Sometimes It Pays To Go Through The Garbage!

Tweet

I heard about this story on the news last night, of a woman, Elizabeth Gibson, who lives here in NYC, who on a March morning four years ago, was walking along the street, and spotted this large abstract painting that had been tossed out and was in the garbage--she was attracted to it, and decided to help herself to it, since it was simply considered "garbage" Here's an excerpt from the NY Times article about it all: (quote) ..."As it turns out, the painting was “Three People,” a 1970 canvas by the celebrated 20th-century Mexican artist Rufino Tamayo that was stolen 20 years ago and is the subject of an F.B.I. investigation. Experts say the painting — a largely abstract depiction of a man, a woman and an androgynous figure in vibrant purples, oranges and yellows — is in miraculously good condition and worth about $1 million. On Nov. 20 it is to go on the block at Sotheby’s as one of the highlights of a Latin American art auction. Ms. Gibson said she did not suspect that the painting had any commercial value when she found it. “I am not a modern-art aficionado,” she said. “It was so overpowering, yet it had a cheap frame.” The painting had been missing for so long that the owners, a married couple whom Sotheby’s would not identify, had long since given up hope of ever seeing it again. The husband, a Houston collector and businessman, had purchased “Three People” at a Sotheby’s auction in 1977 as a birthday present for his wife. He paid $55,000 for it. Ten years later, when the couple were in the midst of moving from a house to an apartment in Houston, they put the painting into storage at a local warehouse. It was there that it disappeared. The couple reported the theft to the local and federal authorities, and an image was posted on the databases of the International Foundation for Art Research and the Art Loss Register. They also offered a $15,000 reward to anyone who could help them recover it. But no credible leads surfaced. The couple later moved to South America, and the husband died. It is his widow who is putting the painting on the market. How “Three People” got from a Houston warehouse 20 years ago to the streets of New York remains a mystery. The painting’s disappearance so troubled August Uribe, an expert at Sotheby’s, that he volunteered to appear on “Antiques Roadshow” in a “Missing Masterpieces” segment in May 2005. Ms. Gibson had hung the painting in her living room, but remained curious about it. She had gone back to the Alexandria the day after taking it home and asked the doormen there if anyone could tell her who had put it on the street. It took three years for her to realize that she possessed a stolen painting. A few months after she hung it in her apartment, she said, she called a friend who had worked at an auction house and described the painting to him. “He asked me if it had a signature,” she recalled. It did. In the upper right-hand corner the artist had signed it “Tamayo 0-70.” A year or so after that, she said, she told another friend about the painting. “He showed me a Sotheby’s catalog where a Tamayo had sold for $500,000,” she recalled. ..." Well, it turns out that this particular painting is now worth ONE MILLION dollars...She was able to to contact the original owner who will pay the original offer of the $15,000 for the painting,but now since it is officially up for auction at Sotheby's she will get a percentage of the auction sale price. Not bad for finding something in the garbage...right? So like maybe we should hunt people's garbage from now on...LOL I used to have a friend that would go through the garbage on the streets at the most expensive neighborhoods in Manhattan, like the block where the famous Dakota apartment is where John Lennon had lived...he said you couldn't believe the great stuff people were junking as garbage, including rare books The full article is here http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/23/arts/design/23pain.html?_r=1&ex=1350792000&en=87be5b2c2a493910&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss