The estate of the late Maine painter Thomas Crotty is offering a few of his personal favorites for sale at auction.

Barridoff Gallery of Portland hopes to sell more than a dozen paintings that Crotty owned, as well as one that he painted, when it hosts its fall auction on Friday at the University of Southern Maine in Portland. The sale includes more than 200 paintings and sculpture.

The portion of Crotty’s personal collection available Friday includes paintings by many of the artists he championed through his gallery, including Stephen Etnier, John Laurent and Alfred Chadbourn. The family decided to sell these paintings after going through his collection and deciding what to keep and what to sell, said Rob Elowitch, who operates Barridoff. “They took what they wanted and are selling the rest,” Elowitch said.

There’s also one picture that Crotty painted, a gauche titled “Winter, Maine,” that shows a white barn surrounded by fields of snow, distant dark woods and an earth-toned fence line in the foreground.

Generally, the value of an artist’s work increases after he dies, Elowitch said. It remains to be seen if that will happen with Crotty’s work. Elowitch estimates that “Winter, Maine” has a market value of between $9,000 and $12,000.

Crotty died in August at age 80. He was a popular painter of Maine scenes, and for decades operated Frost Gully Gallery in Portland and, later, Freeport.

Friday’s auction includes many other paintings by Etnier, Richard Estes, James Fitzgerald and Aaron Douglas. The sale begins at 6 p.m. Friday at USM’s Abromson Center, 88 Bedford St., Portland. A preview is from 5 to 8 p.m. Thursday and 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Friday.


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