...is another's million dollars.
Well, not exactly, but the gist is spot-on.
Driving to work Thanksgiving morning, I was listening to the BBC radio on NPR and heard a phone interview with Elizabeth Gibson, who pulled this long-lost masterpiece from a neighborhood trash can only 20 minutes before the garbage truck would have hauled it away to the dump for all of posterity. It's been a story in the making for about 4 years...
"Tres Personajes"
Rufino Tamayo, ca.1970
In 2003. Ms. Gibson was strolling near her upper West Side home in The Big Apple when she spied the above painting in the trash. Not being knowledgable about fine or modern art, she felt drawn to the piece nonetheless, and just had to pick it up to look into it further.
The doorman at her building said the trash had been out only 20 minutes or so before she walked by, and that the trash truck came not too long after she talked with him. I have to admit, when I see people's trash at the street, I look it over...of course, I'm looking for anything with wood that might make a neat flute. Reckon I'd better start boning up on paintings, too...
She couldn't let the sleeping dog lie, either. For four years Ms. Gibson researched to find the 'source' of this particular painting, and her work finally paid off...by watching an episode of "Antiques Roadshow", where in this painting just happened to have been featured and labeled as stolen/missing since 1989. "Eureka!" was most likely shouted after she surely picked her jaw up off the floor at that weird confluence of timing and events.
Last Tuesday night Sotheby's Auction House held a Latin American Art sale, and "Tres Personajes" fetched a cool $1,049,000.00 by the closing gavel strike. Not bad for picking out some trash, eh?
In the phone interview, the findee lamented that her 'finder's reward' was a paltry $15,000...she didn't elaborate too much more, except to say that she and everyone else in the art world was appalled by the cheapness of the owner's token pittance. Sotheby's was so disgusted they offered her an undisclosed percentage of their auction commission as a good faith gesture.
Imagine that, someone in the Corporate World does have a kind and caring heart.
Well, not exactly, but the gist is spot-on.
Driving to work Thanksgiving morning, I was listening to the BBC radio on NPR and heard a phone interview with Elizabeth Gibson, who pulled this long-lost masterpiece from a neighborhood trash can only 20 minutes before the garbage truck would have hauled it away to the dump for all of posterity. It's been a story in the making for about 4 years...
"Tres Personajes"Rufino Tamayo, ca.1970
In 2003. Ms. Gibson was strolling near her upper West Side home in The Big Apple when she spied the above painting in the trash. Not being knowledgable about fine or modern art, she felt drawn to the piece nonetheless, and just had to pick it up to look into it further.
The doorman at her building said the trash had been out only 20 minutes or so before she walked by, and that the trash truck came not too long after she talked with him. I have to admit, when I see people's trash at the street, I look it over...of course, I'm looking for anything with wood that might make a neat flute. Reckon I'd better start boning up on paintings, too...
She couldn't let the sleeping dog lie, either. For four years Ms. Gibson researched to find the 'source' of this particular painting, and her work finally paid off...by watching an episode of "Antiques Roadshow", where in this painting just happened to have been featured and labeled as stolen/missing since 1989. "Eureka!" was most likely shouted after she surely picked her jaw up off the floor at that weird confluence of timing and events.
Last Tuesday night Sotheby's Auction House held a Latin American Art sale, and "Tres Personajes" fetched a cool $1,049,000.00 by the closing gavel strike. Not bad for picking out some trash, eh?
In the phone interview, the findee lamented that her 'finder's reward' was a paltry $15,000...she didn't elaborate too much more, except to say that she and everyone else in the art world was appalled by the cheapness of the owner's token pittance. Sotheby's was so disgusted they offered her an undisclosed percentage of their auction commission as a good faith gesture.
Imagine that, someone in the Corporate World does have a kind and caring heart.
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