It’s been a novelty for me to keep up with the world’s most expensive paintings and this year, that record has been broken three times now. First it was Picasso then Gustav Klimt and in early November, a Mexican financier purchased this 4’x8′ canvas titled “Jack The Dripper” for $144 million by Jackson Pollock.
Pollock died at age 44 in a car crash and his style of dripping paint on a canvas across the floor is usually required reading and intepretation in any Art history that covers abstract expressionism.
Pollock is certainly an acquired taste for most general art lovers, but what makes this story even more interesting is a David Letterman rerun I caught this evening featuring Terri Horton, a 73-year old long-haul driver from California. She evidently bought a painting as a joke in a thrift store out west for $8.00. A local art professor happened to see the work and suggested that it might be a Pollock original.
Horton was on Letterman describing her experience and new documentary “Who The &^%&^ Is Jackson Pollock.” The movie follows her unique story as she has researched Pollock and used the help of forensic scientists to authenticate the work. The art community is scoffing at her find and she continues to pursue this one-in-a-million shot. Evidently, a finger print on the canvas is a match and the painting has been appraised now at over $50 million. You go girl!