Tomorrow at Dargate Auction Galleries, you can bid on paintings by folk artist Jane Markowitz and her father, Herman Seiferth, who painted signs for his livelihood and landscapes for fun.

If you miss the auction, you can still see their work on any Sunday at St. Luke's Memorial Lutheran Church on the North Side. Over a door is a 20-foot-tall painting of Christ in the garden of Gethsemane by Mr. Seiferth. Hanging above the altar and from a balcony are colorful banners that Mrs. Markowitz made.

The sewn and painted religious banners reflect the vibrant woman who made them. While running the sign company her father founded, she found time throughout her life to paint, both on canvases and on the walls of the Perry Hilltop house she shared with her husband, Bill. Before she died in 1995, Mrs. Markowitz painted Fraktureseque angels in her bedroom, Byzantine saints in a bathroom and imaginary characters on the walls of her kitchen. Her husband died last year.

		More information The Seiferth and Markowitz paintings will be part of a three-day auction ending tomorrow at Dargate Auction Galleries, 214 N. Lexington St., Point Breeze. Information: 412-362-3558 or www.dargate.com.

Joe Mosko, their nephew and executor of the estate, sold some of Mr. Seiferth and Mrs. Markowitz's artwork in an estate sale last month at the house. But the best of her work and that of her father will be auctioned Sunday at Dargate.

However, the piece with the highest pre-sale estimate is not by either artist. It is an 1845 Fraktur birth and baptismal certificate for William Grunenwald of Delaware, Mercer County, one of Mrs. Markowitz's ancestors. Expected to sell for between $1,000 and $2,000, the hand-painted and -lettered document commonly made by German immigrants in the 1800s and early 1900s is considered very collectible. This family heirloom, lot 2291, hung in Mrs. Markowitz's bedroom and inspired her to paint angels on the walls.

The lot with the next highest pre-sale estimate is 2215A, a framed group of nine small oil landscapes by Mr. Seiferth (1875-1942). They are expected to sell for $600 to $900.

Technically, the nine paintings by Mrs. Markowitz are not as good as those of her father. But their bright colors and folk style remind Mr. Mosko of the delightfully quirky woman his aunt was. Most are expected to bring no more than $200 each. But lot 2414B is estimated higher -- $150 to $250 -- because it shows a Pittsburgh icon, the H.J. Heinz plant on the North Side. Dated 1955, the gouache painting on cardboard depicts a construction barrier in front of the factory that was made from old doors. A paddlewheeler steams down the river in the background.

David Arnold, Dargate consignment manager, believes Mrs. Markowitz painted it while attending night classes at Carnegie Tech, now Carnegie Mellon University, with her husband. Another painting shows naked men in a bath house, possibly the old Oakland Athletic Emporium and Natatorium. As lot 2416, it's expected to bring $80 to $120.

"I liked their stuff," Mr. Arnold said. "I think both [Mr. Seiferth] and Jane had a lot of talent."

Father and daughter also believed in sharing their talents with their church. Mr. Seiferth originally donated the large realistic painting of Jesus to Memorial Lutheran Church on the North Side. When Memorial merged with St. Luke's in 1971, the painting was moved and installed over a doorway there. Mrs. Markowitz made many banners and other decorations for St. Luke's during the years they attended that church.

Mr. Mosko recently learned that St. Luke's, which has only a few dozen members, will close at the end of this year. Church members have asked him what he thought should be done with Mr. Seiferth's painting and Mrs. Markowitz's work. He has offered the large Seiferth painting to St. Cyril of Alexandria Church in Brighton Heights, he said, and the banners will go to his church, Ascension Catholic Church in Ingram.