Thrift Store Purchase is a Scottish Painter’s Masterpiece
A painting bought for less than $100 proved to be the work of Scottish Colorist FCB Cadell and sold for thousands at a recent auction.
In 1966, a young art teacher named Helene Plotkin bought an oil painting for less than $100 at a thrift shop in New York. After sixty years and some surprising revelations, the painting sold for £189,200 (about $253,000) at the Scottish Paintings and Sculpture Auction by Lyon & Turnbull on June 4.
The painting, titled “Portrait of Miss Don Wauchope,” hung in Plotkin’s living room for decades, becoming a fixture of her children’s memories. The family didn’t know who had painted it. The artist’s signature was illegible. Last year, Plotkin’s younger son, Barry, decided to try a new research technique: artificial intelligence. The New York Times reports that he uploaded a photo of the painting to Gemini, Google’s AI chatbot and virtual assistant, which identified it as the work of Scottish artist Francis Campbell Boileau Cadell (1883-1937).
While AI can be a helpful tool, it isn’t a substitute for a qualified appraiser. But it did let Barry Plotkin know where he could find one, directing him to Lyon & Turnbull. In business since 1826, the auction house has a renowned Scottish art department and describes itself as “the market leader in the selling of Scottish paintings & sculpture.”
Alice Strang, a fine art specialist at Lyon & Turnbull, confirmed that the painting was by Cadell. What’s more, she realized that its title was incorrect. Miss Don Wauchope was one of Cadell’s favorite sitters, but the figure in Plotkin’s painting was another one of his models, May Easter. Easter posed for Cadell’s painting “Pink and Gold,” which sold for £250,200 (about $332,700) at a Lyon & Turnbull auction in 2024. She wears the same iridescent headscarf, stylish black dress, and pink flowers in Plotkin’s painting, which Lyon & Turnbull renamed “Interior: The Lady in Black.”
Cadell, better known as F.C.B. Cadell, was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1883 and studied in Paris and Munich. In the 1920s and 1930s, he exhibited with three other painters, John Duncan Fergusson, George Leslie Hunter, and Samuel John Peploe. The group became known as the Scottish Colourists, thanks to their use of vivid colors and bold brushwork.
Helene Plotkin, now 88 years old, told Scottish Field magazine that Cadell’s distinctive style was what drew her to the painting. “It was the color theory at play that held my attention,” she said. “It was a work that demanded to be appreciated for its vibrant, modern sensibility.”
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“Pink and Gold,” another painting by F.C.B. Cadell, is a portrait of May Easter, the same model in “Interior: Lady in Black.” This painting sold for £250,200 at Lyon & Turnbull on September 26, 2024.
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