I regularly search the opportunity shops, especially in the little country towns, where sometimes wealthy, eccentric retirees retreat in their twilight years.
They often leave valuable art in their wills to the op shops. Or they buy or are gifted an artwork from an artist when he is unknown and then they become desirable and famous over the decades.
Sometimes the remaining family members are unaware of the value of the art work and simply give it away to the charity shops. I was in the town of Toodyay about 100 kilometres north east of Perth when I came across an oil painting of a miner whom I now know to be from Kalgoorlie. It was signed Vlase Zanalis. I bought the painting for $30 and to my surprise I found that Vlase Zanalis was pretty well known.
It is believed the painting belonged to the worldfamous mining entrepeneur, Claude de Bernales, as we know it was exhibited in the Palace Hotel in Kalgoorlie for many years, and was so well known, it was almost as famous as "Chloe", by French artist Jules Lefebre, the large portrait of a young lady that sits in the Young and Jackson's Hotel, opposite Flinders Street train station in Melbourne. How it got into an op shop is anybody's guess.
Vlase Zanalis was born in Greece in 1902-73, Vlase Zanalis arrived in Western Australia as a child. He studied under Linton at Perth Technical School and in the 1930s painted several murals for churches. In 1938 he completed a series of paintings depicting workers at the 'West Australian' newspaper and later one of a miner at work in the West Australian goldfields. Zanalis died in 1973.
I eventually sold the painting to a mining company, which will remain nameless for $25,000.
There is a postscript to the story though, in late 2013, ABC radio was doing a special on rare op shop finds and I was lucky enough to be interviewed live for about 30 mins, mainly discussing the painting and how it was found and, and how I went about researching it and eventually selling it, then we discussed other rare op shop finds I have come across.
They then interviewed a few other people who had found various valuable and rare items in op shops and second hand stores, I Taped the show and now have something to play to my grand kids.
