Zoltan Sepeshy Oil Painting, ca. 1935
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GUEST:
This was my grandfather's. He was a doctor. The story goes that it was payment for medical services.
APPRAISER:
It's extraordinary how many doctors seem to have good art collections. I think it's often because artists are so poor, and they barter their goods.
GUEST:
Mm-hmm.
APPRAISER:
Now, do you know who did the painting? Do you know anything about it?
GUEST:
It's done by Sepeshy. It's Great Lakes freighters. There's two of them in the picture. And sand dunes. And the most I know is that he just wasn't known for doing water paintings.
APPRAISER:
So we think this is Lake Michigan, then?
GUEST:
Mm-hmm.
APPRAISER:
You have these dunes there.
GUEST:
Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
APPRAISER:
So that's very characteristic of the landscape there. Sepeshy is absolutely right. Zoltan Sepeshy. And as the name would indicate, of Hungarian birth, a very privileged, aristocratic, even, birth, a wealthy background.
GUEST:
Mm-hmm, okay.
APPRAISER:
His family used to take him hunting and fishing, and he had private tutors and did a lot of traveling. But art was always a part of his life. And so he studied in both Budapest and Vienna when he was a young man. His father suggested that he go to the United States in 1921. So off he went. He would have been in his early 20s at that point. And lived first in New York, and then moved to Detroit. And that's the city, really, that he's most associated with. As he put it himself, it was like a Horatio Alger story in reverse. So rather than rags to riches, it was riches to rags. Having come from a very privileged background, he found himself taking any number of menial jobs just to support himself. So he's stacking lumber, he was whitewashing walls, he was selling books, all this sort of stuff. But he was clearly a man of great determination and energy. And all this while he was painting, and he would take his paintings to downtown Detroit in a suitcase and sell them, usually to professional gentlemen, doctors and lawyers and such like. So this was all happening in the 20s. So it's possible even it may have been a barter. Maybe your grandfather bought it directly from him. So, the energy, the determination paid off, and led to him receiving prizes. He started to exhibit regularly with galleries, and he had a bit of a good reputation as an artist. And became the instructor of painting at Cranbrook. And then in 1947, he became the director there. Now, Cranbrook is one of the great art education institutions in the United States and the world. And the alumni includes people like Charles Eames, a furniture designer, Harry Bertoia, the sculptor. And Eero Saarinen was there as well. And, in fact, he succeeded Saarinen's father as the director of Cranbrook. Very privileged background, very talented artist, great success in the States. So riches to rags to riches again. And he spent the rest of his life, really, at Cranbrook until he retired there, and really guided the school through many years. But coming back to the painting, it's oil on canvas, and I would think this was probably done in the 1930s
GUEST:
Okay.
APPRAISER:
when he was really under the influence of the American scene painters. And have you given any thought to the value of it?
GUEST:
Oh, it's... to me it's priceless, but we've always wondered if it's worth anything.
APPRAISER:
Well, priceless is a big figure. But at auction I would say around about
$3,000 to $5,000.
GUEST:
Very nice, yeah. It's something that I don't want to ever part with. It's-it's absolutely beautiful to me.
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