{"id":995,"date":"2025-10-19T15:34:37","date_gmt":"2025-10-19T15:34:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/2025\/10\/19\/work-of-folk-artists-generates-big-bids-at-auctions-and-its-not-just-maud-lewis-paintings\/"},"modified":"2025-10-19T15:34:37","modified_gmt":"2025-10-19T15:34:37","slug":"work-of-folk-artists-generates-big-bids-at-auctions-and-its-not-just-maud-lewis-paintings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/2025\/10\/19\/work-of-folk-artists-generates-big-bids-at-auctions-and-its-not-just-maud-lewis-paintings\/","title":{"rendered":"Work of folk artists generates big bids at auctions  and its not just Maud Lewis paintings"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p>Nova ScotiaWhile artwork by Maud Lewis routinely sells for tens of thousands of dollars, rising interest in other Nova Scotian folk artists means their work is now selling for thousands of dollars.Painting by Everett Lewis recently sold for $18,400, roughly quadruple what was expectedRichard Woodbury  \u00b7 CBC News  \u00b7 Posted: Oct 19, 2025 5:00 AM EDT | Last Updated: 7 hours agoImages of Everett and Maud Lewis are shown from a 1965 CBC program. After Maud Lewis\u2019s death in 1970, Everett started producing original pieces of art that strongly resembled his wife\u2019s work. (CBC)A painting of two black cats by a Nova Scotian with the last name of Lewis recently sold for around $18,000 at auction.But it wasn\u2019t a Maud Lewis painting \u2014 it was a piece by her husband, Everett Lewis.While Maud Lewis paintings routinely sell for tens of thousands of dollars, rising interest in some other Nova Scotian folk artists means their work is now selling for thousands of dollars.That includes Everett Lewis, who traditionally has been better known for forging his wife\u2019s work than his originals, which bear an uncanny resemblance to Maud\u2019s style.At a recent auction in Saint John, a painting by Everett Lewis that was expected to sell for around $4,500 ended up going for $18,400.This painting by Everett Lewis recently sold for $18,400 through a Saint John auction house. (Jones Auction House)\u201dHe\u2019s more infamous than famous. People have mixed reactions and certainly his name elicits a great deal of controversy,\u201d said Ethan Miller, the CEO of Miller &#038;Miller, a New Hamburg, Ont., auction house.\u201dBut, at the end of the day, a lot of folk art collectors would agree that his work has a certain charm. In its own right, it is or it seems to be from the heart.\u201dMiller isn\u2019t surprised by how much the Everett Lewis painting sold for. In fact, he said it\u2019s a sign of the growing interest in Nova Scotian and Canadian folk art.At a recent Miller &#038;Miller auction, a painting by Nova Scotian Joe Norris that was expected to sell for between $9,000 and $12,000 sold for $23,600.Summer Cove, Flowers in Bloom by the late Nova Scotian Joe Norris, sold for $23,600 at a recent auction in Ontario. (Jon Dunford, Miller &#038; Miller Auctions)Norris was a fisherman who turned to painting after a heart attack, said Miller. \u201cFolk art is as much about the artists as it is about the art,\u201d said Miller, who sold another Morris painting for $30,680 in February 2024.There\u2019s no one single reason behind the spike in value for some Nova Scotia folk art, but Miller pegs the turning point as 2022 when a Maud Lewis painting that was once traded for a grilled cheese sandwich sold for $350,000 at auction.Three Black Cats by Maud Lewis sold at a 2017 Toronto auction for $36,800. (Consignor Canadian Fine Art)He said that sale drew more attention to folk art, but the timing also coincided with the COVID-19 pandemic.\u201dIn an uncertain world and in a world filled with chaos and uncertainty, these paintings most definitely bring a certain kind of light, a certain kind of optimism and a certain kind of honesty to the world,\u201d said Miller.Sarah Jones is the co-owner and curator of Jones Auction House in Saint John, the auction house that recently sold the Everett Lewis painting for $18,400. She believes the rising interest in folk art is being driven by a few things.This Maud Lewis painting sold for $350,000 in 2022. (Submitted by Miller &#038; Miller Auctions Ltd.)Jones said that when there are fluctuations in financial markets or world turmoil, art is seen as a stable investment.Another is that as the work of one artist attracts a lot of attention \u2014 such as Maud Lewis \u2014 it has a spillover effect.\u201dThat leaves them to discover other artists from Nova Scotia, other artists from New Brunswick,\u201d Jones told CBC\u2019s Information Morning Saint John.Jones said the auction with the $18,400 Everett Lewis painting also saw artwork by other Atlantic Canadian artists sell for a lot more than expected.Ethan Miller says the way Joe Norris painted was \u2018unquestionably from the heart.\u2019 (\u00a9 Art Gallery of Nova Scotia)This included a watercolour by New Brunswick artist David McKay that sold for $24,150, despite having an estimated selling value of between $1,200 and $1,500. A pastel by Newfoundland artist Mary Pratt sold for $9,200, compared to the estimate of $3,000 to $5,000.\u201dCertainly, there\u2019s been artists in Atlantic Canada, like, say, Alex Colville or the Pratts [Christopher and Mary]who have had the recognition they deserve, but there are lots of other artists as well who deserve our attention and praise,\u201d said Jones.MORE TOP STORIESABOUT THE AUTHORRichard Woodbury is a journalist with CBC Nova Scotia\u2019s digital team. He can be reached at richard.woodbury@cbc.ca.With files from Information Morning Saint John<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Nova ScotiaWhile artwork by Maud Lewis routinely sells for tens of thousands of dollars, rising interest in other Nova Scotian folk artists means their work is now selling for thousands of dollars.Painting by Everett Lewis recently sold for $18,400, roughly quadruple what was expectedRichard Woodbury \u00b7 CBC News \u00b7 Posted: Oct 19, 2025 5:00 AM [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":996,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[118,125,1],"tags":[116,124],"class_list":["post-995","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-indigenous","category-new-brunswick","category-uncategorized","tag-indigenous","tag-new-brunswick"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/995","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=995"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/995\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/996"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=995"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=995"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=995"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}