A Winnipeg woman says she is outraged after finding out a courier she used to ship an heirloom painting to her nephew in Montreal threw the artwork in the garbage.
Judith Putter says she paid UPS to professionally package the painting to ensure the glass was "masked" so it would do no harm if it broke.
Her nephew told her almost a week after she sent it last month that the painting had not arrived, so she checked the tracking information on the UPS website.
It said the package had been "damaged in transit" and "all merchandise discarded."
Putter says the painting belonged to her mother, who died last year and left it in her will to her grandson Jeremy Shinewald as a wedding gift.
The courier says it is working with Putter and the Winnipeg UPS outlet that she dealt with.
"We always work to ensure that our customers receive the service that they expect," UPS said in an email to the Winnipeg Free Press.
"I almost had a fit," Putter, a former gallery owner, said this week. "How do you discard people's belongings?"
A collage in acrylic painted on heavy paper, the painting was called "Bridge World: The Spirit Makers Come" by the late Alicia Popoff, a renowned Saskatchewan artist whose work Putter showed in solo exhibitions at the Thomas Gallery in 1989 and 1991.
It was recently appraised at $9,000, Putter said.
She doesn't have photos of the large painting, but family members are searching for pictures that might show it in the background.
Putter said she expects to receive the UPS maximum $2,500 in damage insurance, but added it's irrelevant because the one-of-a-kind painting had tremendous emotional significance for Shinewald.
"My mother bought it in April of '89, and it hung in her place for years, and Jeremy always loved it. She kept saying, 'When you get married, that's going to be your wedding present,'" Putter said.
"It's a beautiful piece of art and ... it's something that was a beautiful reminder of a woman that I had an amazing relationship with," Shinewald said.
"Nothing can replace it. Nothing."
Shinewald said he and his aunt have contacted UPS customer service several times and been told various things - that the painting was stained or it was damaged or it was dangerous.
Victor Avalos, who works at the UPS location where Putter arranged the shipment, said employees have been trying to find out why the outlet wasn't notified before the package was trashed in Lachine, Que.
"They say... when the glass broke, it was considered hazardous material and they had to discard it," he said. "But they didn't give details on how it got damaged."
Shinewald said UPS sent him a copy of its policy, which states it can dispose of anything that "may cause harm to any UPS employee, the public, or damage to other packages, pallets, UPS equipment or facilities, without prior notification to the shipper."
He said he has filed a report with Montreal police.
Canadian Press
