NEW PORT RICHEY — Fran McLean didn't quite know what she was getting into when she agreed to complete a painting that had been tucked away for decades in the back of another person's closet.
The painting, though incomplete, was too good to toss out. That's what Bobbi Armour, director of Gateway Gallery & Emporium, figured when she happened upon the three-paneled piece — called a triptych — while cleaning out an elder neighbor's belongings that were destined for charity.
"That looks like one of Fran McLean's paintings," Armour thought as she looked over the piece.
McLean, 75, who serves as the curator for the gallery, agreed, as did others who are familiar with her work.
Now the piece, titled The Unfinished ... Finished, will be on exhibit, along with McLean's other works, as part of the featured artist's monthly show, which opens April 7 at the Gateway Gallery and Emporium in downtown New Port Richey.
The original artist, Tom Burrichter, who had worked in advertising, had long since passed away. In December, his 98-year-old widow, Anna Maria (Dolly), was hospitalized after breaking her hip, then moved to a senior living facility.
Armour, a neighbor, was boxing up belongings in the house to donate to St. Aquinas Catholic Church and the St. Vincent de Paul Thrift Shop when she discovered the three-panel painting that had been long forgotten.
After seeing the similarity between the two painters' styles, Armour shared that thought with her neighbor and asked if she would like to see the painting finished. Mrs. Burrichter was delighted, Armour said.
The three-paneled painting measures 62 inches wide and 40 inches high. The middle panel features a well-dressed woman watching an artist work on a portrait of a young boy against a tropical setting. Examples of the artist's other works hang on a black iron fence with a lush, green-foliage backdrop. A side panel that portrays a young child walking away was complete, but his size was off in relation to the rest of the painting, McLean said. Another panel was mostly blank linen canvas that had yellowed over the years.
McLean embellished the center panel, covering the black iron fence to enhance the trees and grass backdrop, then repainted the fence in a less intricate style. She also changed the color of the woman's dress from black to a brighter teal. For the smaller left panel, she made corrections on the boy's size and added her own touch to the right panel by inserting her late husband, George, and their beloved Labrador retriever, Fang.
"My husband is deceased, so I immortalized him," McLean said with a smile. "It was empty, so I figured it was mine."
McLean figures she put in at least 110 hours, sometimes working 10-hour days, to complete the painting.
No one knows the setting of the painting, as Mrs. Burrichter's memory is foggy on that, Amour said. Some who have stopped by the gallery suggest it might be a park in the Miami area where the couple frequently visited in their younger years. The yellowing of the linen canvas and the formal style of the painted woman's dress that rests below the knee have some thinking the painting might be a scene from the late 1960s or early 1970s.
While Mrs. Burrichter has been given a photograph of the painting, The Unfinished ... Finished is up for auction at a starting bid of $150. Proceeds will benefit the nonprofit gallery.
There are options for those who might consider hanging the painting in their home or business, McLean said.
"If people want just the middle section, it can be taken apart," she said. "If they want to give me my husband back, that's fine with me, too."
Contact Michele Miller at mmiller@tampabay.com. Follow @MicheleMiller52.
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