American Art at Sotheby’s
Lita Solis-Cohen | November 29th, 2012
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Two phone bidders and a bidder on line competed for Homesickness by Jared French (1905-1987). It is signed lower right and signed and titled on the reverse. The 9½" x 7¼" egg tempera on panel was painted in 1942 and sold on line for $92,500 (est. $15,000/20,000). Another magic realism egg tempera on panel by Jared French (not shown), painted in 1943 with three figures and titled Music (11½" x 17"), sold for $122,500 (est. $25,000/35,000) to a buyer in the salesroom, who competed with three phone bidders.
Georgia O’Keeffe (1887-1986), Autumn Leaf II. This painting is signed with the artist’s star and the initials “OK” and inscribed by Alfred Stieglitz on the backing board “Autumn Leaves [sic] no.2/ 1927/ by Georgia O’Keeffe.” It is 32" x 21" and painted in a rich palette in her characteristic smoothly brushed manner. Estimated at $1,500,000/2,500,000, it sold for $4,282,500.
Francis A. Silva (1835-1886), Sailboats at Sunset. This 9" x 18" oil on canvas was signed lower right. It sold for $272,500 (est. $20,000/30,000) to dealer Joseph Caldwell of Manlius, New York. The picture is most likely Robbins Reef Lighthouse located in New York harbor.
George O’Keeffe, A White Camellia. This 21½" x 27½" pastel is inscribed on the backing board by Alfred Stieglitz “White Camellia (1939) (pastel) by Georgia O’Keeffe.” It sold for $3,218,500 (est. $1,200,000/1,800,000).
Guy Pène du Bois (1884-1958), The Crowd, (Self Portrait). Signed and dated “’34,” this 25" x 36" oil on canvas sold for $602,500 (est. $250,000/350,000) in the salesroom. The man in the center with his hands in his pockets somewhat isolated from the activity of the crowd is said to be the artist. |
Sotheby’s, New York City
Photos courtesy Sotheby’s
The good vibes of the American paintings week in New York City continued at Sotheby’s American art sale on November 29, 2012. The sale of 57 of the 71 lots offered (about 80%) brought a respectable $27,608,500, exceeding the presale total high estimates of $24.2 million. The room was full; 20 phones were active; and the Internet screen, visible in the salesroom, flashed red numbers for many lots. There was more enthusiasm for Modernism and illustration art than for Western art or Impressionism. There was no interest in works by Mary Cassatt.
Nine lots sold for $1 million or more, and a record-high price for the artist at auction was established for three artists: the 19th-century Baltimore painter Alfred Jacob Miller; for Modernist Arthur Dove; and for regionalist Marvin Cone. A previously unrecorded Thomas Hart Benton painting called Menemsha Hurricane had been collected first by his friend photographer Alfred Eisenstaedt, and it sold for $1,022,500 (includes buyer’s premium). It was estimated at $300,000/500,000. An 8" x 10" oil on panel by Benton, Study for Menemsha Harbor, sold for $146,500 (est. $120,000/180,000) to New York City dealer Michael Altman in the salesroom. Benton summered on Martha’s Vineyard.
Two works by Georgia O’Keeffe exceeded their hefty estimates. The first, Autumn Leaf II, was created in 1927 during one of O’Keeffe’s frequent trips to Lake George. The 32" x 21" oil on canvas was estimated at $1.5/2.5 million and sold to the phone for $4,282,500. A White Camellia, a 21½" x 27½" pastel on board from 1939 that had been in the collection of Elizabeth Arden for 40 years and was acquired by the consignor in 1992, sold for $3,218,500 (est. $1,200,000/1,800,000) to an art advisor in the salesroom. On the other hand, three watercolors by O’Keeffe failed to sell.
Sotheby’s offered three oil paintings on canvas by Norman Rockwell. They had been commissioned as advertisements by the Upjohn Company, a pharmaceutical firm, to promote their move from botanical to other chemical products and to reassure the public. The Muscleman, picturing a mischievous boy with his dog, flexing his arm muscles in front of a mirror, sold for $2,210,500 (est. $600,000/800,000) to Ray Waterhouse, a fine art broker who is headquartered in New York City and who was in the salesroom. Doctor and Doll, a 1942 painting depicting a doctor taking the pulse of a doll on a little girl’s lap (an update of an earlier Rockwell painting for a Saturday Evening Post cover) went for $1,874,500 (est. $500,000/700,000) to a phone bidder. When the Doctor Treats Your Child, depicting an elderly doctor writing a prescription for a mother with three children, painted in 1939, appeared as an ad in the Saturday Evening Post four years later in September 1943. It sold for $1,314,500 (est. $800,000/1,200,000). The artist’s second wife posed for the mother figure. All were strong prices for works painted for advertisements, which generally bring less than the paintings Rockwell did for Saturday Evening Post covers.
“It was nice to see Sotheby’s sell Rockwell’s illustrations as American genre paintings of the twentieth century mixed in with mainstream American art,” commented dealer Judy Goffman Cutler, who, with her husband, Laurence, founded the National Museum of Illustration in Newport, Rhode Island, and initiated the traveling exhibition Norman Rockwell’s America, most recently at the Birmingham [Alabama] Museum of Art. Illustration, once offered in specialized sales, is now a major part in the American paintings market.
Alfred Jacob Miller (1810-1874) was hired to accompany and record the journey of William Drummond Stewart, a retired captain in the British Army and a Scottish nobleman, on a trek on what would become the Oregon Trail. Miller created hundreds of detailed sketches and watercolor paintings upon returning to his studio in Baltimore. In 1840 Miller brought many of his finished paintings of the trek to Stewart’s home, Murthly Castle in Scotland, where they were put into a special gallery. In the painting featured in this auction, Miller depicted Captain Stewart on his white horse and wearing white buckskin, with his caravan of 45 men and 20 carts crossing the prairie shortly after they set out from Independence, Missouri, to attend the annual fur trappers and traders rendezvous in the Rocky Mountains. Caravan en Route (Sir William Drummond Stewart’s Caravan), a 21½" x 48" oil on canvas painted circa 1850, sold for $1,762,500 (est. $1,000,000/1,500,000) to an American collector on the phone, making an auction record for the artist.
Arthur Dove (1880-1946) painted Town Scraper, an abstracted vehicle and a telegraph pole in velvety hues, in 1933 or 1934. The oil on canvas sold for $1,258,500 (est. $400,000/600,000) in the salesroom, setting an auction record for this artist. A similar, slightly smaller, oil painting on canvas of a car done by Dove in 1931 was offered by Christie’s on November 28 and sold for $686,500 (est. $200,000/300,000). Both were painted at a time when the artist was exploring the interplay of realistic imagery and abstract design.
Elizabeth Goldberg, head of American art at Sotheby’s, said she intentionally kept the sale small and carefully curated. Some people speculated that private sales by the auction house continue to cut into the number of high-quality works that find their way to the salesrooms.
The pictures and captions tell more about the sale. For more information, log on to Sotheby’s Web site (www.sothebys.com) or call Goldberg at (212) 606-7280.
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Norman Rockwell, The Muscleman. The signed 35" x 25" oil on canvas was painted in 1941 for an advertisement for the Upjohn Company. Estimated at $600,000/800,000, it sold for $2,210,500 in the salesroom.
Thomas Hart Benton (1889-1975), Menemsha Hurricane. This 21" x 29" oil on canvas (mounted on board) was signed and dated (1954) and sold along with its preliminary drawing for $1,022,500 (est. $300,000/500,000) to a collector in the salesroom. The first owner of this dramatic painting was photojournalist Alfred Eisenstaedt (1898-1995), who, according to the catalog notes, was a good friend of Benton and was on Martha’s Vineyard at the time of Hurricane Carol in 1954. Eisenstaedt acquired the painting as a souvenir of the hurricane, which he had photographed at the same time Benton was out in the storm’s remnants sketching the scene for this painting.
Arthur Dove (1880-1946) signed Town Scraper in the lower center. The 18¼" x 24" work was painted in 1933 or 1934, at a time when Dove was exploring the interplay of realistic imagery and abstract design. It sold for $1,258,500 (est. $400,000/600,000) in the salesroom.
Marvin Cone (1891-1965), Stone City Landscape. Painted in 1936 and signed lower left, the 24" x 30" oil on canvas sold on the phone for $752,500 (est. $120,000/180,000).
William Louis Sonntag (1822-1900), Morning in the Alleghenies. The 36" x 54" oil on canvas is signed with the artist’s monogrammed signature (lower left) and signed with the artist’s monogrammed signature and the date 1857 on the reverse. It sold for $230,500 (est. $30,000/50,000) to a collector in the salesroom. It was consigned by Twin Towers, a Methodist home for the aged, to support its operations. It had been a gift to Twin Towers from Obed J. Wilson (1826-1914), a philanthropist and collector of 19th-century European and American paintings. Wilson, born in Bingham, Maine, moved to Ohio when he was 20 and became editor-in-chief of Wilson, Hinkle & Company, the largest publisher of textbooks in the U.S.Originally published in the February 2013 issue of Maine Antique Digest. © 2013 Maine Antique Digest
