HALIFAX — An art dealer says a painting by the husband of renowned folk artist Maud Lewis sold Sunday for $5,500, with part of its attraction being that he falsely signed his wife's name to his work.
Maud Lewis died in 1970, leaving a legacy of paintings that depict bucolic rural scenes of her home province — and which now routinely sell for tens of thousands of dollars each.
Her husband, Everett Lewis — who died in 1979 — had been her prime salesman while she was alive, and near the end of her life he helped with her paintings, eventually doing his own works modelled on her style and images.
Ethan Miller, the CEO of the auction house Miller and Miller, said in an interview Monday the painting "Two oxen in winter" with the falsified Maud Lewis signature drew the highest price among the five Everett Lewis pieces sold at Sunday's folk art auction in New Hamburg, Ont.
He noted a similar painting of the two oxen in a winter scene, but with Everett Lewis's signature, sold for only $4,250.
Miller said he believes the story behind the painting, including Everett Lewis's reputation for being "underhanded" in how he'd deal with art buyers, may have been a factor in their sale price.
The art seller said if someone came to Everett Lewis's door in the years after his wife died and wanted one of her pieces he'd "give them a Maud Lewis painting," even if it was one of his own.
"Here we have almost identical images by Everett Lewis, one signed with his name, and one signed by Maud Lewis but by Everett, and that brings significantly more. Why? It's because folk art sells because of its story ... as much as the beauty of the work itself," said Miller.
The paintings sold resemble works by Maud Lewis, but her husband would add his own elements, which in the case of the oxen included a figure with a whip next to the oxen.
Everett's association with his wife also draws buyers, said Miller. Maud Lewis has become famous for creating her happy images despite struggling with rheumatoid arthritis that made it difficult for her to hold a brush.
Ray Cronin's online biography of Maud Lewis says the couple were married in 1938, and that they would drive through southern Nova Scotia "selling fish and brightly painted cards."
Cronin, a curator and writer, wrote that near the end of Maud Lewis's life, Everett prepared panels and "began helping her with actual images, painting some of the backgrounds and filling in the colours of some of the central figures."
He wrote that Everett started making his own paintings, influenced by Lewis's work, and "often using the same stencils that he had made for her."
Everett's work went up for auction as part of a postwar Canadian folk art exhibit at Miller's auction house, and the event also included sales of work by Maud Lewis and other Nova Scotian artists.
Other works by Everett Lewis that sold Sunday included "Springtime Oxen," with his signature, which sold for $3,500; "Oxen in Springtime" which sold for $4,250 with his own signature, and a Christmas card showing two brown bunnies and a bunch of red flowers, which sold for $1,300.
A work by Maud Lewis, "Three Black Cats," sold on Sunday for $38,000.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 10, 2025.
Michael Tutton, The Canadian Press
