$18,000 painting sold as junk for $3 at garage sale

NEXT TIME you have a garage sale, remember the poor soul from Portage la Prairie who was just trying to make a few bucks on a junky old painting. According to Winnipeg art dealer David Loch that junky old painting is the work of the late great Manitoba artist William Kurelek (1927-1977). Today it hangs in Winnipeg's Loch Gallery. Retail price: $18,000. Garage sale price: "Three dollars or so."

"It's true," Loch said from his gallery on St. Mary's Road. "I knew the story before I bought it." He had heard the story earlier this fall from a client who said the purchasers were looking for someone to appraise it. Loch offered to take a look at the garage sale bargain, titled Skiing After Hay Rack in Manitoba (1968). "But they never showed up," Loch said. The painting did though - at a Sotheby's auction at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto last week - and so did Loch. "The bidding was frantic," Loch recalled.

But Loch, who was the losing bidder on a record $140,000 Kurelek last year, wasn't going to let this one get away. It was his for just under $14,000. "I feel sorry for the poor people who used to own the pictures," he said. So how did the people who sold it at the garage sale end up with it? Loch doesn't know.

But Kurelek, who grew up a Manitoba farm boy, might have answered that question himself. He wrote this on the back of the frame: "Presented to John in appreciation of electrical services."

"Can you be believe it?" Loch said. "He gave it to the guy in exchange for services." Loch has a piece of advice for anyone planning on tossing a junky old piece of art in their next garage sale. Have someone reputable look at it. "Make sure you're not giving away a treasure."

In other words, seller beware.

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