American Art and Pennsylvania Impressionism

December 7th, 2014

Six phone bidders competed for The River Road by Daniel Garber (1880-1958). The 30" x 28" circa 1940 oil on canvas was signed “Daniel Garber” on the bottom left. In a Bernard Badura frame, the painting sold to a collector on the phone for $327,750 (est. $150,000/250,000).

Newell Convers Wyeth (1882-1945), illustration painting for “I stood like one thunderstruck, or as I had seen an apparition,” signed “N.C. Wyeth”bottom right, oil on canvas, unframed, 40½" x 30". It sold for $435,750 (est. $150,000/250,000). This illustration for Robinson Crusoe had been one of a series of 14 images consigned by the Wilmington Library, Wilmington, Delaware, to Christie’s New York on December 2, 2009, when it failed to sell. With a more inviting estimate, there was plenty of competition on eight phones for a first-rate picture, and it sold well over expectations.

John Fulton Folinsbee (1892-1972), The Delaware (Sketch for River Wall), oil on canvas, 16" x 20", signed “John Folinsbee” and inscribed with the title in pencil on the back. In a Bernard Badura frame (incised “F ’55”), it sold to a phone bidder for $31,250 (est. $15,000/25,000).

Theresa Ferber Bernstein (1890-2002), The Rehearsal at Carnegie Hall, oil on canvas, 25" x 29", signed by Bernstein bottom right and painted in 1948. It sold on line for $6400 (est. $2000/3000). In a letter to collector Dr. Daniel Lovette, Bernstein wrote to explain that one of the musical performers depicted represents her husband, William Meyerowitz, who was a fellow artist and musician, and the letter added that the group is rehearsing a work by Jascha Heifetz.

Walter Elmer Schofield (1867-1944), Hillside Farm, Cornwall, oil on canvas, 25¾" x 29 7/8", with a label on the back “State Fair of Texas, Dallas.” It sold to a collector in the salesroom for $53,125 (est. $20,000/30,000). A recent exhibition at the Woodmere Art Gallery made the public aware of Schofield’s work.

George Inness (1825-1894), After the Storm, oil on canvas, 16" x 29", 1887-90. It sold on the phone for $26,250 (est. $12,000/18,000).

Freeman’s, Philadelphia

Photos courtesy Freeman’s

Alasdair Nichol, vice chairman of Freeman’s in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and head of fine art at the auction house, decided a year and a half ago to hold separate sales of American art with a section of Pennsylvania Impressionists, instead of offering American and European art including old masters in one big catalog as had been the tradition at Freeman’s for some time. (Freeman’s sale of modern and contemporary things has long stood alone.)

“Freeman’s has had great success selling Pennsylvania Impressionists from the time these artists were alive, painting and teaching at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts,” said Nichol as he stepped down from the podium on Sunday, December 7, 2014. He had sold American art to a full house. He sold two paintings by Daniel Garber, The River Road for $327,750 and Up Jericho for $207,750, both to private clients. “Both paintings were in their original frames, ready to go on the wall,” he said.

The Hill Road in Winter by William Sotter, which sold for $147, 750 (est. $100,000/150,000), may be the largest of Sotter’s snowy nocturnes; it measures 36" x 40". A small (13 3/8" x 16") Sotter nocturne, Barn on a Winter Night, sold for $111,750 (est. $40,000/60,000). It sparkles with a starry sky.

“Pennsylvania Impressionism had lost some speed when some major collectors pulled out of the market a few years ago, but a new group has come in, and they are enjoying it,” Nichol observed. He said he took some of the pictures in the sale to Scotland last summer, when the Terra Foundation for American Art (Chicago) sponsored an exhibition of American Impressionism at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art (Edinburgh) from July 19 to October 19, 2014. Nichol gave a talk about Pennsylvania Impressionism to Lyon & Turnbull clients. He said the talk was well received, but it did not attract bidders from Scotland. Lyon & Turnbull has a business relationship with Freeman’s.

There was a real buzz in the salesroom, which was filled with collectors and a few members of the trade. Everyone stayed until the very end of the sale to see how the last 50 lots of Pennsylvania Impressionists performed. They did well. Only six minor Pennsylvania Impressionist pictures failed to sale. Nichol is known for reasonable estimates. In all, 145 of the 164 lots of American art offered at Freeman’s sold; that is an 88% sold rate, the best sell-through rate of any of the autumn American art sales in New York City. The sale totaled $3,354,668, which was the highest for a Freeman’s various-owners American art sale to date; it is topped only by the $4.3 million white glove 63-lot auction of the George D. Horst collection in March 2014.

The December 7 total was swelled by the sale of two N.C. Wyeth illustrations for Daniel Defoe’s novel Robinson Crusoe,consigned by the Wilmington Library. The illustration for “I stood like one thunderstruck, or as I had seen an apparition,” which pictures Crusoe with his umbrella on the beach looking at a footprint, sold on the phone for $435,750 (est. $150,000/250,000). Another painting illustrating “And no sooner had he the arms in his hands but, as if they had put new vigor into him, he flew upon his murderers like fury” sold for $267,750 (est. $120,000/180,000).

As reported in M.A.D. in February 2010 (pp. 32-33-C), both these illustrations had been offered at Christie’s in December 2009 and failed to sell. To make repairs on their building, the Wilmington Library had hoped to raise at least $5 million by selling all 14 of its N.C. Wyeth illustrations, which capture the dramatic narrative of Robinson Crusoe. N.C. Wyeth had sold the paintings to the library in the early 1920s for $2300, and they had hung in the reading room until they were sent to Christie’s. Before sending them off, the library had digital prints made and put into the original frames. At Christie’s in December 2009, just five of the paintings sold. A sixth was sold privately after the sale. It was a disappointment for the library to receive less than $2 million.

After five years the library decided it was a good time to try to sell some more and sent two to Freeman’s. Unframed, these powerful images, 40½" x 30", dominated the salesroom. They brought close to what similar paintings brought at Christie’s when they were fresh to market. Narrative art is in demand, and N.C. Wyeth was a master storyteller and expressive painter. Freeman’s said the library was thrilled with the sale. H. Rodney Scott, president of the library’s board of managers, said the proceeds will be providing expanded programs and services.

When asked how many Robinson Crusoe illustrations remain to be sold, Larry Manuel, director of the library, said there are four, all stored at the Brandywine River Museum in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania. “Christie’s sold five at the sale and one more after the sale, and the library sold one to someone who approached us. We are enjoying the success of the Freeman’s sale. We are not sure yet what we will do with the other four.”

There were other treasures in the sale that fit smaller pocketbooks and were bought by private collectors, museums, and by the trade. The first lot, a classic 1942 lithograph by Thomas Hart Benton, The Race (Homeward Bound), with a horse and a train racing across the landscape, sold on the phone for $15,000 (est. $5000/8000) and got the sale off to a good start.

An impressive Portrait of Lynford Lardner painted in 1749 by John Hesselius (1728-1778) shows Lardnerwearing a white waistcoat with plenty of gold braid.It seemed like a bargain at $13,750. Lynford Lardner was Thomas and Richard Penn’s lawyer and Keeper of the Great Seal of Pennsylvania. According to his account book at the Rosenbach Museum and Library in Philadelphia, he paid Hesselius “6 pounds for drawing my Picture.” Moreover, it is Hesselius’s earliest documented painting, completed when the artist was just 21 and already quite accomplished, according to Philadelphia: Three Centuries of American Art, the catalog for the Philadelphia Museum of Art’s 1976 landmark exhibition. The portrait, which was lent by the Lardner family to that bicentennial exhibition at the PMA, had been in the same family since the 18th century. Reportedly, condition kept the price down, but unhandy inpainting can be fixed. It is big, 39" x 32", which is museum size. Perhaps a museum bought it.

Another bargain was picked up by William Valerio, director and CEO of the Woodmere Art Museum. Thomas Birch’s Ship in Distress, a 20" x 30" oil on canvas, signed and dated “T. Birch, 1836,” cost $3750 (est. $5000/8000). According to the Philadelphia: Three Centuries of American Art catalog, some of Birch’s shipwreck paintings were commissioned by survivors and were based on the survivors’ descriptions. A related but larger (40" x 60") Birch shipwreck painting, The Rescue, was in the 1976 PMA’s exhibition.

Valerio made several other purchases for the Woodmere Art Museum, which focuses on art made within a 60-mile radius of Chestnut Hill, where it is located. Woodmere accessioned two paintings by Theresa Bernstein, who was one of the Philadelphia Ten (a group of women artists). He paid $3750 for Market Scene and $1375 for Katy in Yellow Kimono, a painting of Bernstein’s housekeeper.

There was keen interest in a small well-painted beach scene by Richard Blossom Farley (1875-1951), an artist trained at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts by William Merritt Chase and Cecilia Beaux. Low Tide with Sandpipers,16" x 11¾", oil on board, dated 1920, and inscribed in pencil “R. B. Farley, Newtown, Bucks County, PA.,” sold in the salesroom for $9375 (est. $2000/3000) to Philadelphia dealer Robert Schwarz with competition from bidders using the Internet and phones.

A number of paintings by little-known artists found buyers, but a painting by Milton Avery, A Couple Watching a Child Bathing, with a $200,000/300,000 estimate failed to sell. A 14" x 18" still life by Avery, done in the summer of 1949, Grapes, sold for $59,375 (est. $25,000/40,000). The pictures and captions tell more.

For more information, see (www.freemansauction.com).

George William Sotter (1879-1953), Barn on a Winter Night, oil on board, 13 3/8" x 16", inscribed “Rev. & Mrs. DeChant from the Sotters.” This was possibly a picture of the DeChant barn and was probably painted en plein air. This sparkling winter nocturne was a crowd favorite, and it sold for $111,750 (est. $40,000/60,000).

This 6" x 8" oil on board by Walter Emerson Baum (1884-1956) sold for $18,750 (est. $5000/8000).

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