PEOPLE: GARY CICCARELLI; HIS ARTWORK IS AS GOOD AS A BOND

Michigan artist Gary Ciccarelli, 49, knows for certain that his latest artwork is worth money, will increase in value and will be saved in bank vaults and shoe boxes for years to come.

The Dearborn illustrator was selected by the U.S. Treasury as the illustrator for its latest series of U.S. Savings Bonds, the first time the Treasury went outside its agency for artwork on a bond series. The Series I inflation-indexed bonds go on sale in September.

“This is something that will last for, like, 30 years,” Mr. Ciccarelli says. “They don’t reprint them right away.”

The new designs include portraits and montage illustrations of a diverse group of eight famous Americans who never have been on currency, including Helen Keller, Albert Einstein and Martin Luther King Jr.

“It’s a pretty big deal,” says Dick Rutt, a Myrtle Beach, S.C., artist’s representative who submitted the work of Mr. Ciccarelli and several others in the nationwide search.

“It’s the first time they’ve gone outside the agency and the first time in U.S. history they’ve featured a group of prominent deceased Americans other than our founding fathers,” Mr. Rutt says.

He notes that Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin made the final decision to go with Mr. Ciccarelli’s work.

Pete Hollenbach, public affairs officer for the Bureau of Public Debt, said savings bonds are the only paper bonds the agency still prints. When it was decided to introduce them, he said, officials “saw it as an opportunity to do something unique.”

“We looked at a lot of portraits, and we wanted the very realistic look that Gary does.”

Mr. Hollenbach says he’s not certain how many of the new bonds would be printed but notes that more than 50 million of the Series EE bonds were sold last year. The agency expects sales of the new bond also to be “robust.”

The Series I bonds’ interest rate will be announced when they are issued. It will be adjusted twice a year, based on the consumer price index.

“We wanted to be able to reach out to the small investor in a way that you’d be able to protect your purchasing power forever,” Mr. Hollenbach says.

Mr. Ciccarelli has been a commercial artist for more than 25 years, working for a long string of customers including Ford Motor Co. His illustrations have appeared in everything from Playboy to children’s books.

For the Treasury job, he was paid on a per-portrait basis as he worked over nine months. The eight portraits and eight montage illustrations appear on the bonds, sold in $50, $75, $100, $200, $500, $1,000, $5,000 and $10,000 denominations.

Mr. Ciccarelli is a graduate of the Center for Creative Studies in Detroit and teaches there occasionally.

Asked whether his signature would appear on the bonds along with his work, he says with a chuckle, “I wish.”

Crain News Service