Update: Lost BONNIE AND CLYDE art found!

As Bette Midler herself crooned, "You got to have friends."

Following yesterday's post, I received a flurry of comments questioning my use of A.I. in reconstructing a lost Amsel piece of art. These criticisms were absolutely valid, which is why I felt compelled to be absolutely transparent, and further open the debate for the technical merits and artistic dangers of A.I.

Happily, artist Matt Dicke just came to my rescue, providing a photograph of the original, unaltered BONNIE AND CLYDE artwork. He does not own the original art, alas, and I'll save the full history of what happened to this piece for the film. (Those of you who have followed this site can take an educated guess.)

For now, I'm simply thankful that we at least have this image to help preserve a small part of Richard Amsel's creative legacy.

Matt, thank you for being a friend!

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Here's the original post from 6/30/26:

I’ve spent almost 20 years archiving and collecting images of Richard Amsel’s artwork, and literally hundreds of hours trying to make them look as good as possible. The best situations are, obviously, when I have the opportunity to photograph the original artwork myself, and know the digital image has as much fidelity to the source as possible. Other times, when I obtain a high quality, photographic transparency, it’s just a matter of making a few color tweaks.

For most pieces, however, significant “restoration” work in Photoshop was required – a skill I heavily put to use during my time at Warner Bros. Being a Photoshop expert was something of a superpower back then. I took a lot of pride in my work, and being the team’s subject matter expert whenever digital art was concerned.

But there are limits to what I can do, at least without crossing the line into A.I. territory. Doing so is something I remain extremely apprehensive about, and is justifiably ripe for controversy. Indeed, one of the very topics of my film’s final act concerns the existential threat artists now face with the rise of A.I.

Traditional illustration is virtually dead, and so many artists’ careers (mine included, if you could consider what I had a career) are now collateral damage.

But can A.I. be used responsibly? I’ve been dwelling a lot on that question lately, especially these past few weeks. Yes, it’s a tool; it can do things in seconds that would literally take me weeks, and do them better than I ever could. And yes, it has its benefits; technically and financially, it can be of immeasurable help, especially to a filmmaker or artist with limited means.

Some months ago I received a series of photographs from Amsel fan Mario Pasciuta, of an early framed illustration the artist made of BONNIE AND CLYDE, circa 1967. The photos were of relatively poor quality, and none of them captured the entire illustration. Even when I carefully composited all the pictures together, the top and bottom were still severely cropped. One could only imagine what the complete, original illustration looked like.

Reluctantly, I turned to A.I. for help in digitally completing the piece. What you see here is therefore not so much a “restoration”, but rather an “approximation”. (“Open the pod bay doors please, HAL…”)

An A.I.-assisted image approximating Amsel's long lost art for BONNIE & CLYDE, circa 1967.

This piece was made while Amsel was still a student at the Philadelphia College of Art, and was likely a portfolio project, rather than a commission.

Naturally, if anyone can provide images of the complete work, I’d be forever grateful.

For purists and transparency, here are the source images I used to prepare this restoration/approximation of Amsel's art. Thanks to Mario Pasciuta for providing them.