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Saturday, 21 May 2011 01:45

American Art Sets Multiple Records at Sotheby's

Ernest Leonard Blumenschein, “White Blanket and Blue Spruce,” $1,538,500. Ernest Leonard Blumenschein, “White Blanket and Blue Spruce,” $1,538,500.

NEW YORK CITY – Work from two private collections and the Wichita Center for the Arts sparked competitive bidding at Sotheby’s auction of American paintings, drawings and sculpture on May 19.
 
Sotheby’s shook off marketplace jitters to generate $27.1 million on 84 lots, exceeding its global low estimate of $25.3 million. Heaviest in 19th century and Impressionist paintings and works on paper, the varied selection included only a smattering of sculpture.
 
Thirty-seven lots failed to find buyers, a better result than that achieved by Christie’s a day earlier when high-profile property from the Westervelt Company was heavily bought in.  Experts in the trade generally agreed that material was overestimated at both houses and that great property is scarce in a market still recovering from recession.
 
Six paintings at Sotheby’s surpassed $1 million and records were set for Ernest Blumenschein, William J. McCloskey and William Aiken Walker, painters who enjoy strong regional followings.
 
Edward P. Evans Collection
Casanova, Va., collector Edward P. Evans, who died in January, avidly acquired everything from sporting art to American Impressionism. Like his father, Thomas Mellon Evans, the former chairman of Macmillan Publishing was a noted breeder of race horses.
 
The Evans consignment generated $12,726,750, handsomely exceeding low estimate and producing five of the day’s top ten lots.
 
“Dock Builders,” an important early modernist oil on canvas by George Bellows, went to a private collector for $3,890,500 (est. $2/3,000,000). This pivotal Maine painting of 1916 is the first of the artist’s studies of American workers in the countryside. According to expert Michael Quick, it is also a foremost example of Cezanne’s influence on the Ashcan School artist.
 
“Quai St. Michel,” an 1888 Paris street scene by Childe Hassam, who arrived in Paris from Boston in 1886, sold to the Caldwell Gallery for $2,098,500 (est. $2,5/3,000,000).
 
“It is an extraordinary painting and a surprising result,” said dealer Joe Caldwell. “Hassam’s Paris street scenes are very much sought after. This one sold for almost $3 million in 1998. I was frankly surprised to buy it for this price.”
 
Hassam painted his best work between 1888 and 1906 and during World War I, Caldwell said. Richly detailed, “Quai St. Michel” depicts an attractive young woman browsing at an outdoor book stall with architectural landmarks in the background.
 
Debra Force underbid “The Old Sand Road” by William Merritt Chase. Painted en plein air circa 1894, the tranquil Shinnecock, Long Island, N.Y., scene fetched $1,202,500 (est. $7/900,000).  Two small figures in the middle ground are Chase’s daughters.
 
Force had better luck when it came to “Wrapped Oranges on a Tabletop,” claiming the 1897 trompe l’oeil depiction of fruit for a record $782,500 (est. $250/350,000). She also acquired, from a private New York collection, Winslow Homer’s signed and initialed watercolor “Listening to the Birds,” for $326,500.
 
“It’s a charming little piece,” said the New York dealer.
 
Sotheby’s will continue with sporting paintings, furniture and decorations from Evans’ New York and Virginia residences this fall with sales in New York and London.
 
East Coast Collection
Two other major lots came from a consignment of more than 100 works from an unidentified East Coast collection.
 
Thomas Hart Benton’s timely “Flood Disaster (Homecoming - Kaw Valley)” sold to the phone for $1,874,500 (est. $800,000/1,200,000). The price is the second highest at auction for a work by Benton, who created the oil and tempera on canvas in response to the devastating 1951 flooding of the Kansas and Missouri rivers.
 
Two phones competed for Milton Avery’s oil on canvas “March Playing the Cello,” which went for $1,426,500 (est. $800/1,200,000). The liquid looking portrait of the artist’s daughter dates to 1943.
 
Regional Interest
Bidders clamored for paintings of Western and Southern interest.
 
Two of  New Mexico’s top dealers in historic Santa Fe and Taos school paintings, Nedra Matteucci and Gerald Peters,  were in the room to watch Taos founder Ernest Blumenschein’s  monumental oil on canvas “White Blanket and Blue Spruce” of 1919 soar past its low estimate of $700,000 to sell for a record $1,538,500.
 
The Blumenschein was consigned by the Wichita Center for the Arts, which acquired it from the artist in 1928. Walter Ufer’s “After the Chapel Hour,” a lively Pueblo Indian scene purchased from the artist by the museum in 1923, fetched $818,500 (est. $6/800,000.) William Penhallow Henderson’s “Lucero’s Place, Springtime” crossed the block at $410,500 (est. $100/150,000). The Arizona collector who consigned it acquired it from the Gerald Peters Gallery around 1990.

Born in Charleston, S.C., William Aiken Walker (1828-1921) painted sentimental genre scenes of the old South.  “The Cotton Wagon,” an 18 by 30 inch oil on canvas, went to the phone for $434,500 (est. $150/250,000), while a pair of Walker portraits made $27,500 (est. $20/30,000). A smaller genre scene, “The Old Cabin,” grossed only $8,750 (est. $10/15,000).
 
Other notable paintings included Sanford Gifford’s “Haverstraw Bay (Shad Fishing on the Hudson),” $290,500; Severin Roesen’s “Abundant Bouquet with Pomegranate,” $302,500;  Alfred Henry Maurer’s “Woman in White,” $590,500; and David Johnson’s “View from Garrison, West Point, New York,” $278,500.
 
Hirschl & Adler Galleries of New York claimed “Spring Evening,” a drybrush and watercolor on paper of a nude by Andrew Wyeth, for $458,500.
 
“It’s a very important picture but not a big price,” said Guilford, Ct., dealer Thomas Colville, who purchased “A White Note” by James McNeill Whistler for $290,500. Originally owned by English artist Walter Sickert, the unfinished portrait depicts Whistler’s companion, Joanna Hifferman, who posed for “Symphony in White No. 1” and “No. 2,” at the National Gallery of Art and the Tate Gallery, respectively.
 
Passed
Sotheby’s misgauged its cover lot, Albert Bierstadt’s “Light in the Forest,” atypical in both its subject matter, deer grazing in a forest clearing, and in its vertical format.  Estimated at $2/3,000,000, the oil on canvas painted in the mid to late 1890s passed at $1.7 million.

Other notable failures included a 1985 recast of Augustus Saint-Gauden’s “Diana of the Tower,”  passed at $190,000, and the tiny “Fruit, Nuts and Grapes” still life by Raphaelle Peale, passed at $220,000. Painted in 1923, Marsden Hartley’s 22 by 41 ½ inch oil on canvas, “New Mexico Recollection #8,” passed at $590,000. A similar Hartley painting of the same year and size fetched $242,500, well under its $5/700,000 estimate, a day earlier at Christie’s.

Prices quoted include buyer’s premium.
 
Write to Laura Beach at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

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