She Paid Under $100 for a Thrift Store Painting. Google Gemini Helped It Sell for $254,000.
Helene Plotkin bought the painting in 1966 and loved it for decades. Her son’s five-minute experiment with Google Gemini changed everything.
Helene Plotkin spent 60 years living with a masterpiece and had no idea. The 88-year-old art teacher bought a painting at a White Plains, N.Y. thrift store in 1966 for under $100, hung it on her wall and loved it. Last December her son Barry helped her sell it for $254,000, with the help of Google Gemini, according to the New York Times.
Curious abou the painting’s value, Barry snapped a photo, uploaded it and asked the chatbot what it could tell him. Gemini identified the bold brushwork and orange accents as characteristics of F.C.B. Cadell, a celebrated Scottish Colourist from the 1920s, and recommended specific appraisers to contact. Experts at auction house Lyon & Turnbull confirmed.
Gemini got the identity of the subject slightly wrong but the artist exactly right. Helene had one request for the buyer: display it publicly someday so her grandchildren might be able to see it.
Helene Plotkin spent 60 years living with a masterpiece and had no idea. The 88-year-old art teacher bought a painting at a White Plains, N.Y. thrift store in 1966 for under $100, hung it on her wall and loved it. Last December her son Barry helped her sell it for $254,000, with the help of Google Gemini, according to the New York Times.
Curious abou the painting’s value, Barry snapped a photo, uploaded it and asked the chatbot what it could tell him. Gemini identified the bold brushwork and orange accents as characteristics of F.C.B. Cadell, a celebrated Scottish Colourist from the 1920s, and recommended specific appraisers to contact. Experts at auction house Lyon & Turnbull confirmed.
Gemini got the identity of the subject slightly wrong but the artist exactly right. Helene had one request for the buyer: display it publicly someday so her grandchildren might be able to see it.
