Grandma Moses painting sells for $80,000
Victoria buyer beats out other bidders at Lunds’ auction
A Grandma Moses-signed painting has been sold at auction in Victoria for $80,000.
It was purchased by a local buyer, who beat out other bidders from elsewhere in North America, said Peter Boyle, president of Lunds Auctioneers and Appraisal Specialists, on Fort Street.
The 20-by-24-inch painting called Grandma Moses Goes to the City has been owned by a local man, a descendent of an Ontario family who purchased it for $40,000 in 1980 from a New York gallery.
In his efforts to learn more about the painting, Boyle contacted the owner of a New York gallery, who is in her 90s and had known Grandma Moses.
She remembers staying in a white barn portrayed in the painting, he said.
Boyle had wondered about a size discrepancy between the painting up for auction in Victoria and a similar one cited in a catalogue that is considered an authority on Grandma Moses’ work.
Further research revealed that the catalogue was incorrect. An earlier edition of the catalogue showed the correct size of the 1944 painting, which was the same as the one at Lunds, he said.
The auction house tries to give as many details as it is able to, but does not authenticate items.
Grandma Moses is famous as an American folk artist. She died in 1961 at age 101.