She Picked Up a Painting From the Trash. It Sold for $1,049,000.

[00:00:00]In 2003, a painting worth over $1 million was sitting in a pile of trash on a New York City street.

[00:00:07]Hundreds of people walked past it. One woman stopped. And that one decision changed her life forever.

[00:00:14]Her name was Elizabeth Gibson, a writer living on Manhattan's Upper West Side. One morning, she was heading out to grab coffee when she spotted something unusual sitting on the garbage pile at West 72nd Street and Broadway.

[00:00:29]She had no idea what it was. She had no idea who painted it. She just felt something was off about seeing it there.

[00:00:36]So, she picked it up and took it home.

[00:00:38]For the next 4 years, she kept it on her wall and quietly tried to figure out what she was living with.

[00:00:44]The painting in her apartment was called Tres Personajes, created in 1970 by Rufino Tamayo, one of the most celebrated Mexican artists who ever lived. In 1977, it had been purchased at Sotheby's for $55,000 by a Houston collector as a gift for his wife.

[00:01:03]In 1987, it was stolen from their storage locker during a house move and had been missing ever since.

[00:01:10]Gibson contacted the original owner, the widow, who immediately arranged to put it up for auction at Sotheby's.

[00:01:17]In November 2007, Tres Personajes sold at Sotheby's for $1,049,000.

[00:01:25]Gibson received a $15,000 reward plus a percentage of the final sale price for a painting she pulled out of a garbage pile on her way to get coffee.