Chicago photographer's $220 thrift store paintings sell for $135,000 after rare discovery

In 2016, Chicago photographer Paul Beaty walked into a Salvation Army thrift store with $300 in his pocket and left with two artworks priced at $125 each. After negotiating the price down, he paid $220 in total for what turned out to be rare original works by Warner Sallman, the Chicago artist behind the widely reproduced 1940 painting Head of Christ.

Two years later, Beaty sold both pieces to Colorado author Jerry Jenkins for $135,000, according to WTTW Chicago.The story is a striking example of how ordinary places can hold extraordinary objects. Beaty was not an art dealer or a collector with a specialist’s eye, but a freelance photographer who enjoyed searching garage sales and flea markets for pieces of Americana.

What he found that day would eventually reshape the market value of Sallman’s original work. Read more about this surprising incident, as per the report, here:A familiar image from childhoodSallman’s Head of Christ is one of the most recognisable religious images in the world.