When it comes to art, beauty is always in the eye of the beholder.
That’s certainly the case with a painting of a totem pole featuring a wooden grizzly bear carved into its top that now may bring six figures at an auction after originally being sold for the price of a used lawnmower.
The 1912 painting by Canadian artist Emily Carr is a little abstract and not the most likely piece of art one might expect to see hanging in a Wyoming lodge, but its presentation of a grizzly bear, a well-known Cowboy State predator, would help it fit in.
The piece known as “Masset Q.C.I.” was recently bought for $50 at a barn sale in New York, but is now expected to fetch $75,000-$150,000 in an auction in Canada next month, according to Artnet The barn seller had no idea of the painting’s worth.
David Heffel, president of the Heffel Fine Art Auction House that’s selling the painting, said he was stunned when the buyer, New York art dealer Allen Treibitz, brought it to him.
“There was no doubt in my mind that this was an exciting Cinderella discovery,” he told The Canadian Press
Carr was a major Canadian artist in the early 20th century, best known for her paintings of indigenous art and architecture.
One Man’s Trash …
Finds like these at garage and yard sales and on programs like the “Antique Roadshow” are not unheard of, with baseball cards, lamps and furniture sometimes valued at incredible sums.
Sue Simpson Gallagher, owner of Simpson Gallagher Gallery in Cody, said discoveries like these happen in the art world more than people would expect, but the lucky buyer doesn’t usually publicize it when it happens to avoid a perception of ripping off a less-than-lucky original seller.
“I think people want to keep things quiet like that,” she said.
But keeping things quiet, Simpson Gallagher said, is unfortunate as it removes the known history of ownership of a piece of work.
“That’s important with all artifacts,” she said.
Before the internet, Simpson Gallagher said incredible bargains like these were more common in the art world, but now people can research a work of art or the artist who made it much more easily.
She’s only had one instance of this happening herself, but she kindly tipped off the antique store owner who was selling the item that it likely could be worth much more.
Context
Susan Barnett, the curator of Western American art for the Whitney Western Art Museum in Cody, said there were many Western painters like George Catlin who ingrained themselves within Native American tribes to document their lives at this time.
She also brought up the instance of a storage shed owned by Cody-born artist Jackson Pollock, where a previously unknown painting was found inside that ended up selling for millions of dollars.
“You just never know,” Barnett said. “It just comes down to what two people are willing to pay.”
Barnett said Carr’s painting reminds her of the work other early modern artists in Wyoming and the West were putting out around that time, like legendary Western artist and longtime Wyomingite Harry Jackson and Montana artist Bill Stockton, who brought a Western flair to abstract art.
Leo Wolfson can be reached at leo@cowboystatedaily.com.
