm Beach.  

Helander is famous for creating news-making collages throughout his career. His commissioners for celebrities such as Dr. Mehmet Oz, Dan Marino, Curt Gowdy and Mike Medavoy, (producer of "Silence of the Lambs") are a source of wonder. His work is regularly seen in the pages of The New Yorker magazine.  

A generous portion of gallery sales from the exhibition will be donated directly to Autism Speaks, of which Helander is the chairman of national the fine arts committee that includes many prominent artists and designers, such as Louise Bourgeois, Dale Chihuly and Nicole Miller, among others.  

Helander, who is also a published critic, observed that "Madoff ran a shrewd and painful game on thousands of unsuspecting citizens from right here at home and around the world, so it's both appropriate and ironic that the final Madoff legacy has played into another kind of game - on him this time - where a portion of the proceeds will go back to charity."  

Suzanne Wright, along with her husband Bob, former CEO of NBC, founded Autism Speaks. At 7:30 p.m. Friday evening, Ms. Wright, whose grandchild was diagnosed with autism, will present a brief overview of autism and how a dedicated and caring community of people, including the art world, is helping to understand and conquer this devastating affliction. The public is invited to attend.