Klee-Free, Sorry to Say

Have you seen the 2006 documentary Who the (Bleep) is Jackson Pollock? It's about a woman who buys an enormous "drip" painting from a thrift store for a sick friend who will not be able to keep it because it's too big to fit through the trailer door.

Friends encourage her to have it appraised. Art critics are skeptical about the unsigned work, but Pollock's fingerprint ultimately is found on the back of the canvas. In the years she has chased down its forensic history, no one has offered her the $50 million she says its worth.

I'm not sure her art experience has a happy ending, but it is one mind-blowing tale.

I tend to collect stories about people finding valuable paintings for nearly nothing. A $12.34 Calder lithograph at Goodwill ($9,000). A $7 Renoir at a Virginia flea market ($75, 000 to $100,000). My favorite is the public library in my hometown of Bronxville, NY, sold its donated (and overlooked for 50 years) Childe Hassam for over $4 million. 

Is there anything better than art with a killer happy ending?

Which is why I have rescinded my vow to not go to antique/thrift/junk/garage/markets in order to spare this house and my life from anything more except overlooked, priceless pieces of art.

Sadly, it appears that I am not alone on this quest.

The Bolingbrook Goodwill store was abuzz this morning with shoppers, many of whom were businessmen browsing on their lunch hour. (I say take your bluetooths and get back to work, businessmen.)

Scanning, scanning....

Bad art everywhere.

Really bad. 

Is it too much to ask to find a nice Paul Klee for a tiny price

source

instead of miles of bad flowers, fish, third place golf awards and Hannah Montana?

My pal Nancy says the odds of my finding a valuable piece of crystal are much greater. 

She may be right. But I want art.

PS My cousin John may have found a textile designed and painted by Marc Chagall. He is on the hunt to find out as much about it as possible. If its provenance can be proved, it may be worth considerably more than its $25 price tag.

I can feel my luck getting closer.

Each week, Naperville Now participates in Mrs. Matlock's Alphabe-Thursday. Read what other Alphabetarians are writing about the letter K here.