From the trashcan to the auction block for lost Tamayo painting

A painting by Mexican artist Rufino Tamayo which was stolen in 1987 and found in the garbage four years ago is expected to fetch up to $1 million in auction.

The 1970 piece- entitled "Tres Personajes" ("Three People")- had been nicked from a storage facility twenty years ago and inadvertently discovered by a New Yorker in a pile of trash:

Elizabeth Gibson did not know anything about the brightly colored abstract work she spotted on her morning walk four years ago on Manhattan's Upper West Side. Sotheby's auction house will be selling the work next month for the now-widowed original owner.

"I would say it was an appointment with destiny," Gibson said in a telephone interview Tuesday. "I just knew it meant something. ... It was extremely powerful, and even though I didn't understand it. I knew it had power."

"Tres Personajes" will be auctioned in Sotheby's Latin American Art auction which will be held next month. The piece can be viewed at Sotheby’s Manhattan locale from November 17 to 20.

According to Tamayo’s biography on Wikipedia his work was influenced by Cubism and Impressionism yet “with a distinctly Mexican feel.” He died in 1991 and has a museum named after him in Mexico City.

Sources (English)- Bloomberg, International Herald Tribune, Sotheby’s, Gothamist, Wikipedia

Sources (Spanish)- Museo Tamayo

Image- Washington Post