Clagget/Rey Gallery adds artistic flair to custom puzzles, featuring favorite works
For 30 years, Claggett/Rey Gallery has been helping art lovers assemble fine art collections, but now it’s giving clients the chance to put art together in a whole different way: wooden puzzles, depicting some of the gallery’s most beloved paintings.
Viewing Robert Lougheed’s “Ten Miles to Saturday Night,” which shows men riding horses through a rocky landscape, on a gallery wall is a completely different experience than meticulously putting together 517 pieces that make up the wooden puzzle.
The pieces of each puzzle are artistic in and of themselves; the wooden cuts are shaped like objects that reflect the puzzle’s subject. For example, a puzzle showcasing a floral painting has floral die cuts, a puzzle depicting Manhattan has taxi-shaped and apple-shaped pieces and Tom Lovell’s “Surrender at Appomattox” depicts the head of Abraham Lincoln, horses, trains, revolvers, flags and other items of the time period.
“They’re a work of art,” said Maggie Rey, co-owner of Claggett/Rey Gallery in Edwards. “The backside is just as beautiful as the front, just seeing all the shapes.”
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In fact, they’re so attractive, many people mount the puzzles once they put them together.
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Though puzzles like “Daughter of the Sun Mountain” only has 141 pieces, Rey says the wooden puzzles are usually harder to assemble than typical puzzles, especially because the edges aren’t uniform. While most people lay out the square or rectangular edges before filling in the middle of typical puzzles, these wooden puzzle pieces don’t necessarily form straight edges.
Each piece measures about 1/8” thick, and each puzzle ends up measuring anywhere from 6.5” x 8.5” to 19” x 11.5”. Prices range from $42 to $155, plus shipping.
Over the six years Claggett/Rey has sold them, it has provided about 10 different scenes, based on a particular painting’s popularity, quality and aesthetics, Rey said.
“If (people) don’t find a work of art (to purchase), the puzzles are something they can take home that’s creative and unique,” Rey said. “It’s a fun dimension for them to have that connection to the work.”
The gallery currently has two new designs in the works; they will debut this spring. For more information, visit claggettrey.com.
