The story has all the elements of a Dan Brown thriller: a mural by famous Northwest painter William Cumming — now clearly a priceless masterpiece — forgotten in a Skagit Valley barn for decades and rescued from burn pile oblivion only by a cascade of coincidences. It would be almost as dramatic as finding Da Vinci's Last Supper rolled up and forgotten under the floorboards of a house slated for demolition.
Luckily, Skagit Valley farmer Tony Breckenridge didn't throw away the “tarp” that his father, Edward, a teacher in Edison, had kept folded and unseen, in the family barn. His nieces used to play hopscotch and practice their long jumps on it, and it survived several barn fires and stable cleanings. Breckenridge was going to use it to cover a stack of lumber, but when he saw that the “reverse” side was a painting, he folded it up and put it back in the basement.
Earlier this year, he told me, he had finally decided to throw it out, but he looked at the picture one more time and was reminded of the county's annual Junior Livestock Show. Rather than drag the damn thing to the burn pile, he called Brian Adams at the county parks department. Adams was the man in charge of the County Fair, and might want to use it in an exhibit. A week ago, he came by and loaded the “tarp” into his truck.
What neither man realized at the time was that the tarp was actually a mural depicting Skagit County agricultural life, painted in 1941 by William Cumming, a beloved Northwest artist who died four years ago. (His obituary on Crosscut is here.)
