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A rare painting by Canadian folk artist Maud Lewis made news in 2022 when it sold for $322,140 at Miller & Miller Auctions. Its previous owners paid far less for the work of art: A grilled cheese sandwich. Well, more accurately, many grilled cheese sandwiches and years of friendship.
Miller & Miller acquired the painting from Irene and Tony Demas, who started a restaurant in London, Ontario, in the 1970s, when they were newlyweds. Irene soon had to step in for the chef, despite, as she claims, only knowing how to make grilled cheese sandwiches. Fortunately, customers loved the sandwiches!
One couple in particular, Audrey and John Kinnear, kept coming back for more. They developed a friendship with the Dumases, and eventually, the Kinnears started offering trades for their lunches. John Kinnear would bring in his watercolor paintings, which the Dumases liked, and receive lunch in exchange. Once, he brought in paintings by other artists he had met. Irene Demas was taken by an unusual bright-colored painting with a little black truck. She accepted the painting, along with some letters to Kinnear from the artist, Maud Lewis, and hung it in her newborn son’s room.
Decades later, folk art had a resurgence in popularity. Maud Lewis paintings in particular sold for high prices. The Demases held onto their painting for years, but Miller & Miller Auctions ultimately persuaded them to sell it in 2022. The painting sold on May 14 of that year for its impressive price.
Courtesy Roger Cogswell
Maud Lewis (1903-1970) is a cult figure in Canada known for her charming depictions of life. She spent 32 years of her life in a one-room house on a secluded dirt road in Nova Scotia. By the time of her death in 1970, she’d covered nearly every surface of the little home with joyous paintings: Clusters of tulips filled the windows, birds and butterflies fluttered across the door. Even the dustpan was covered with daisies.
“I paint all from memory, I don’t copy much,” Lewis said, smiling wide, in a 1965 television documentary about her life and work. “Because I don’t go nowhere, I just make my own designs up.”
Lewis gained renown toward the end of her life, and since her death in 1970 her works have exponentially increased in price at auction. Lewis honed her innate talent during a childhood marked by rheumatoid arthritis that would worsen throughout her life, imbuing humble scenes with a sense of timelessness. The subject of three National Film Board of Canada documentaries, one biopic, a stage play, and many books, Lewis is commemorated with a permanent exhibition at the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia, which includes a restored version of her painted house.
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