$1M Piece of Garbage - Dumpster Divers Recover "Tres Personajes" Painting by Rufino Tamayo

Not into trash picking, you say?

Elizabeth Gibson was walking in Manhattan’s Upper West Side a few years ago, when she spotted a painting and retrieved it from someone’s trash, without knowing it was Rufino Tamayo’s painting called “Les Personajes” (three people). She later learned who painted it, and that it had been stolen from a Texas collector in 1989. She recently returned the painting, got a $15.000 reward and part of the sale price of $1,049,000.00, when the owner subsequently sold it at Sotheby’s.

Rufino Tamayo 1899-1991 was born in Oaxaca, Mexico. His early works have been compared to those of Diego Rivera. His later works feature vivid colors and expressions of his hometown.