art for art's sake???

Art???

Albert!!!
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£50 picture saves the day

A Californian man who fled his wrecked home with nothing but a £50 picture has found it's a £300,000 masterpiece.

Albert Trevino, 74, would have been left with nothing as insurers refused to pay up after a landslide wrecked his home in Bluebird Canyon.

He was given 15 minutes to gather his belongings before his house slipped 40ft down a hillside, reports the Mirror.

All Albert could salvage was his passport, some documents and his mother's favourite picture - a painting he bought from a garage sale for £50 more than 25 years ago.

Called Evening Shadows it shows the mission of San Juan Capistrano and was painted in 1923 by Joseph Kleitsch, a key member of the California Impressionism movement

Its identity was only revealed after Albert's artist friend Pam Hagen saw a signature on the work.

Now a gallery has agreed to sell it for Albert and wife Dolores, 69, commission-free.

He said: "When the emergency services came they would not let us back in our homes without supervision. I got the painting because it was in the room it was safest to go into."

Art expert Ray Redfern said: "A Kleitsch sold recently for more than £200,000. This one will go for more."