Posted on 10/03/2024 12:06:45 PM PDT by Red Badger
Oct. 3 (UPI) -- A painting bought for $50 at a New York barn sale is headed to auction and expected to fetch up to $200,000 after being identified as a 1912 piece by Canadian artist Emily Carr.
New York-based art dealer Allen Treibitz said he was at a barn sale in the Hamptons when the painting, which depicts a carved grizzly bear at the top of a totem pole, caught his eye.
"You could just tell that painting had something special about it besides the fact that it was so legibly signed, which is not often the case with most art that you see," Treibitz told Global News. "So that helped a little, but it definitely had a look and it was definitely very interesting."
He bought the painting for $50, and his research soon determined it was a piece called Masset Q.C.I. and was painted in 1912 by Carr.
The painting is now one of four works by Carr due to be auctioned by the Heffel Gallery next month in Toronto. It is expected to sell for between $100,000 and $200,000.
"I've found some interesting things in my lifetime," Treibitz said. "This is the most significant find I've ever had."
If I thought I could sell it to some sucker for $100,000 I'd buy it for $100.
I’ll never understand art. What in the world makes that painting worth $200,000? It’s ugly, it’s a rotten representation of its subject matter, it’s blurry and the colors are smudged. Some FReeper who knows art fill me in, here.
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
There is no accounting for taste.
The worth of a thing is what some fool will give you for it...............
The bear is pretty representative of a lot of family totem carvings - they have not all been finely done by great craftsmen. It’s not her best, but typical of her style; and I can see collectors paying that for it as part of her body of work.
Look at some of her others; there are aspects that remind a little of Georgia O’Keefe, and even Thomas Hart Benton:
https://www.aci-iac.ca/art-books/emily-carr/significance-and-critical-issues/
Isn’t that Costanza?
In the Flesh
Well, I don't know; but I been told some of them high-hats prizes the use of distortion and vibrant colour. /s (I guess)
That’s nothing. You can buy a Hunter Biden for $500k and it’s worth 50 bucks.
I’d want to have a contract up front....
I love art and I took a class in that period, but I have to say that something about this one makes my skin crawl.
Surrealism - Vila Lobos - Joan Baez
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dvW4GpGjGS8
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