MANCHESTER, N.H. –  Predictions are always dangerous but I am betting that the Kellogg Collection of American Folk Art, slated for sale at Northeast Auctions on August 6, will be a shot in the arm for the Americana field.
 
The sad news emanating from the American Folk Art Museum, whose shaky finances forced it to shutter its stylish headquarters at West 53rd Street in Manhattan on July 8, has contributed to a general sense that folk art has lost its fizz.

Truth is, many buyers are sitting on the sidelines. Auctioneers will tell you that the business relies on high-profile, single-owner catalogued sales to generate excitement.  Such consignments have been scarce in the past three years, the slack only partly offset by estate properties.
 
From the point of view of the market, the collection formed over the past four decades by Steven Kellogg, the author and illustrator of children’s books, and his wife Helen, a scholar of American folk painting, ticks all the boxes. Exercising a keen eye for color, form, pattern and surface, the Kelloggs chose pieces that spoke deeply to them and made them smile. They were especially drawn to folk portraiture, painted surfaces and American Windsor chairs.
 
The Kellogg collection contains a little more than 200 lots, most of which are moderately priced to appeal to exactly the sort of retail shopper who attends Antiques Week in New Hampshire, which begins at Northeast Auctions on August 5 and continues for eight days. I am told that the Kelloggs and their advisor, Pennsylvania dealer Patrick Bell, never seriously considered auctioning the collection anywhere but in New Hampshire in August.
 
The Americana crowd is one big, mostly happy family. Besides New Hampshire, it gathers in New York in January and Philadelphia in April. All three destinations were developed by show promoter Russell Carrell, as Northeast Auctions chief Ron Bourgeault reminded me, beginning in the late 1950s.
 
“Russell gave those of us in New England, particularly, the opportunity to find these objects,” says Bourgeault. Chronicled by trade publications like Antiques and The Arts Weekly and Maine Antique Digest, a community of kindred souls developed. At its heart and representative of its spirit are the Kelloggs.
 
Assembled by Bell, Northeast’s catalogue, A Product of Passion: The American Folk Art Collection of Helen & Steven Kellogg, is a colorful record of the country Americana collecting movement. With contributions by Bell; the actress Helen Hunt, a Kellogg family friend; the dealer Stephen Score; the collectors Charles Santore, R. Scudder Smith and Joan Johnson; the scholar Elisabeth Garrett Widmer; and Steven Kellogg himself, it documents the couple’s personal journey while honoring an era when enthusiasm ran high and buyers were altogether less cynical and more daring in their tastes than they are now.
 
Stephen Score shares the Kelloggs’ soulful rapport with folk art. One recent afternoon, the Boston dealer offered his recollections of times spent with the collectors, who a decade ago moved from Connecticut to Steven Kellogg’s boyhood home of Essex, N.Y.
 
“Working with them was so natural it was like breathing in and out. They made interesting choices. They didn’t want generic portraits of children. They wanted to live with children who had interior lives, who were quirky and charming and expressive. Some of this goes to Steven, who because of his work had a ready-built preference for simplified line and shape, color and the expression of real spirit in an economical way,” said Score.
 
“Helen has a very referential intelligence and was able to discern an artist’s development over time. One time in Boston, we spent the evening on the floor looking at watercolors upside down. She was trying to tease out the characteristics of the noses, eyes and mouths and did not want to be prejudiced by the constellation of the other facial elements. She is a contrarian, willing and eager to challenge conventions to get to the truth.”
 
Score concluded, “The late 1960s and early 1970s were a time when things were coming out of the woodwork with dazzling speed and regularity. You might find a great watercolor. Then you would trip over some fabulous piece of furniture. With the freshness and excitement came a kind of generosity. The Kelloggs were open and sharing. Everyone liked them and enjoyed working with them.”
 
Over the years, the Kelloggs donated a few pieces and sold others when they moved. For the most part, the collection is intact, says Bell.
 
Arrayed here are a few of the highlights:

• Lot 567 – Purchased from Wayne Pratt, this 66 inch tall carousel figure of a giraffe is attributed to Daniel Muller of the Dentzel Company in Philadelphia. In wonderful old paint, it is estimated at $50/70,000.
  
  
• Lot 572 – Illustrated on its top with game boards and its underside with kittens climbing a tree, this early 19th century chair table with late 19th century painted decoration passed from dealer Bill Samaha to collector Virginia Cave, who auctioned it for $21,850 at her landmark sale at Northeast in 2000. It is presently estimated at $20/25,000.
  
  
• Lot 512 – Helen Kellogg identified the husband and wife painters Samuel Addison Shute and Ruth Whittier Shute in research published in 1978. Only a handful of signed Shutes are known. This unsigned double portrait on paper came from Stephen Score and is estimated at $20/25,000.
  
  
• Lot 642 – Joel and Kate Kopp chose this mid-19th century chenille shirred pictorial rug for their 1985 book, American Hooked and Sewn Rugs: Folk Art Underfoot. The Kelloggs purchased it from the dealer-collector Allan Daniel. It is expected to bring between $10,000 and $15,000.
  
  
• Lot 503 - This 19th century blanket chest is grain painted and embellished with crisp architectural details. It brought $8,000 at the Miele sale in 1984 and $14,950 at the Feldman auction in 1998. It is currently estimated at $15/20,000.
  
  
• Lot 544 - This great writing-arm Windsor chair with two drawers is branded with the name of its maker, E.B. Tracy of Lisbon, Ct. Illustrated in Charles Santore’s book, The Windsor Style: Volume II, it is estimated at $8/12,000.

 
The Kellogg collection may be viewed at Northeast Auctions in Portsmouth, N.H., between July 25 and 30. The public preview begins on August 5 in Manchester, N.H., prior to the sale.
 
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Recent results at Skinner, Inc. in Boston offer further evidence that China is remaking the art market in every corner of the world. But can the Chinese art boom be sustained or is it a bubble that is bound to burst? Signs suggest that, short of radical realignment of the Chinese economy, the rally will continue though perhaps take different directions as supplies of classical Chinese art dwindle globally.
 
Consider this:

• The French auction market authority CVV reported in June that China had overtaken the United States as the biggest auction market in the world for art and antiques after sales in China more than doubled in a year to $10.8 billion.
  
  
• According to the World Wealth Report 2010, there are now 477,000 collectors in China.
  
  
• A study by the China Minsheng Bank claims that the Chinese spend at least $12.4 billion a year on art.
  
  
• According to the most recent Hunan report, mainland China has nearly a million millionaires.

 
Aggregated statistics about the art market are always hard to come by and these, like others, should be read with great caution. Nevertheless, there is no question that the sleeping dragon has awakened, as Skinner’s results underscore.
 
At $6.1 million, Skinner’s June 2-5 Asian art sale was the firm’s second largest grossing ever, in any category.
 
“When you consider that the top lot came in at $539,500 and only seven other lots exceeded the $100,000 mark, you can appreciate the incredible demand,” says Skinner department chief James Callahan, noting that the auction was 94 percent sold by lot.
 
Almost exclusively, Skinner’s buyers are mainland Chinese and their agents, a trend that has been increasing, says Callahan. Much of the buying at Skinner was in the room. Online bidding is steadily rising, too. Skinner has seen a five-fold increase in the dollar amount sold via the internet since the second quarter of 2009.
 
Skinner dominates its middle-market niche. “Sotheby’s and Christie’s have large sales of very good material, but also have high estimates and high pass rates. We have a more workable formula,” says Callahan. Paintings specialist Tianyue Jiang said prices at Skinner for old and modern Chinese painting of impeccable provenance rival results achieved in Hong Kong.
Eighteenth Century Qianlong carvings and porcelain and 19th and early 20th century paintings led sales at Skinner:
 

• Heavily carved with Immortals in a mountainous landscape, an 18th century bamboo brush pot, the sale’s cover lot, surpassed its $800/1,200 estimate to sell to a Chinese bidder for $539,500.
  
  
• A pair of Qianlong covered jars ornamented with landscape panels and foo dog lugs made $292,000 against an estimate of $600/800.
  
  
• A carved rhinoceros horn libation cup dating to the 18th century fetched $250,000 (est. $5/7,000).
  
  
• Carved with scholars amid rocky mountains, a 19th century wood sculpture on an ivory stand brought $106,650 (est.  $5/700).
  
  
• Dating to the late 18th or early 19th century, a carved, white jade double-gourd vase and cover brought $142,200(est. $2/3,000).
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• Ex-collection of Rhode Island Senator Theodore F. Green , a mounted leaf illustrated with a landscape in ink and colors on silk soared to $159,975 (est. $300/500).

 
The Chinese art boom is playing out in auction houses large and small around the world. Witness this:
 

• At Schultz Auctions in Clarence, N.Y., on May 7, a Qianlong moon vase fetched $1.55 million from a Shanghai dealer. It had been expected to bring $100,000.
  
  
• In London between May 9 and 13, a series of record-breaking Asian art sales tallied more than $88 million, more than triple the 2010 take.
  
  
• Sales of Asian art at Christie’s Hong Kong reached $489 million between May 27 and June 1. Fully 70 percent of the sales went to Chinese buyers from the mainland, Hong Kong and Taiwan.  Ninety percent of the buyers of modern Chinese paintings were Chinese.
  
  
• On June 20, Michaan’s 403-lot sale of Fine Asian Works of Art grossed just under $2 million, an all time record for the Alameda, Ca., based auction house. A pair of horseshoe chairs fashioned from 16th and 17th century elements brought more than 17 times estimate, selling for $310,000.
  
  
• On June 21, sales reached $11.5 million at Bonhams & Butterfield’s auction of Fine Asian Works of Art in San Francisco. A pair of 18th century Chinese huanghuali  yoke-back armchairs contributed $1.5 million to the total.

 
Writing in the June issue of Art + Auction, Souren Melikian noted a lack of discrimination among Chinese buyers as a whole and identified nationalism as the force driving what he calls the repatriation of Chinese works of art to the “homeland.”
 
But most experts believe that Chinese tastes are steadily becoming both more sophisticated and more adventurous.
 
“The Chinese are expanding. They are beginning to buy whatever they may feel is a good investment,” says New York dealer Joel Frankel, who has been trading in Chinese art for 44 years.
“There is a learning curve, but knowing the Chinese, it won’t take long,” agrees Callahan, who sees, for instance, an uptick in sales of beautifully crafted but undervalued Japanese art to Chinese buyers.
 
Meanwhile, do not expect pre-sale auction estimates to adjust to the market’s new reality anytime soon. As a recent Facebook exchange made clear, it is a brave, new Chinese world out there.
 
“Nice to know that I’m not the only who can’t put estimates on Chinese antiques,” said a Midwestern auctioneer.
 
“No reason to try,” replied his Mid Atlantic colleague.
 
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With international demand driving prices for many commodities, it should be no surprise that demand is strong for 20th century decorative arts, which enjoy a worldwide following. As the latest round of auctions in New York and New Jersey demonstrated, blue-chip properties with global appeal command a premium. European designers led the way at Sotheby’s, where a Ruhlmann dining table doubled low estimate to sell for $1.5 million, and at Christie’s, where a Jean Dunand occasional table made $638,500. Tiffany carried the day at Bonhams, which sold a “Wisteria” table lamp by the American designer for $792,400. The Studio Craft movement was hot at Rago Auctions, where a Wharton Esherick wagon-wheel table made $198,400. Altogether, the four auction houses grossed $20,769,580. The last sale of the series is planned for June 25 at Skinner in Boston, which promises homegrown specialties along with more worldly fare.
 
BONHAMS NEW YORK
June 7
Total Sales: $2,447,330
Lots Offered:  346
Percentage of Lots Sold: 68%
Top Price: $792,400
Average Price: $10,925
 
The Bottom Line:  Bonhams vice president and 20th century design expert Frank Maraschiello sees strength in the market for the best Tiffany lamps, metalwork and glass. At $792,400, a Tiffany Studios leaded glass and bronze “Wisteria” table lamp was Bonhams top lot, surpassing the $578,500 paid for a similar example at Christie’s.   Other successes at Bonhams included a rare Tiffany & Co. carved mahogany quarter chiming hall clock. Designed by Paulding Farnham and built under the supervision of Joseph Lindauer around 1887, it fetched $91,500. “I still believe in the Art Nouveau market,” says Maraschiello, citing as evidence a cameo glass Cycas Revoluta vase of circa 1904 that crossed the block at $30,500. Celebrity worked like a charm for “Confetti,” an 1894 lithograph by Toulouse-Lautrec. The property of Lauren Bacall, it garnered $39,040.
 
RAGO
June 11-12
Total Sales:  $5.3 million
Lots Offered:  1302
Percentage of Lots Sold:  80%
Top Price: $198,400
Average Price:  $3,780
 
The Bottom Line: Rago of Lambertville, N.J., took the lead in volume, offering 1,300 lots in two, action-packed days featuring Arts & Crafts, 20th century design and Modern glass and ceramics. This varied sale drew over 1,000 bidders, more than two-thirds of them online. “There was real strength in the market for Studio craftsmen, namely Wharton Esherick, George Nakashima and Paul Evans,” says auctioneer David Rago. An Esherick wagon-wheel table of around 1932 took top honors at $198,400. A playful Judy McKie hippo bench went for $62,000. A Nakashima hanging cabinet brought $44,640 and a Wendell Castle music stand garnered $33,480. Studio ceramics were much in demand, with a Scheier vase tipping the scales at $11,780, the price paid for a contemporary glass sculpture by Dante Moroni. Early 20th century material, including a pair of hammered copper candlesticks by Gustav Stickley, $65,100, was more than 90% sold. The auctioneer noted weakness in the lower and middle market for works valued at under $5,000.
 
SOTHEBY’S NEW YORK
June 15
Total Sales:  $7,176,750
Lots Offered:  113
Percentage of Lots Sold:  75%
Top Price: $1,482,500
Average Price:  $84,432
 
The Bottom Line: This was Sotheby’s biggest grossing 20th century decorative arts sale since 2008, an indication to some that the market is returning to its pre-recession highs. The total was augmented by a circa 1930 ebony and amboyna wood dining table by Emile-Jacques Ruhlmann that once belonged to Pop artist Andy Warhol, who included it in his 1972 film, L’Amour. Two determined phone bidders drove the table beyond its $700/900,000 to sell for $1,482,500. The table led the final installment of property a Midwestern collection featuring French Art Deco works by Ruhlmann, René Lalique and others. Altogether, the 11-piece group grossed $2,884,500 and included a Ruhlmann “Ducharne” secretaire, $602,500, and a Lalique “Ananas et Grenades” chandelier, $254,500. Separately, Tiffany sold well, with a “Dragonfly Hanging Head” floor lamp making $422,500 and a “Nasturtium” chandelier bringing $218,500.
 
CHRISTIES NEW YORK
June 16
Total Sales: $5,845,500
Lots Offered: 207
Percentage of Lots Sold: 74%
Top Price: $638,500
Average Price: $37,958
 
The Bottom Line:  Pedigree is important. “There is continuous and growing vigor in the market for rare works by landmark masters with admired provenance,” says Philippe Garner, Christie’s international department head. Sales exceeded high estimate, with 154 of 207 lots finding buyers.  Furniture by European-born designers Jean Dunand, Emile-Jacques Ruhlmann, Jens Quistgaard and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe led the way, a circa 1930 Dunand  tiered table, or gueridon, in a boldly patterned lacquered finish topping sales at $638,500. Quistgaard’s 1960s Danish Modern table for manufacturer Richard Nissen blew away its $4/6,000 estimate, soaring to $122,500. What looked like a prototype for mass-market lawn seating, Mies’s “Tugendhat” chromium and steel armchair of circa 1930, made $116,500. Americans Philip and Kelvin Lavern came on strong. Fashioned from patinated bronze and pewter, their circa 1970 “Les Femmes” cabinet doubled its low estimate to bring $116,500. In lighting, it was Tiffany Studios all the way. Leaded glass and bronze table lamps included examples in the “Wisteria” and “Rose” pattern, $158,500 each; the “Dragonfly” pattern, $122,500; and the “Peony” pattern, $116,500.
 
SKINNER BOSTON
June 25
Total Sales: TBD
Lots Offered: 757
Percentage of Lots Sold: TBD
Top Price: TBD
Average Price:  TBD
 
The Bottom Line: Skinner upcoming sale of 20th century design auction looks to be strong in American fare. Home-grown specialties include a circa 1904 Boston table lamp (est. $25/35,000) with a leaded glass shade made by Bigelow & Kennard of Bigelow Studios and a pottery base crafted by Grueby Faience Company. Retailed by the iconic Cambridge, Ma., home furnishing store, Design Research, pieces by Borge Mogensen and Ben Thompson are another highlight. Estimates are conservative on most of the 757 lots but expect aggressive results on furniture by George Nakashima and Hans Wegner. An international array of silver, from Georg Jensen to Sanborns of Mexico, is on offer.  Colorful Clarice Cliff pottery should brighten the day. Total sales are predicted to reach $656,315.

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NEW YORK CITY – You may not be in line for your own reality television series but you have a shot at “Buried Treasure,” the new Keno brothers show that is set to debut on Fox television on August 24.
 
A-list antiquarians Leigh Keno and Leslie Keno are hosting auditions on June 18 at Leigh’s gallery at 127 East 69th Street on New York’s Upper East Side. The twins and their production team are looking for people with great objects and even better stories.
 
“This show has lots of human emotion.  It’s got suspense, drama and tears, both of joy and sorrow,” dealer-turned-auctioneer Leigh told AFAnews.com.
 
“Buried Treasure,” whose name echoes that of the Kenos’ autobiography, Hidden Treasures, published in 2000 by Warner Books, is a departure from “Antiques Roadshow,” the PBS hit series that made the Kenos household names over the past 15 years.  Regrettably, contract terms prevent them from continuing with “Antiques Roadshow.”
 
On “Buried Treasure,” Leigh and Leslie, a senior vice president at Sotheby’s in New York, will identify and value objects, then work to connect participants with buyers.  For the moment we are sworn to secrecy but, rest assured, some buyers will be well-known members of the trade.
 
Aimed in part at recession-weary viewers eager for good economic news, the rags-to-riches drama promises a boon for both sellers and buyers. The series is being shot on location around the United States. Each episode follows several objects from their discovery to the marketplace.
 
“We are the catalysts to get people the best money. In most of the stories that we follow, the money goes to help change a participant’s life for the better.  It literally goes to feeding the children or patching the roof,” says Leigh.
 
“Buried Treasure” is one of a spate of new antiques and collectibles shows already on television or currently in the works. Some of the most successful programs are “American Pickers” and “Pawn Stars” on the History Channel, Spike TV’s “Auction Hunters”, TLC’s “What The Sell?!” and HGTV’s “Cash & Cari.”
 
The Kenos teamed up with Joe Livecchi, series creator and executive producer, and co-producers Paul Buccieri, Tim Miller and Tim Eagan on “Buried Treasure,” an ITV America production that will air at 8 p.m. on Wednesdays.
 
Home base for “Buried Treasure” is the second floor of Keno Auctions, where auditions will take place this Saturday.  Specialists will be on hand to examine a wide range of objects.
 
“If you have a piece that you think may have some value, maybe it has emotional significance to you or historical importance, we would like to see it and appraise it,” Leslie says on the short video that the duo posted on YouTube and to kenoauctions.com.

For instructions on qualifying for the casting call, go to Ihaveburiedtreasure.com or write to the production team at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..  Someone from the show’s casting office will contact you directly and confirm a time between 10 am and 6 pm on June 18.
 
Who knew that this casting couch had ball-and-claw feet?
 
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Northeast Auctions has a reputation as an Americana powerhouse but its Memorial Day weekend sale in Portsmouth, N.H., proved that it knows its way around the market for fine art, as well.
 
On Sunday, May 29, ten Old Master drawings executed in chalk, pencil, ink and gouache set Northeast’s phones ablaze. Altogether, the works on paper generated nearly $150,000, six times their low estimate. Most were acquired by European dealers, auctioneer Ron Bourgeault said afterward.
 
Leading the group was a 19 ¼ by 13 inch pen, ink and wash architectural capriccio by the Venetian master Francesco Guardi. The signed piece more than tripled its low estimate to bring $54,280.
 
Two drawings with storied pasts also fared well.  Once the property of society decorator Elsie de Wolfe, known as Lady Mendl after her marriage, the drawings are inscribed with her name and an address to conjure with: 10 Avenue d’lena in Paris’s leafy  XVIe arrondissment. Sir Charles and Lady Mendel had an apartment in the former mansion of Prince Roland Bonaparte. The most costly of de Wolfe’s two drawings, a pencil and sepia wash on paper of a fountain flanked by nymphs, brought $38,940. A chalk study of women and children fetched $35,400. Both works are initialed but not signed.
 
Harriet Whitney Frishmuth (1880-1980)’s ebullient 46-inch bronze of a leaping woman, “The Joy of the Waters,” surpassed estimate to bring $79,650. It is one of more than 40 Roman Bronze Works castings of the figure and dates to around 1920. The sculpture is the first and favorite of the garden fountains made by the Philadelphia-born artist, who created two versions of “The Joy of the Waters.”  The Belgian girl Janette Ransome modeled for the first version, which dates to 1917.
 
Day one of the two-part sale was devoted to English pottery and porcelain from a private American collection.
 
“The rarest pieces in the best condition did quite well. Condition was an issue on some  items but collectors overlooked blemishes if the form and decoration was rare enough,”  said Rebecca J. Davis, Northeast’s specialist in ceramics, glass and silver.
 
One “stellar” offering, said Davis, was a late 18th century Worcester porcelain “Chequered Tent”  fluted coffeepot and cover. Ex-collection of Leo and Doris Hodroff, it achieved $4,838. A matching cup and saucer garnered $2,360.
 
The highest prices were for armorials. Painted with the arms of Richard Temple Nugent Brydges Chandos Grenville, 2nd Marquess of Buckingham, and his wife, Lady Anna Eliza de jure Baroness Kinloss, a Barr, Flight and Barr porcelain stand from the Stowe service doubled low estimate to bring $24,190. Said to have been made for the younger brother of King George III, a late 18th century Worcester platter from the Duke of Gloucester service achieved $18,880.
 
“Overall, it was a very strong auction,” said Bourgeault, noting the return of retail buyers to his May event, long a favorite with furnishers. “People have reduced the prices of their houses in order to sell them.  Now they are furnishing for less, too.”
Prices include the buyer’s premium.
 
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Many will be tempted to regard the passing of Albert Sack, who died on May 29 at 96, as the end of an era. He was the second of three brothers who perpetuated the legacy of their famous father, Israel Sack (1883-1959), continuing the family business for nearly 70 years until its doors closed in 2002.
 
Aside from Bernard Levy, who is 94 and in good health, Sack is the last of the great dealers in early American furniture who built major public and private collections in the middle decades of the 20th century. Along with the Levys, the Ginsburgs, John Walton, Joe Kindig, Jr. and a handful of others, Albert, Harold and Robert Sack were formidable tastemakers who shaped the content, interpretation and presentation of American decorative arts in museums across the country. With his “good, better, best” taxonomy, Albert Sack even devised a simple language for discussing the esoterica of furniture connoisseurship. The system was so seductive that it has been adapted for everything from office products to smart-phone apps.
 
Albert Sack represents the beginning of an era more than its end. A redoubtable Lithuanian immigrant who started the family firm in 1905, Israel Sack belonged to a pioneering generation of self-taught dealers in American antiques for whom knowledge was power. As underscored by surviving correspondence from the 1920s, Henry F. du Pont gravitated to the former cabinetmaker because he was a confident judge of quality, condition and authenticity.

Slight, nimble and impeccably groomed, Albert Sack in many ways resembled the courtly New York dealer Leo Castelli (1907-1999), a master merchant credited with elevating modern American painting and sculpture onto the international stage through a shrewd and much emulated combination of exclusivity and mass-marketing.
 
Like Castelli, Albert Sack harnessed the media for his own purposes. In a detail now largely forgotten, it was magazine editor Alice Winchester who urged Albert to expand an article that he had written for her into his first book, Fine Points of Furniture.  Originally published in 1950, the best-seller was reprinted 24 times before Albert’s protégée, Atlanta dealer Deanne Levison, helped him write its sequel, The New Fine Points of Furniture. Published in 1993, the updated guide added “superior” and “masterpiece” categories to Albert’s original nomenclature.  It is among these “masterpieces” that one finds some of the great objects that Albert Sack turned up during his many years on the road as the principal buyer for Israel Sack, Inc.
 
Though scholar-dealers are the norm these days in the nether reaches of the Americana trade, Israel Sack, Inc. was ahead of its time. The firm realized its mission of public education through its publication of the serialized volumes American Antiques from the Israel Sack Collection, through the brothers’ extensive schedule of lectures and appearances, and with glamorous, gallery-style installations. With these activities, Israel Sack, Inc. did much to professionalize an industry known more for its stubborn unconventionality than its sober business practices. A consummate showman, Albert Sack was at his best when he was sharing his wealth of knowledge with others. He is remembered for his generosity by the younger dealers, curators and auctioneers whom he mentored.

What has changed since Albert Sack first came of age is the pyramid structure of the antiques business, with its intricate wholesale alliances and network of smaller dealers feeding larger ones.  Those relationships were disrupted by the ascendance of the international auction houses in the 1980s and later by digital technology.
 
Some things about Israel Sack, Inc. seem positively quaint. One is the father’s equation of formal beauty with patriotic virtue, a holdover from the day when objects were prized for their historical associations. The other is Albert Sack’s remarkable talent as a storyteller, a gift all but lost in the current generation. Again, digital technology may be partly to blame. As David Streitfeld recently wrote in the New York Times, “Words are not much valued on the Internet, perhaps because it features so many of them.”
 
For Albert Sack, who loved the chase and was always one breath away from his next discovery, the greatest objects were intimately associated with the people who made them and even more electrifyingly with those who had the passion to pursue them.
 
The world is far more ambiguous now. Where there were once old-time practitioners like Albert Sack there are now agents who move discreetly between the market and the academy, dealers who double as auctioneers, conservators who act as dealers and experts who are also television celebrities. It is in light of such complexity that the ordered world of Albert Sack, with its clear distinctions between better and best, most resonates.

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NEW YORK CITY – “The auction market for American art continued its climb back today,” said Christie’s American art chief Eric P. Widing, characterizing the mixed results of the auction house’s May 18 sale of paintings, drawings and sculpture.
 
The morning session at Rockefeller Plaza generated $22.2 million on 88 lots, leaving another 50 lots unsold. The sale was projected to exceed $29 million. Christie’s slightly surpassed its December 2010 sale of American art, which garnered $21.2 million on 96 lots.
 
Westervelt Company
The centerpiece of Christie’s sale was 29 lots consigned by the Westervelt Company, formerly the Gulf Paper Corporation.  The works were assembled over four decades by the noted Alabama collector and retired paper executive Jonathan “Jack” Westervelt Warner, who  started buying Audubon prints in the 1950s and over four decades amassed one of the nation’s finest holdings of American paintings, sculpture, furniture and decorative arts produced between the late 18th century and the early 20th century.  A decade ago, Warner opened the Westervelt-Warner Museum of American Art in Tuscaloosa.
 
Predicted to surpass $10 million, the Warner group tallied only $6.7 million including premium. Christie’s passed 16 of the 29 lots, roughly 55 percent. The group represented only a small fraction of Warner’s extensive holdings.
 
“The Westervelt material was terribly overestimated. It just wasn’t competitive,” said one insider, echoing widespread opinion in the trade.
 
“Auction houses often get pushed to be too strong with the estimates. A lot of these works were just average. Most of the things that have sold privately from the Warner collection have been well over $1 million. They have been a whole different level of work.  But Christie’s was successful with the major pieces,” said New York dealer Debra Force, an active participant at Christie’s and again at Sotheby’s the following day.
 
Leading the Westervelt group was William Trost Richard’s “Mackerel Cove, Jamestown, Rhode Island.” Painted in 1894, the panoramic view sold to Caldwell Gallery for $1,650,500 against an estimate of $700/$1,000,000, tripling the record at auction for the artist.
 
“I personally feel that there is no finer Richards,” said Manlius, N.Y., dealer Joe Caldwell. “It is late but great.  Most people think that Richard’s early work is his best but this is an example of how wonderful his painting was later in his career.”
 
A masterpiece from Frederick Carl Frieseke’s Giverny years, “Sunspots,” surpassed estimate to sell to a European buyer for $1,022,500 (est. $800/1,000,000). The circa 1915 oil on canvas depicts a nude in a dappled landscape.
 
Three Bierstadts also performed well.  From the Westervelt group, “Seal Rock, California,” a circa 1872 oil on paper laid down on canvas, made $794,500 (est. $500/700,000). From other consignors, “Rocky Mountain Sheep” fetched $542500 from a European bidder. “The Falls of St. Anthony” made $362,500.
 
Various Owners
“It’s likely to be the largest work I ever sell,” Eric Widing said of Maxfield Parrish’s monumental “North Wall Panel,” which brought the day’s top price, $2,882,500 (est. $2/3,000,000). Commissioned by Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney and consigned by her granddaughter, the 221 ½ inch long oil on canvas frieze of 1928 depicts revelers in renaissance dress against a colonnaded backdrop at twilight.  The mural was originally commissioned by Whitney for her Fifth Avenue apartment but was installed in her studio on Long Island. A subsequent lot, the “Du Pont Mural,” brought $158,500. Christie’s holds four of the top five prices at auction for Parrish.
 
Small in scale, California painter Guy Rose’s oil on canvas landscape “Martin’s Point, Carmel” left the room at $890,500 (est. $350/500,000). The painting once hung in a Greene and Green house in Pasadena that was built for Cordelia Culbertson in 1911.
 
A 1947 oil on canvas self-portrait by Milton Avery left the room at $602,500 (est. $300/500,000). The following day, Sotheby’s auctioned “March Playing the Cello,” an Avery portrait of his daughter, for $1,426,500.
 
John Singer Sargent’s “Ladies in the Shade: Abies” went to Michael Altman Fine Art of New York for $566,600 (est. $500/700,000). Completed in the French Alps, the watercolor and pencil on paper descended in the family of Philadelphian George D. Widener. The same price was paid for Norman Rockwell’s “Milkmaid” (est. $300/500,000), an oil on canvas of 1931.
 
Christie’s passed its cover lot, “Eleanor and Benny,” an Impressionist work by Boston painter Frank W. Benson of his daughter and grandson in the family garden in Maine. The 1916 oil on canvas was estimated at $3/5,000,000.
 
Said Widing, “We saw very nice prices on individual lots but we had hoped to see more things selling, and selling well. The American market has historically been the last to pull out of recession because, unlike Impressionist and Modern art, it is almost entirely domestic. If the art-market recession of the 1990s is any guide, we are about half way through this one.”

Prices quoted include the buyer’s premium.
 
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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.
 
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NEW YORK CITY – The Art Fair Company is taking over the American Antiques Show (TAAS) from the financially ailing American Folk Art Museum, potentially changing the complexion and dynamic of New York’s Americana Week in January.
 
Afanews.com spoke to Mark Lyman, president of the Art Fair Company, from his office in Chicago late last week, hours after an agreement was reached.  Directed by Lyman and his partner, chief executive officer Michael Franks, the Art Fair Company produces the Sculpture Objects and Functional Art (SOFA) contemporary design and decorative arts shows in Chicago, New York and Santa Fe; the Intuit Show of Folk and Outsider Art; and the new Spring Show NYC, organized by the Art and Antique Dealers League of America.
 
Afanews: What are your plans for the American Antiques Show?
 
ML:   We want to revitalize it. The American Antiques Show has been very good, but we want to incorporate some new disciplines, such as design and photography. We will bring the show up to the Modernist era. We are very interested in adding paintings dealers while still being respectful of the show’s traditional base, which is folk art and American antiques.
 
Afanews: Is it your goal to make the show more youthful?

ML:  Youthful is a key phrase. We are interested in the spirit and energy of things. We want to bring in new clients and present material in a new way. We will upgrade the show’s look and sensibility. It will be very dramatic, charming, interesting and clear.
 
Afanews: What motivated the management change?
 
ML:  The museum makes money on the opening night party but the production of the show itself has not been gainful. We are professionals and work very hard at what we do. On the logistics side, we own all of our walls, which are hard, as well as our lights. They are in a warehouse in southeast Michigan. The Art Fair Company is a national organization with a national marketing effort.
 
Afanews:  How does the museum benefit from the new arrangement?
 
ML:  The agreement is that the Art Fair Company has all the financial responsibility to produce the show. It is our show, but we have committed to have the museum be the opening night beneficiary. The museum will receive every penny of profit from opening night.
 
Afanews: Who is involved in the planning and preparations?
 
ML : The most important thing that we are doing is organizing an exhibitor advisory board. We got to know two American Antiques Show exhibitors, Frank Maresca and Carl Hammer, through the Intuit Show. Frank and Carl are already involved, but we also want to bring in others who have been an important part of the American Antiques Show, plus new people. We hope that the exhibitors are excited about it.
 
Afanews: Why is the Art Fair Company taking this on?
 
ML: It is a very good opportunity for us and we are excited about working with the dealers.
 
The new show will open with a preview benefitting the American Folk Art Museum on Wednesday, January 18, and continue through January 22 at the Metropolitan Pavilion at 125 West 18th Street in New York.
 
The New York Times reported that the museum is currently in default on nearly $32 million worth of bonds that it issued to construct its building on West 53rd Street.  The museum’s director, Maria Ann Conelli, last week announced that she will leave the museum in July to return to academia.
 
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NEW YORK CITY – It was years in the planning and months in the execution. The carefully crafted Spring Show NYC closed at New York’s Park Avenue Armory on May 2, having demonstrated all the benefits of experience plus some of the vexing limitations of today’s market for traditional art and antiques.
 
Spring Show NYC is owned and organized by the 85-year-old Art and Antique Dealers League of America, which counts many second and third-generation dealers among its 110 member firms. A decade ago, the League launched the Connoisseur’s Antiques Fair, which struggled to find its footing in a downtown setting in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks. The show closed after its fourth year in 2005.
 
This time, the League got the details right. It secured New York’s premier venue and booked good dates: not too cold, not too hot, and immediately prior to the big Impressionist and Modern art auctions. Mayor Bloomberg declared an “Art and Antiques Week,” a proclamation organizers hope to build on next year to attract more buyers.
 
Avoiding the missteps of many dealer-run fairs, the League chose the Art Fair Company to manage Spring Show NYC. Headed by Michael Franks and Mark Lyman - two former DMG World Media execs who mount the SOFA and Intuit fairs in New York, Chicago and Santa Fe – the Art Fair Company produces visually arresting, top-drawer events with that desperately needed ingredient, youth appeal.
 
“We believe that there is room in New York for a third event that complements the Winter and International shows,” said League president Clinton Howell, the English furniture specialist who has staked his reputation and much of his time on Spring Show NYC.
 
League members gave serious thought to the look of their fair. Large, high-walled booths painted in vivid colors opened to the soaring Armory ceiling, lit to dramatic effect on opening night.
 
“We wanted to keep the show fresh, bright and cheerful,” Franks explained.  Lars Bolander, best known for his airy, Swedish interiors, contributed to the overall design, which presented mostly traditional fare in clean, contemporary settings. For this venture, Bolander channeled pared-down, 20th century classicism, a timeless look well-suited to urban living. With a nod to the trend-conscious, many of the show’s 65 exhibitors projected a timely mix of antique and modern in their own presentations.
 
The get-out-the-gate effort - sponsored by Antiques & Fine Art Magazine - included Arts’ Night Out on Friday, April 29, which drew members of young patrons’ groups from 19 participating institutions.  Two nights earlier, Wednesday’s sold-out preview party benefitting ASPCA was also well attended, attracting 1,500 visitors.
 
Looking to lose its rarified image, the decidedly high-end Spring Show NYC tempted buyers with affordably priced pieces. Westport, Ct., dealer George Subkoff brought miniature furniture, marked from $2,800 to $28,000. Questroyal’s offerings ranged from a $4,000 flower painting by Hayley Lever to a $475,000 oil on canvas seascape by Alfred Thomas Bricher. Exhibitors say that lower booth rents allow them to pass savings on to their customers. Including paint, lights and carpet, a 20-by-12 foot booth at Spring Show NYC costs $16,500.
 
One of the most striking stands belonged to Carlton Hobbs, who split his dimly lit interior into separate displays, one devoted to an 18th century Spanish tile mural, $220,000,  attributed to Vincente Navarro; the other to four early 18th century marquetry pictures, $485,000, done after engravings of the gardens at Nymphenburg Palace.
 
Silver specialists Spencer Marks scored one of the night’s biggest successes.
 
“They are as spectacular as anything that came out of his shop and they have never been on the market,” Spencer Gordon said of two silver and gold altar vases made by Arthur J. Stone and Herbert Taylor for the Pomfret School in Connecticut in 1915. The pair of vases was taken for consideration by a major museum.
 
Other sales included a signed and dated patriotic crib quilt at Jeff R. Bridgman and a Boston Classical work table at Charles & Rebekah Clark. Bridgman and the Clarks were among the handful of Americana dealers in the show.
 
“We are encouraged,” said New York dealer Paul Vandekar, who sold a set of 18 framed engravings of birds by Seligmann after Catesby, sailors’ woolworks and Flight & Barr Worcester porcelain.
 
Two well-represented categories, English furniture and American art, dominated sales. Michael Pashby sold a late 17th century coaching table.  Kentshire Galleries wrote up a pair of George III armchairs. Philip Colleck, Ltd., placed a pair of satinwood cabinets with rosewood banding and G. Sergeant Antiques found a new home for a partner’s desk.
 
At Questroyal, a couple purchased “New York City Women” by Reginald Marsh. Avery Galleries sold "Summer by the Ocean" by Lillian Westcott Hale. Schiller & Bodo marked up Edmond Charles Kayser’s “Interior with Cacti and Two Cats” and Thomas Colville parted with John LaFarge watercolors and a Joseph Stella drawing.
 
Was it all enough?
 
It will have to be for now. If attendance and sales fell short of the spectacular, the League would do well to remember that the current crop of leading fairs, from East Side to Maastricht, took decades to build.  That said, Spring Show NYC is off to a very good start.
 
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