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NORTHFIELD, Ill., May 31, 2006 (UPI via COMTEX) -- A Chicago-area high school that paid $62.50 in 1948 to the U.S. State Department for Stuart Davis' "Still Life With Flowers" sold the painting for $3.1 million.
Even so, officials with New Trier Township High School district, in Northfield, Ill., say their take -- $2.8 million following a Christie's auction to an unnamed buyer -- will have little effect on the bottom line.
"It's ironic that's where the work of a communist painter was found and will enrich the budget of one of the wealthiest school districts in the country," Northwestern University art historian Stephen Eisenman told The Washington Post.
The State Department sold work by Davis and other leftist artists at the height of anti-communist sentiment.
The 1930 "Still Life With Flowers," used to teach New Trier art classes, was rediscovered in the 1990s in a storeroom and loaned to the Art Institute of Chicago for 13 years.
In the interim, Davis' popularity surged and the district decided to sell.
While the windfall will support art programs, it will have little affect on New Trier's annual budget -- $75 million.
URL: www.upi.com Copyright 2006 by United Press International
