Donated Painting Raises $2,000 for SRAC!

Charles Durant Painting raised $2,000 for SRAC

Over a year ago, Lillian Warren came to SRAC and donated a painting to us to raise funds. The truth is that I wasn't sure that we could sell it to our demographic and set it on an inconspicuous shelf. ...I think I had $25 on it or something like that...

It wasn't until a good friend of SRAC - and artist in his own right - Albert White came in one day that changed the course of things...Albert took one look at the painting and said, "Deb  you want to take that painting upstairs and research it on some pulp art websites - I think you'll find it."

After researching it - I did in fact find the painting - and not only that - but found out that it had been the cover of the October 1932 issue of the "Ace High Magazine" - !

October 1932 Ace High Magazine

Initially I contacted about 8 auction houses and several pulp and western art dealers acrossed the country  but nobody would go above $1,000 for it and I just thought that I should keep trying...Over the past year there were times that I would hear from someone from Texas or that had interests in the JE Ranch, etc as well and I would ask them to share our painting with interested buyers...But nothing ever came of the efforts...

So last week I just decided that I would post it in eBay for the price I was willing to take for it ($2,000) and see what happened. To my surprise - I got the bid, and yesterday it sold for $2,000.

I cannot stress enough that we are blessed to have the good people that SRAC has around us. First Lillian donated this painting, and second, Albert could have just bought the painting for $25 and sold it himself - but he didn't - he was honest with me and guided me and in fact is the real reason why we ended up with $2,000 yesterday.

I want to thank Lilian and Albert publicly here for being so generous and well just great people - and I want to say that although I think that some people think that SRAC isn't in need of support because we always seem to have good fortune and successful reports - when the truth is that SRAC is truthfully less well off (financially) than any other museum in our region. We have no endowment money to fall back on, we have a mortgage to pay for, and we don't take state or federal funding.....At the same time we are open 5 days a week, give school field trips for free and host incredible events that cannot be seen anywhere else in the region...all with volunteer staffing.

So I want to thank EVERYONE who understands how hard we work to keep things going and supports SRAC and our mission to preserve the Native American archaeology of our region and to share the thousands of artifacts and our knowledge with our community. Without your continued support, we really could not do what we do. And to me - - this feel good story is the launch of the Christmas spirit for SRAC this year...

This Christmas - Help somebody if you can.