A painting bought for just $100 in 1939 turned into one of the more remarkable discoveries featured on PBS’ Antiques Roadshow. In 2014, New York-based art expert Debra Force gave the painting a retail valuation of $500,000. The PBS Antiques Roadshow archive confirms the original purchase, the provenance and the 2014 valuation, while later reporting by Outdoor Painter and Grunge provides additional details about the artwork’s history and what happened to it afterwards.
The work, by Hungarian-born California Impressionist Joseph Kleitsch, was brought to the programme decades later by the daughter of the couple who originally purchased it.
They purchased the painting from the artist’s widow in 1939, eight years after Kleitsch’s death. Still, the difference between the family’s original $100 purchase and the 2014 estimate was striking. The painting had remained with the family for roughly 75 years before its appearance on television. John and Patricia Dilks acquired The Drugstore in 2016, according to later reporting. The exact sale price was not publicly disclosed, although reports indicate that it sold for more than the $500,000 television valuation.
Because antiques Roadshow valuations are estimates rather than guaranteed selling prices, the distinction matters. Its journey into the family’s hands was unusually direct. The woman who appeared on Antiques Roadshow explained that her parents knew Kleitsch and his widow. The programme itself notes that values can change depending on factors such as condition, market demand and where an object is sold. The story did not end with the television appraisal. Following the episode, interest in the painting increased, and the work eventually changed hands.
What began as a $100 family purchase in 1939 had therefore become something considerably more significant: not just a valuable painting, but a rare visual record of early Laguna Beach and an important surviving work by an artist whose career ended far too soon.