Posted on 11/08/2006 1:08:39 AM PST by Mrs Ivan
Teri Horton bought the paint-splattered canvas at a California junk shop for a joke. But the joke may be on the art world instead.
The retired lorry driver paid $5 for the drip painting in 1991, bartering the price down from $7. Now a fingerprint on the painting has raised the possibility that it is in fact a masterpiece by Jackson Pollock, the world’s priciest artist.
If it is accepted as authentic, the picture would be worth $40 million to $50 million (up to £26.2 million). Last month Pollock, who died in a car crash in 1956 aged 44, was reported to have set a world record price of $140 million for No 5, 1948.
Ms Horton, 74, of Newport Beach, California, had never heard of Pollock. Indeed, when told that the painting might be by the abstract expressionist, she asked: “Who the f*** is Jackson Pollock?” — now the title of a documentary about her ensuing 15-year struggle with the art world.
Ms Horton bought the 48in by 65in (120cm by 165cm) picture in San Bernardino. She took it to a friend’s trailer home, where they laughed at it. “We were going to throw darts at it, but we sat there and drank beer and never did get around to it,” she told the Toronto Star.
Ms Horton then put it in storage. The first indication that she might have something special came when, to clear out her clutter, she offered it for sale to friends. An art professor at a nearby university told her that he thought she might have a Pollock, beginning a long quest to authenticate the work.
The International Foundation for Art Research rejects the idea that the painting is a Pollock. Thomas Hoving, a former director of the Metropolitan Museum, New York, who investigated the claim for the documentary, said: “I think somebody had a house in some sunny part of the world, Palm Beach or something, and wanted an abstract painting, maybe like a Pollock, in colours that would have fit the room.”
But Peter Paul Biro, an art restorer, says that he has matched a fingerprint on the painting to one on a paint can from Pollock’s studio in East Hampton, New York. “Since Pollock was known to work alone and had no assistants or pupils the probability of the fingerprint on the blue paint can being Pollock’s is very high,” he writes on www.birofineartrestoration.com/Pollock/Pollock.htm.
He then sought to match the fingerprint on the painting to a Pollock work of undisputed provenance. In September he discovered what he says is a second matching print on Naked Man with Knife, at Tate Modern, London.
“The new data now firmly identifies Jackson Pollock as the contributor of the fingerprint on the blue paint can, as well as on the Horton submission,” he said.
FINDERS’ COUPS
One of the great finds by the BBC One programme Antiques Roadshow was a painting of cats, bought at a car boot sale for 50p. It was identified as being by the 18th-century Belgian artist Henrietta Ronner and auctioned for £22,000
A Philadelphia man bought a weathered painting for $4 in 1989 because he liked its frame. Removing the frame, he discovered an original copy of the US Declaration of Independence concealed behind. It sold at auction for $2.42 million
Brett Floyd, a California art lover, bought a book, Picasso: Toreros, at a fundraising event in 2002 for $80. After seeing a similar lithograph at an art gallery to one in the book, he found that he had four Picasso originals. The book was revalued at $17,000
Paintings by the 19th-century American artist Martin Johnson Heade have a history of turning up in garage sales and at flea markets. Magnolia Blossoms on Blue Velvet and Cherokee Roses were bought for less than $100 in 1996, selling for more than $1 million that same year. In 2003 an unnamed Heade painting found in an attic also broke the $1 million barrier
Another guest on the Antiques Roadshow took in a vase that had been retrieved from a friend’s garage and then used for holding potted plants. The vase was identified as a 16th-century Ming wine holder and was valued at £10,000
This is inspirational.
My garage is crammed with junk and trash that accumulated while I was sitting around drinking beer!
So what made it valuable was the name of the artist, not the quality of the painting? Good to know.
Ivan disappeared from this board for a time, and relatively recently returned; his handle was a sight for sore eyes. I'm surprised to see that you've been actively posting for 3 weeks and I only now notice your handle. Welcome!
Artists are lucky if they make money from their work. It is the institutions of art (galleries, museums, schools, and auction houses) that "put it in persepective".
There are outsider artists with no family who died after never selling a piece who's work has sold for $60,000 and up.
Andy Warhol did a series of "painting" based on just that idea.
If you need to determine the validity of a fingerprint to determine whether or not a piece of art is a "masterpiece," it isn't.
Make your won Jackson Pollock masterpiece, minus the valuable fingerprint:
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