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| Teri Horton in front of the painting that may be by Jackson Pollock |
Teri Horton is an American former truck driver in her 70's who bought a painting in a Thrift shop for $5. She bought the painting for her friend because she needed cheering up. The friend wasn't too keen on the artwork nor could she get it through the door of her trailer. Teri then tried to sell it at a garage sale. An art teacher happened to see it and suggested it may be by Jackson Pollock. Teri hadn't heard of this artist but soon found out and realized it could be worth a lot of money, even 50 million dollars. She tried to get the painting authenticated but the art community decided it wasn't the real thing and weren't about to change their minds after the original decision was made. They didn't think that an expensive Pollock painting could find it's way to a thrift shop nor did it have any provenance. Teri and her son then organized a Canadian art forensic scientist to examine the painting and he found a fingerprint on the back which matched Pollocks. He also found that the paint on Teri's painting matched the paint on the floor of Pollock's studio. This wasn't good enough for the art experts though, they still wouldn't authenticate it. With the proof Teri did have, there were offers of 2 million and then 10 million dollars but Teri wouldn't accept them.
There is a DVD called Who the #$&% is Jackson Pollock? which tells the story. Teri is quite a character who makes the story even more interesting.
Australia bought a Jackson Pollock painting called Blue Poles in the 1980s which caused a bit of an uproar at the time due to the price and that it wasn't a traditional painting that people could understand easily. I think everyone is pretty happy with it now.
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| Blue Poles by Jackson Pollock |
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