Behind the Paint: The Ailing Painted Lady Painting

This is a painting of two houses.

We all know this painting of Paulette's because it's become part of popular culture, but did you know there's a story behind it, a back story that goes like this?

Paulette went painting with her cousin, Mr. Let's Paint TV, in San Francisco, and they decided to go paint the famous "Painted Ladies" houses on Steiner Street facing Alamo Square.  Paulette had the choice to either pretend the house had no scaffolding and mesh in front of it or to paint it as it was.  So she painted it as it was, and the board of tourism got very upset because it reflected poorly on the city to show one of its famous sites in an unflattering light.

The controversy drove the painting's price sky-high to over 50 American dollars.

And the city of San Francisco banned Paulette for life, but it didn't stop her from from coming back into the city disguised as Minny Mouse in a fluorescent pink dress playing a trombone.