American Art at Christie’s

Lita Solis-Cohen | November 28th, 2012

Arthur Dove (1880-1946), Car. The signed 13¼" x 22" oil on canvas was painted in 1931. It sold on the phone for $686,500 (est. $200,000/300,000). It was consigned by Laughlin and Jennifer Phillips and was a gift to them from Duncan Phillips, founder of The Phillips Collection in Washington, D.C., who was Arthur Dove’s great patron and wrote appreciatively of Dove’s new abstract language for painting.

Edward Hopper (1882-1967), October on Cape Cod. Hopper painted this 26¼" x 42¼" oil on canvas in 1946 and signed it on the lower right. Estimated at $8/12 million, it sold for $9,602,500 on the Internet, underbid on the phone. It is the most expensive item sold on line at an international auction house. In 1934, Hopper built a studio in South Truro, and he and his wife spent six months of the year there for many years. Hopper drove around in his car in search of subject matter. He has been called by Robert Hobbs a poetic distiller of landscape and the first chronicler of the view of America from the automobile, which puts the artist at a distance from his subject. The loneliness of a vacation spot out of season was a perfect subject for Hopper, whose theme was the psychological isolation and loneliness in modern society. He painted this quiet picture based on several sketches.

Edward Hopper (1882-1967), Barn at Essex. This 16" x 25" watercolor and pencil on paper was estimated at $800,000/1,200,000, and sold for $1,762,500 on the phone. Hopper painted it on his way to Maine in the summer of 1929. The painting gives a snapshot of rural life, focusing on the barn’s formal qualities.

Georgia O’Keeffe (1887-1986), Sun Water Maine. The 19" x 25¼" pastel on paper (laid on board) was signed “OK” in the artist’s star device and executed in 1922. Estimated at $1/1.5million, it sold for $2,210,500. O’Keeffe had visited York Beach in Maine in 1920 and returned several times, using pastel to convey the depth and movement of water.

Anna Mary “Grandma” Moses Robertson (1860-1961), Watering the Horses. The 20" x 24" tempera on masonite is signed and inscribed “Moses” on the lower right. Painted in 1949, it sold to an absentee bidder for $86,500 (est. $60,000/80,000), which was the highest price of half a dozen Grandma Moses paintings that sold during the week at Christie’s, Sotheby’s, and Bonhams. Two failed to sell.

Christie’s, New York City

by Lita Solis-Cohen

Photos courtesy Christie’s

On Wednesday, November 28, 2012, at Christie’s American art auction in New York City, an on-line bidder bought Edward Hopper’s October on Cape Cod for $9,602,500 (includes buyer’s premium), setting a record for the most expensive item sold on line at any international auction house. It topped the $8.14 million paid at Sothebys.com on June 29, 2000, for a John Dunlap first printing of the Declaration of Independence, the “Internet document record,” as we called it in M.A.D.’s August 2000 issue (p. 21-A). That price was the record holder for any on-line sale by an international auction house until now. Christie’s own previous record on Christie’s Live had been the $3,330,500 paid in September 2010 for a Shang Dynasty bronze wine vessel.

Christie’s Live has been in operation since 2007, slowing down auctions in the salesrooms but a great convenience for those who do not want to attend the sales or bid by phone. Christie’s announced that on-line bidding has increased steadily and that in 2011 the Christie’s Live platform increased 25% from the year before. Of all the bids placed at Christie’s that year—including phone bids, absentee bids, bids placed in person in the salesroom, and bids on line, Christie’s Live accounted for 29%, not counting the Elizabeth Taylor on-line-only sale. The percentage tally will be higher for 2012 because Christie’s expanded its on-line sales to include fine wines, vintage couture, prints and multiples, and special collections. Clients are offered a chance to bid by pushing a bid button from anywhere in the world where they can get an Internet connection.

The Hopper painting brought the total for Christie’s American art sale to about $38.47 million for 100 of the 140 lots offered (71% sold). Eight paintings sold for more than $1 million.

The battle for Hopper’s October on Cape Cod, painted in 1946, was between a phone bidder and an on-line bidder who pushed the bid button quickly after $7 million was reached. When the phone bidder declined to raise the bid, auctioneer James Hastie dropped his hammer and declared, “I never thought I would see the day!” Estimated at $8/12 million, October on Cape Codsold for $9,602,500.

The 26¼" x 42¼" oil on canvas depicts a windshield appraisal of a Cape Cod house and small barn on a sandy, deserted road. There is no sign of anyone present, no car in the driveway. The scene captures the quiet of a vacation spot off season. Hopper based his painting on several sketches and watercolors that he made in his automobile. He finished the painting in his studio. An earlier Hopper watercolor and pencil on paper of a barn in Essex, Massachusetts, painted on his way to Maine in 1929, sold for $1,762,500 (est. $800,000/1,200,000).

Some artworks by Georgia O’Keeffe were embraced, and others were ignored. Sun Water Maine, a pastel on paper (laid on board), had a $1/1.5 million estimate and sold for $2,210,500. The picture is an early work done at York Beach in 1922; O’Keeffe reduced the water and sky to a rhythmic and voluptuous pattern of blues and greens, exploiting the soft velvety feel of pastels. O’Keeffe’s dark pastel The Black Place III, executed in 1945 in New Mexico about 150 miles from Ghost Ranch, which O’Keeffe was quoted as saying “looked like a mile of elephants––grey hills all about the same size…,” did not appeal to collectors, at least not at the $1.5/2.5 estimate. It failed to meet its reserve.

There is always a market for images of George Washington. Thomas Sully’s General George Washington, depicting the swashbuckling president as a soldier on horseback with his troops during the Whiskey Rebellion, sold for $1,082,000 (est. $700,000/1,000,000). A Rembrandt Peale portrait of George Washington sold for $266,500 (est. $250,000/350,000).

Patriotism is alive and well. A bronze sculpture of Nathan Hale by Frederick William MacMonnies (1863-1937), 28¼" high, sold for $170,500 (est. $100,000/150,000).

Illustration art also performed well at Christie’s. For example, Maxfield Parrish’s The Manager Draws the Curtain, inscribed “The Knave of Hearts/ Manager’s Prologue” on the reverse and painted 1923-25, was estimated at $400,000/600,000 and sold to a collector for $1,010,500. It is one of 25 paintings Parrish made as illustrations for Louise Saunders’s 1925 book The Knave of Hearts,which was originally written as a play for children and performed in Cornish, New Hampshire, where Parrish and Saunders were summer neighbors. Parrish himself posed as the theatrical manager who pulls back the curtain for a glimpse of the landscape beyond.

Western art was a weaker segment of the sale. A dramatic illustration by William Herbert Dunton for the Randall Parrish 1910 novel Keith of the Border: A Tale of the Plains sold for $338,500 (est. $300,000/500,000). But Going In, The Bear Hunters by Dunton, with the same estimate, failed to sell. Seals on the Rocks by Albert Bierstadt, one of five large-scale oils of the rock formation off the coast of San Francisco known as Muir Bridge, had a $1/1.5 million estimate and did not find a buyer.

An exception in the paintings of the West category was N.C. Wyeth’s The Spearman, a 38" x 24" oil on canvas of an Indian boy on a rocky ledge spearing a fish, dated 1906, from the artist’s Indian series for Outing magazine. Estimated at $120,000/180,000, it sold for $314,500. A Frederic Remington bronze, The Bronco Buster, estimated at $150,000/250,000, sold for $458,500.

There was enthusiasm in the crowded salesroom and good competition throughout the sale. The buzz was that the market for American art, which has been in a bear market, was on an uptick.

Christie’s total for this auction was its highest American art total since before the recession in 2008. The total sales for the week at the three New York auctions (Christie’s, Sotheby’s, and Bonhams) came to nearly $69 million, well up from $52 million for the fall sales in 2011. In all during the week, 17 paintings sold at auction for more than $1 million, and five of them brought more than $2 million. When compared with the prices paid at auctions for contemporary art, which has an international audience, it appears that those who buy American art get more art for the money.

For more information, log on to Christie’s Web site (www.christies.com) or call the American art department at (212) 636-2140.

The tiny (5" x 7") self-portrait by Norman Rockwell (1894-1978) is titled Norman Rockwell Paints the Soda Jerk. He painted the oil on board in 1953. Estimated at $80,000/120,000, it sold for $326,500 on the phone, causing some to wonder if the buyer knew it was reproduced actual size in the catalog. It is a little gem. The soda jerk painting appeared on the cover of the Saturday Evening Post on August 33, 1933, and is now in the Columbus [Ohio] Museum of Art.

Augustus Vincent Tack (1870-1949), Pink Oval. The 42½" x 34" oil on canvas laid down on board, signed lower right, sold on the phone for $134,500 (est. $20,000/30,000). Duncan Phillips, founder of The Phillips Collection in Washington, D.C., was Tack’s patron. The consignors were Laughlin and Jennifer Phillips, who acquired the painting from Duncan Phillips. Tack painted portraits and murals. He also did abstract works, which are considered the forerunners of the work of Abstract Expressionists.

Charles Burchfield (1893-1967), Golden Dream. This 32¾" x 39¾" watercolor (and pencil) on paper laid on board was signed and dated “CEB/ 1959” on the lower right and inscribed with the title on the reverse. It sold for $1,202,500 (est. $300,000/500,000) to a private collector. The pigment and brushstrokes give a pulsating quality to his painting of butterflies on a warm sunny day.

Guy Pène du Bois (1884-1958), Social Register. This witty 20" x 15" oil on panel, signed and dated “Guy Pène du Bois ‘19” on the lower left, sold for $194,500 (est. $60,000/80,000) on the phone.

Andrew Wyeth (1917-2009), Snowy Morning. This tempera on panel, 21¾" x 16", was painted circa 1947 and consigned by the family of the artist. It sold for $842,500 (est. $250,000/350,000) to New York City dealer Michael Altman.

Maxfield Parrish (1870-1966), The Manager Draws the Curtain. This 13" x 16" oil on panel was signed with the initials “M.P.” and signed again and inscribed “The Knave of Hearts/ Manager’s Prologue” on the reverse. Estimated at $400,000/600,000, it sold for $1,010,500 to a collector. Parrish used glazes to give the paintings luminosity and intense color. The painting retains its original frame, created in Parrish’s studio before he gave the painting to Louise Saunders. It was consigned by a member of the Saunders family.

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