Maud Lewis work sells for $18,000
The bidding started at $25,000 but there were no takers.
When a young woman at the back of the hall put up a bid of $10,000, it was on.
It had been a fairly typical outing for Margaretsville auctioneer Rick Bezanson and his partner Laurie Bezanson but when the Maud Lewis came up, a hush fell over the room.
“That never happens,” Laurie said.
Laurie carefully carried the framed painting of a pair of oxen through the packed house so interested auction patrons could get a closer look.
“This painting today is painted on beaverboard, a pulpboard – Maud’s most common painting surface,” announced Abigail, the couple’s daughter.
Laurie said many people showed up at the auction not to bid on it, just to see it.
One older woman came specifically to see the Maud Lewis.
“She asked to come up and get a picture taken with the Maud,” said Laurie. “And then when I’m walking around, people asked Rick if it was okay to stop me and take a picture of it. There were two or three people just came for pictures of it.”
Abigail said an expert examined the painting and agreed with the consignor that the painting was a late 1940s or early 1950s authentic Maud Lewis painting.
Lewis was born in 1903 in South Ohio in Yarmouth County but moved to Marshalltown outside Digby where she lived with husband Everett Lewis and is remembered as perhaps Canada’s most important folk artist. She suffered from juvenile rheumatoid arthritis and painting became increasingly more difficult.
Abigail, an auctioneer herself, said Maud’s paintings have sold
at auction for ever higher prices.
“Two of her paintings sold for more than $16,000. A painting at a Toronto auction in 2009 sold for $22,000. In 2012 another painting sold for $20,400.”
She said a painting found last year in a thrift store that was appraised for $16,000 sold for $45,000.
“This is a beautiful, early Maud Lewis painting,” Abigail told the crowd. “The early ones are rare to find.”
Rick remembers every bid. From the time the painting was taken from the cabinet to the time it sold was about five minutes. In the end, a young Nova Scotia collector, who wished to remain anonymous, walked away with the folk art piece for $18,000.
Laurie believes it fetched so much because it was an early Maud.
“She was really in her prime, because later on she was putting
so many out that she wasn’t as fancy, and this was very nicely done. And she signed it in ink, whereas her 1950s and ’ 60s pieces, a lot of them were signed in marker because her hands were so bad. So that helped the value, too.”
With the Maud painting sold, the hush was gone and it was back to business.
“Everything returned to normal,” said Laurie, marveling at the reverence the Maud Lewis piece commanded.
For 22 years Rick was auctioneer at the Bear River Fire Department’s annual auction during Cherry Carnival. Thirty or 35 years ago it wasn’t unusual for numerous Maud Lewis paintings to be donated to the cause.
“They just gave them away,” said Rick. “They didn’t think they would bring five bucks, let alone 20. They’d just sell them. Get rid of them.”