There, on the wall, hung a well crafted painting of a young boy and girl, standing in front of a glass paneled door. It’s a lovely work of art, yet the more you look at it, the more you feel uneasy. Then, the painting appeared to come to life; the boy and girl would fight during the night, and eventually the boy would escape the painting and enter the room where it hung. The painting is titled, “The Hands Resist Him,” a work by artist Bill Stoneham.
Stoneham created the work in 1972, using inspiration from a photograph that was taken of him, and a neighbor girl, posing in front of a glass door when he was just five years old.
When Stoneham was a boy, his father worked in advertising and did quite a bit of traveling. During that time, his family Stayed at his grandmother’s apartment in Chicago to save money. The place was so small, he was forced to sleep on a mat in a closet filled with dresses, coats, and hats. “It was like not being in a room at all. It was like being an article of clothing.”
Stoneham regularly played outside with one of the girls from the neighborhood. During one of those occasions, his parents had the two of them pose in front of a glass door for a photo.
While the photograph was his inspiration, he didn’t paint it as he saw it. Instead, he added or changed aspects to be representative. For example, he added hands pressing up against the glass door. The door represented a dividing line between the waking world and the world of fantasy and impossibilities, and the hands represented alternate lives or possibilities. Stoneham blurred what was his own face and made the girl’s face look like that of a lifeless doll.
In his own words, Stoneham said, “The glass door is that thin veil between waking and dreaming. The girl/doll is the imagined companion or guide through this realm.”
In a large gallery show, the painting was first displayed at the Feingarten Gallery in Beverly Hills, California, during the early 1970’s. The show consisted of only Stoneham’s work and was attended by art critics and celebrities. In fact, The Hands Resist Him was reviewed by Henry Seldes, an art critic at the Los Angeles Times. By the end of the evening, it had been purchased by a celebrity – John Marley, best known for his portrayal of Jack Woltz in the movie, The Godfather.
Over the next few years, not only did John Marley (1984), the owner of the painting, die, but so did Henry Seldis (1978), the art critic, and Charles Feingarten (1981), the gallery owner. While Stoneham has said he believes their deaths were only coincidence, he admitted that the painting always had a certain effect. “Some of what I paint resonates in other people, opening the inner door or basement.”
After the death of Marley, the painting disappeared until it finally made an appearance – on eBay in February 2000. The posting claimed the owners, a California couple, had found the painting abandoned behind an old brewery – turned art space. Though Marley had supposedly sold the painting prior to his death, no one could explain how it had gotten there – not even Stoneham.
According to the couple’s ad, the painting was cursed or haunted. They claimed the figures in the painting moved during the night and, on occasion, left the painting and entered the room in which it was hanging. Part of the ad read, “WHEN WE RECEIVED THIS PAINTING, WE THOUGHT IT WAS REALLY GOOD ART, AT THE TIME WE WONDERED A LITTLE WHY A SEEMINGLY PERFECTLY FINE PAINTING WOULD BE DISCARDED LIKE THAT. ( TODAY WE DON’T !!! ) ONE MORNING OUR 4 AND 1/2 YEAR OLD DAUGHTER CLAIMED, THAT THE CHILDREN IN THE PICTURE WERE FIGHTING, AND COMING INTO THE ROOM DURING THE NIGHT.”
They also included several photos of the painting, some which they claimed were evidence of the girl/doll threatening the boy with a gun that she was holding – except Stoneham hadn’t painted her with a gun. She was actually holding a battery, with its wires exposed.
The couple set up a motion-sensing camera in the room with the painting for three nights, and claimed they had captured the boy leaving the frame and entering the room – fleeing the girl/doll in terror.
The ad included a disclaimer, which would absolve the seller from any and all liability if the painting was purchased.
The listing was viewed more than 30,000 times with some people claiming that simply viewing photos of the painting had made them ill, or led them to having their own supernatural experiences.
According to Spokane Spokesman Review, one viewer of the listing reported hearing an exorcist type voice along with a blast of hot air. Another viewer reportedly became ill after seeing the painting and had to burn white sage to cleanse his house afterward.
Bidding started at $199, and after 30 bids finally sold for $1,025 to Perception Gallery in Grand Rapids, Michigan. The gallery contacted Bill Stoneham and relayed the story of its eBay auction. Stoneham was surprised at the accounts and interpretations of the images in the painting. He further confirmed that the girl/doll was holding a dry cell battery and exposed wires, and not a gun.
After owning the painting for a month, the gallery owner, Kim Smith spoke with paranormal website surfingtheapocalypse.com about life after purchasing what had become known as “the haunted eBay painting.”
“I wish I could report a bizarre happening or mind possession type of thing, but the unusual things started happening with the first email and counting. Prayers and quotes from the scriptures from a man of faith. Advice as how to cleanse my residence of this evil thing from a Native American Shaman in Mississippi. Reports of people being repulsed, made physically ill, or suffering from a black out/mind control experiences.”
In 2004, Stoneham was contacted about commissioning a sequel to “The Hands Resist Him.” He agreed, and painted “Resistance at the Threshold.” This painting depicts the same characters, approximately 40 years later and is done in the same style as the original.
Another sequel was commissioned, titled, “Threshold of Revelation,” and was completed in 2012. This painting continues the progression of the old man and doll, this time in a new location.
Several years later, in 2017, yet another painting was commissioned, this one a prequel, titled “The Hands Invent Him.” This painting depicts the artist as a boy behind the original painting’s door, holding a paintbrush. This painting is currently owned and displayed at Zak Bagans’ Haunted Museum in Las Vegas, Nevada.
In 2021, the third, and final, sequel, What Remains, was completed, depicting the original painting’s setting as deteriorated and scattered with the detritus of earlier lives and stories. All paintings can be viewed on Stonehams Studios and Fine Art America.
Outside of “The Hands Invent Him,” no other paranormal activity has been reported. According to @hauntedmuseum on Twitter, “…Stoneham’s art is very active w/ paranormal occurences.”
In May, 2016, author Darren Kyle (D.K.) O’Neil published “a dramatized account of the notoriously haunted artwork” called The Hands Resist Him: Be Careful What You Bid For. The book introduces a young fictional family as the winning bidders, and a detective who finds a connection between the haunted painting and his investigation into a 28-year-old open case of a serial killer known as “The Life Swapper.”
“I first saw it online when I was living in Dubai. I printed it out and left it on a side table next to some other documents printed on the same printer with the same paper. Anyway, I went to Italy for a month. When I came back, the air conditioning had gone awry, everything was green mold. The TV, bed sheets, my daughter’s cot and clothing, all of my suits in the closet, and the documents I had printed all green. But right next to them, the only thing that was perfectly untouched was the printout of the painting.”
Today, the painting lives in a storage pocket in Smith’s gallery. Over the years, he has only been asked to show the painting a total of six times. One of the most memorable occasions was in 2007, when about a dozen men, ranging in age from 14 to 60, came in to see it.
“Twenty seconds passed, and just silence,” Smith said. “And then someone said, ‘that’s creepy.’”
Despite receiving offers to purchase the painting, even a six-figure offer from an unnamed buyer, Smith has turned them all down. “Nothing has ever been to the point where I consider serious,” he said. “It’s kind of got it’s own mystique that’s growing here.”
Stoneham also continues to receive messages from people terrified by “the haunted eBay painting.” “We live in an age of science of revelation and hard realities and hard facts, but we are still drawn to the mysterious,” Stoneham said. “And what is more mysterious than paintings? More than any other object, paintings are a one-of-a-kind thing created by someone using their hands.”
Still interested in haunted art? Check out The Anguished Man.
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