Displaying items by tag: Milton Avery

The Huntington spent nearly $1 million to buy two paintings and a ceramic sculpture that will fill gaps in the museum’s American art galleries.

At an annual meeting last month, The Huntington’s Art Collectors’ Council purchased two 1936 paintings — “Burlesque” by Milton Avery and “Irises (The Sentinels)” by Pasadena artist Helen Lundeberg — as well as a Sargent Claude Johnson sculpture, “Head of a Boy.”

Today’s auction of American Art at Sotheby’s New York achieved $45,869,625 (est. $33.2/49.7 million)* – among the highest totals for an American Art sale in the last five years.

- Today’s sell-through rate of 80.7% by lot marks the 5th consecutive American Art auction at Sotheby’s with a strong sell-through rate over 80%.

- Ten lots brought prices over $1 million, with more than half of all sold lots achieving prices above their high estimates – including eight of the auction’s top ten works.

- Ten works by Norman Rockwell totaled $20 million, meeting their combined pre-sale high estimate.

- Led by After the Prom, which sold for $9,1,250,000 – the 4th highest price at auction for the artist (est. $8/12 million). The work was last acquired at Sotheby’s New York in 1995 for $880,000.

Christie’s announced that it will sell the late billionaire philanthropist Edgar M. Bronfman Sr.’s substantial art collection, which includes works by Pablo Picasso, Claude Monet, Egon Schiele, Milton Avery, and Henri Matisse. A selection of works from the collection will be offered during the auction house’s Impressionist and modern art evening sale in New York on May 6. The remaining 230 items, including decorative objects, jewelry, and antiquities, will be sold this year during sales in London, Hong Kong, and New York. Bronfman’s collection is expected to fetch more than $34 million. 

Highlights from the collection include Picasso’s “Mangeuse de Pasteque et Homme Ecrivant,” which is expected to bring $7 million to $10 million; a seascape by Matisse titled “Femme Aupres de la Fenetre,” which is estimated to fetch between $3 million and $5 million; and Monet’s “L’Escalier,” which is expect to garner between $1.5 million and $2.5 million. Most of the works being offered at Christie’s once hung in Bronfman’s Manhattan penthouse, which is on the market for $65 million.

Bronfman, who passed away in December, helmed the Seagram Company for 23 years before retiring in 1994. He also led the World Jewish Congress and helped establish it as the world’s preeminent Jewish organization.

Sotheby’s American Art auction, which took place today, May 22, 2013 in New York, garnered upward of $28 million, surpassing the sale’s high estimate of $24.4 million. Out of the 62 lots offered, 83.9% sold and 93.8% sold by value. This was the third consecutive American art sale at Sotheby’s to exceed its high estimate.

The auction’s top lot was the highly anticipated John Singer Sargent (1856-1925) painting Marionettes (1907), which achieved $5.2 million (estimate: $5 million-$7 million). Best known for his portraits of members of high society, Marionettes is a departure from Sargent’s usual subjects. The painting depicts men from Philadelphia’s large Italian American community performing Sicilian puppet theater at the turn of the 20^th century. When Sargent created the work, he was well established and considered to be the preeminent portrait painter of his time. The painting was part of Sargent’s personal collection for over 20 years and was passed down through the artist’s family to the owner who offered the work at Sotheby’s.

Proving the enduring strength of Norman Rockwell (1894-1978) in the American art market, six paintings by the artist sold together for $6.5 million, garnering double their overall high estimate of $3 million. Another work by Rockwell, He’s Going to Be Taller than Dad, was the object of seven bidders desire. The domestic scene of a young boy and his dog sold for $2.6 million, far exceeding its high estimate of $700,000.

At the sale, auction records were set for the modern painter Milton Avery (1885-1965), California landscape painter William Keith (1838-1911), and portraitist Irving Ramsey Wiles (1861-1948).

American art sales continue tomorrow, May 23, 2013 at Christie’s in New York.

Held in New York on September 25^th, Christie’s American Art sale counted two Norman Rockwell works on paper as the top lots. Study for ‘The Runaway,’ perhaps the artist’s most iconic image, brought in $206,500. The original estimate for Study at auction was $80,000–$120,000. In 1958, the completed work, which features a young boy at a diner in conversation with a policeman, was used as a Saturday Evening Post cover.

The other Rockwell that fared well was Keeping His Course (Exeter Grill) which had an estimate of $100,000 to $150,000 and ended up selling for $218,500. The work was originally conceived as an illustration for the book Keeping His Course (1918) by Ralph Henry Barbour. A less recognizable Rockwell, A Man’s Wife, didn’t quite reach it’s $30,000–$50,000 estimate and ending up selling for $27,500.

Edgar Alwin Payne’s Western painting La Marque Lake, High Sierra more than doubled its $25,000–$35,000 estimate when it sold for $80,500. Other works that exceeded expectations were Andrew Wyeth’s watercolor, Front Door at Teel’s (estimate: $50,000–$70,000), that realized $93,700 and Josef Mario Korbel’s Andante (Dancing Girls) (estimate: $30,000–$50,000), a bronze that brought in $62,500.

The auction offered over 160 lots including Impressionist and Modernist works, Western pieces, illustrations, and bronzes. Artists on the block included Stuart Davis, Milton Avery, Will Barnet, Edward Hopper, and William Merritt Chase. Expected to reach in excess of $2.5 million, the total sale realized for the auction was $2,649,475.

While the auction reached its estimate, only 63% sold by lot and 76% by value. Debra Force of Debra Force Fine Art, Inc. said, “63% is terrible but there are many reasons for the poor performance. September is too early in the season for a sale. People are just getting back from summer, putting kids in school, and it’s in the middle of the Jewish holidays.” Force added, “The important collectors don’t look at these mid-season sales. They should, but they’re waiting for the major sale.“

Gavin Spanierman of Gavin Spanierman Ltd. echoed Force’s sentiments. “63% is pretty scary if you’re a seller but that’s representative of mid-season sales. However, the fact that the two Rockwells did well considering they were not phenomenal, shows that there is strength in the market.”

The now-shuttered Knoedler & Co. gallery, which is the subject of several lawsuits charging it sold fakes, will sell nearly three dozen works from its remaining inventory at auction this fall.

Thirty-four pieces of art from the gallery’s inventory that include works by Robert Rauschenberg, Helen Frankenthaler, Jules Olitski, Milton Avery, and Walker Evans, are scheduled to be auctioned off by Doyle New York on Nov. 13, said Harold Porcher, vice-president and director of modern contemporary art at Doyle.

What is it that makes Milton Avery’s (1885–1965) art appear so much more “modern” when compared to canvases by his contemporaries, whether they be figurative or abstract artists? With modernism, the search for immediacy, for quickness, for vitality—the pursuit of effects intrinsic to the sketch became the ends rather than the means of artistic achievement. No longer relegated to a stage within the production of a finished work of art, characteristics of drawings and studies became increasingly appreciated for their ability to convey a world of change, speed, and novelty synonymous with all that was “modern” in people’s lives and daily experiences.