| Press Contact: | Colleene Fesko, Director | Catherine Riedel, Director |
| American & European Paintings | Marketing & Public Relations | |
| Skinner, Inc | Skinner, Inc | |
|
978-779-6241 x260 |
978-779-6241 x231 |
SKINNER TO HOST AUCTION OF
PAINTINGS & PRINTS SEPTEMBER 10TH
BOSTON, Mass. - August 18, 2004 – www.skinnerinc.com - Skinner, Inc. one of the nation's leading auction houses for antiques and fine art, will host an auction of American and European Paintings and Prints on Friday, September 10, 2004 in its Boston gallery. Prints and photography will be offered at 4 p.m., and paintings at 6 p.m. "It's a large sale with some fine selections," says department director Colleene Fesko, of the diverse offerings. Highlights will include Flowers for the Teacher by illustrator Steven Dohanos (lot 684, $30/50,000). Dohanos is best known for his extensive number of Saturday Evening Post covers. Between 1942 and 1958, he produced 123 covers for the magazine, all of which featured scenes of everyday life in the United States during and after World War II. Also featured in the sale are View of Gstaad, Switzerland by William Samuel Horton, a work from a private New England collection (lot 699, $30/50,000) which dominates the auction's landscape paintings, and a fine and interesting group of French artwork from another private New England collection.
Prints
The afternoon auction provides a selection of styles and periods that will appeal to a broad range of tastes, with selections ranging from Christ Before Pilate from THE ENGRAVED PASSION by Albrecht Durer (lot 60, $1/1,500), to I Want You for U.S. Army by James Montgomery Flagg (lot 81, formerly in the collection of the Boston Athenaeum, $6/8,000), to Painting with Two Balls (Gray) by Jasper Johns (lot 98, $15/25,000). Highlights also include Andy Warhol's John Wayne, from COWBOYS AND INDIANS (lot 168, $8/12,000), Nature Morte, Compotier by Pablo Picasso (lot 138, $8/12,000), and Kleine Welten VIII by Wassily Kandinsky (lot 99, $3/5,000). An interesting group of prints by Maurits Cornelis Escher (lots 63-76, $4/2,200) will be offered in this first session, as well as drawings by the artist in the evening auction. Escher was enormously influenced by the 14th century Alhambra Palace in Grenada, where he saw the regular repetition of patterns in the majolica tiling. Using this as inspiration, he developed a style based on the symmetrical, regular division of a pattern along a geometric grid. He also combined two and three- dimensional images to produce various optical effects. The auction also includes Old Lace by Childe Hassam (lot 93A, $2/4,000), Femme au Chapeau by Paul Cesar Helleu (lot 95, $2/4,000), landscapes by Neil Welliver, (lots 170-173, $1/2,000 each), Seaward Skerries by Anders Zorn (lot 192, $1,5/2,000), and a variety of lithographs by Stow Wengenroth (lots 182-190, estimates ranging from $3/600). Rounding out the offerings are works by Marc Chagall, Paul Cadmus, John Taylor Arms, and Frank Weston Benson. Photography will include several works by Alfred Eisenstaedt (lots 199-210, $2/4,000 each) from the collection of Joseph E. Seagram & Sons, Inc., as well as works by Robert Doisneau (lots 195-196, $1/1,500), among others.
French Paintings from a Private New England Collection
Highlighting the French artwork from a private New England collection are Voiler au Port by Eugene Boudin (lot 455, $30/50,000) mentioned in Robert Schmidt's Eugene Boudin 1824-1898, volume II, entry number 2313; and Pont sur la Seine/A Double-Sided Drawing by Pierre Auguste Renoir, (lot 456, $15/25,000), a lot which is accompanied by two photo certificates, one from Philippe Cezanne, and the other from François Daulte. Maison au Bord de la Mer by Edouard Manet, (lot 458, $6/8,000) also will be featured, a work mentioned in both Denis Rouart and Daniel Wildenstein's Edouard Manet Catalogue Raisonné, number 217, and Louis Rouart et Fils, Edouard Manet, Lettres de Jenesse, page 14. Other examples include a group of works by Camille Pisarro, each accompanied by a copy of a letter and notes from Joachim Pissarro, Chief Curator, Kimball Art Museum; Circus Horse and Woman's Head/A Double-Sided Drawing by Henri de Toulouse Lautrec (lot 470, $7/9,000); Reclining Nude by Henri Matisse, (lot 475, $8/12,000); a selection of works by Aristide Maillol led by Les Mains, 1930 (lot 476, $25/35,000) and Une Femme Accroupie (lot 478, $2/4,000); and Standing Nude by Fernand Leger, (lot 477, $4,5/6,500), a work to be included in the forthcoming catalogue raisonné of Leger's works compiled by Gary Loudmer.
Genre
One of the sale's strongest areas is American genre, led by Enfants et Leur Mere/Children with Their Mother by Eugene Lawrence Vail (lot 626, $20/40,000). Offerings also include Lilian Matilda Genth's A Pleasant Afternoon/Portrait of a Young Woman Reading (lot 646, $12/18,000). Genth was born in Philadelphia and worked as a dress designer before winning the Elkins Scholarship, which allowed her to study with J.A.M. Whistler in Paris for a year. She stayed in Paris two additional years, and upon her return to the United States began painting various female nudes in landscapes, for which she became well known. Later in her career, however, she abandoned the subject of the female nude in favor of scenes from her travels across Europe and Asia. Also bound to draw attention in the auction is Little Dutch Girl by Marcia Oakes Woodbury (lot 331, $8/12,000). Woodbury studied art in the United States and Europe. In Boston, she studied with Charles Woodbury, whom she later married. Woodbury's European travels took her to Holland and the Laxar School in Paris. Her visits to Holland were particularly influential, as they allowed her to study the work of the Old Masters. She also painted several images of Dutch children and wrote commentaries on Flemish painters. Additional highlights will include Edward Lamson Henry's Stopping for a Drink (lot 352, $8/12,000), as well as Marguerite Stuber Pearson's Two Figures (lot 613, $8/12,000). Despite being confined to a wheelchair because of polio, Pearson had a very successful artistic career. She worked as an illustrator for newspapers and magazines before she started painting in 1922, under Edward Tarbell. Pearson is best known for her still lifes, interior scenes, and figurative works, which were all reproduced as prints. Other examples of American genre include Walt Kuhn's Study for Mrs. C (lot 657, $15/25,000); Ernest Lawson's In the Park (lot 639, $8/12,000) descended within the family of the artist, then to the current owner; Frederick Judd Waugh's Lover's Lane (lot 606, $8/10,000); as well as Paul Meltsner's American Landscape (lot 706, $8,5/9,500); Abbott Fuller Graves' Sitting by the Water (lot 691, $6/8,000); and Emil Fuchs' A Summer's Day (lot 616, $5/7,000). The Street Performer/A Middle Eastern Scene by Francisco Coleman (lot 450, $15/25,000), Canal View by Victor Olivier Gilsoul (lot 695, $7/9,000), Planning a Trip to the Theater by Ludwig Neustatter (lot 327, $5/7,000), and A Mule Ride by Martin Rico y Ortega (lot 334, $3/5,000) top the selection of European genre.
Landscapes
Thomas Hill's Yosemite View (lot 535, $20/40,000) leads the selection of American landscapes. Hill originally specialized in portraits and still lifes, but, at the encouragement of his German tutor, Paul Mayerheim, he changed his focus to large scale landscape painting. In 1861, he visited the Yosemite Valley, which sparked a lifelong artistic obsession with the area. Over the next few years, Hill became well known and respected for his images of Yosemite, as well as for his style of loose brushwork juxtaposed with dabs of dry impasto. Also highlighting landscapes in the sale are Chauncey Foster Ryder's Pastures of Egremont (lot 505, $15/25,000), and two works by Sam Hyde Harris, Hills in Spring (lot 539, $15/25,000) and Desert Pattern (lot 540, $15/25,000). Buyers will also be drawn to Forest Stream by Joseph Rusling Meeker (lot 384, $7/9,000), Expansive Mountain Landscape by William Louis Sonntag (lot 368, $6/8,000), Early Spring, Milton by Aldro Thompson Hibbard (lot 521, $6/8,000), and Connecticut Landscape by George Elmer Browne (lot 506, $5/7,000).
Pastoral and New England Scenes
The sale features an interesting selection of pastoral and farm scenes, led by Cows at Pasture by Thomas Hewes Hinckley (lot 419, $20/40,000). Landscape with Grazing Cattle by Edward M. Bannister (lot 421, $10/15,000) also highlights this group. Bannister started painting in the 1850s in Boston. He never received any formal artistic training but was greatly influenced by the artists of the Barbizon School, especially William Morris Hunt, who frequently exhibited his works in Boston. Bannister focused mainly on painting large, tranquil landscapes, and in 1876, his painting Under the Oaks won first prize in the Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition. This was the first art prize to have been won by an African-American artist. Bannister continued to have great success throughout his career, and eventually helped to establish the Providence Art Club. Also following a pastoral theme are Sheep on the Ford by Heinrich Johann van Zugel (lot 335, $10/15,000), and Cattle Watering by William M. Hart (lot 378, $7/9,000).
The sale offers various artwork with New England subject matter, as well. Boston scenes include Mt. Vernon Street, Boston (lot 615, $10/15,000) and Boston Common (lot 690, $5/7,000), both by Arthur Clifton Goodwin, and Boston in Winter by Louis Ritter (lot 641, $3/6,000). Other New England examples include Charles Edwin Lewis Green's Near Foster's Dam, Swampscott, Massachusetts (lot 395, $12/18,000), and Elizabeth Wentworth Roberts' Winter View, Concord, Massachusetts (lot 505A, $6/8,000). Roberts and fellow Concordian Daniel Chester French were instrumental in starting the Concord Art Association in 1916. Roberts frequently used Concord as the setting for her landscapes, as seen in this painting.
Sculpture
A bronze sculpture by Bashka Paeff, Boy and Bird (lot 599, $20/40,000), tops the auction's select group of sculpture. Paeff immigrated to Boston as a child from Minsk, Russia. She studied at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts School, paying for her art education by selling subway tokens at the Park Street station. Two versions of this work were cast by Paeff. One was commissioned for the Belcher House in Stoughton, the other for the Boston Public Garden near the Arlington Street entrance. The latter is still on view in the Garden. La Petite Pensee, a white marble sculpture by Thomas Ball (lot 397, $15/20,000), also will be offered.
Additional Highlights
Additional highlights in the sale include a variety of paintings by Felix Augustus Peckham, including Clam Diggers and On Shore (lots 441 and 443, $3/5,000 each), and Grazing Cattle and Walking with Mother (lots 359 and 360, $1/1,500 and $8/1,200 respectively), all descended through the family of the artist. Peckham was born in Middleton, Rhode Island, with a spinal condition that left him without the use of his legs. He was a self-taught artist, and little is known about the conditions of his education. He did complete several still lifes and portraits in crayon and on canvas. Though he completed many portraits, only one survives and is currently at the Newport Historical Society in Rhode Island.
The diversity of the sale is also marked by Edward Willard Deming's Return from the Hunt (lot 545, $8/12,000), Paul Meltsner's American Landscape (lot 706, $8,5/9,500), Theo Tobaisse's Le Pantin et L'Oiseau (lot 734, $6/8,000), and Paul Cadmus' Young Man (lot 744, $5/7,000). Illustrations will include works as varied as Ichabod Crane from "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" by Arthur Rackham (lot 673, $8/12,000), and the cover illustration for Benton's Row by Clark Hulings, (lot 677, $6/8,000). Still lifes by Paul de Longpre and Jane Peterson, marine scenes by William Trost Richards, Guy Carleton Wiggins, Emile Albert Gruppe, and Frederick Judd Waugh, and sporting paintings by John Ross Key, Henry John Yeend King, and Arvid Frederick Nyholm also highlight the auction.
Catalogue and Preview Information
Previews for the auction will be 12 to 5 p.m. Wednesday, September 8th, 12 to 7 p.m. Thursday, September 9th, and 12 to 3 p.m. Friday, September 10th. Illustrated catalogue #2249 is available by mail for $32 ($39 for foreign requests) from the subscription department at 978-779-6241 x240. It is also available at the gallery for $29. Prices realized will be available at www.skinnerinc.com during and after the sale. For more information, visit www.skinnerinc.com. Skinner's site also allows users to view all lots in the auctions, leave bids, and order catalogues online.
Note to Editors: Photos available upon request. Contact Catherine Riedel at 978-779-6241 x 231.
About Skinner:With galleries in Boston and Bolton, Mass., Skinner is a full-service auctioneer and appraiser of antiques and fine art. Regularly seen on the PBS series, Antiques Roadshow, Skinner is one of the nation’s leading auction houses. Skinner conducts auctions year-round and has received world-record prices for many pieces sold at auction. Departments include American Furniture & Decorative Arts, Paintings & Prints, English & Continental Furniture & Decorations, Fine Ceramics, Jewelry, Couture, 20th Century Furniture & Decorative Arts, Fine Musical Instruments, Asian Art, Fine Judaica, Toys, Dolls & Collectibles, Science & Technology, Oriental Rugs & Carpets, American Indian & Ethnographica, and Discovery. For more information on upcoming auctions, visit Skinner’s web site www.skinnerinc.com.