The Unknown Artist

An artist spends years trying to sell his paintings but no one buys them. Then one night thieves break in and steal all his paintings. They stash them in an old shed in the woods. The thieves have a hell of a time with the paintings. No fence will buy them, so finally they just give up and forget about them.

The years go by.

One day a hunter stumbles on the old shed and finds the paintings. He tells his friend who is an art critic and the art critic realizes they must have found the life work of some poor hermit - an outsider folk artist who lived in the woods and painted. The critic puts up a display of the paintings at the art museum and does a newspaper article. Interest is aroused. Everyone wonders about the mysterious unknown artist who painted these works. Prices rise. Soon you have to be wealthy to afford one of the paintings.

One day the original artist, who by now is a broken old man who has given up all hope of ever being a successful artist, stumbles into the art museum (leaving his wine bottle in the parking lot) and gets a big shock when he sees one of his old paintings. "Hey! That's my goddamn painting! I painted that!" The guard grabs him, but just as the guard is about to toss him out the door, the curator happens by. "Are you saying you painted those paintings?" "Yes sir, by God, I painted them!"

There are several ways this story might go from here.

1) They believe him, but then the value of the paintings immediately falls when everybody realizes the artist is still alive.
2) They don't believe him because when they ask him to paint something he has the shakes so bad that it looks nothing like his old art.
3) They believe him, he becomes appreciated, and spends his final years in comfort.

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Comment by Jeffrey Hillman on September 23, 2009 at 12:21pm: I like #3 but, I belive they would keep him as UNKNOWN just to maintain the value of the Paintings, Leving Him wealthy in his old age and his works very popular. That's just my take. Thank you