A thrift store called The Guild Shop in Houston may have sold an original work by Sigmar Polke in May. It had been sitting in the shop for 100 days until Ray Riley bought the work for $90.
On bringing the work home discovered the letters “S Polke” written on a corner of the frame. Riley told ABC that he “got very nervous and started trembling” and he “ended up hiding the painting for a couple weeks”. Why was he trembling? Perhaps because a work by Polke recently sold for $27.1 million, and he has been the subject of a recent retrospective at MoMA. As Brandon Zech pointed out on Glasstire: “If this painting turns out to be the real deal, it will not be the first time a piece of fine art has been discovered at The Guild Shop. A work by William Gay Yorke is currently for sale at the shop, but has a lofty $18,000 price tag.”
Let the authentication begin. Here’s the ABC video report:
