Years ago when I sold a painting I naively assumed that I wouldn’t hear anything more about it. That, of course, was before the internet. Now, with my website, galleries and contact information easily accessible, I sometimes get e-mails from people who currently own the paintings.
Some stories are predictable – older purchasers have died and someone has inherited the paintings, which are too large for their living space or not to their taste. I always tell them to contact resaleart.com, a Portland secondary art gallery that does a wonderful job selling collectors’ works.
RECENT STORY
I just learned that a cousin recently purchased one of my paintings from the 1980’s after searching for it for two years. She had seen the painting in a photograph of an antiques dealer being interviewed in an older magazine. By the time she saw the article, the shop had gone out of business and the inventory dispersed. It’s too bad she didn’t mention it to me at the time, because I saw it advertised on the internet, but she was thrilled that she finally located it.
STORIES VARY
Occasionally people just want to share their feelings about the painting and want to know the history behind it. I was very moved when a young veteran told me that he saw one of my seascapes in his doctor’s office and it calmed him. He wondered what I was thinking when I painted it.
My favorite story has to do with a 47″ x 72″ beachscape from the 70’s that my family fondly refers to as my “dumpster painting”. Several years ago, an elderly lady living in a small apartment in a huge complex took her garbage out to the dumpster and discovered my painting leaning up against it.
She managed to get it into her apartment and called around until she located my gallery, who contacted me. There was a small hole in the painting and she wondered how to fix it. We picked it up and discovered it was actually a bullet hole. I was able to repair it, refinish the frame and hang it on her largest wall, which was just a few inches wider than the painting.
The original purchaser was a prestigious law firm and one of the partners later became quite active politically. I often wonder if the shooter was aiming for the attorney, the politician or just used my painting for target practice.
Below is the “dumpster painting”.
