Art Market Watch New York Auctions Of American Art By Jessica Mizrachi

Diverse is a good way to describe the typical offerings at the sales of American

art at Christies and Sothebys, where works by Georgia OKeeffe are sold alongside those of Maxfield Parrish and George Inness. At the American art sales at Christies and Sothebys in New York last week, demand was for the most part concentrated on paintings from the first half of the 20th century.

Christies 100-lot smorgasbord on Wednesday, May 16, 2012, totaled $27.2 million (with premium) for 77 lots sold, or 77 percent. Among the premium offerings were a rather prosaic Fitz Henry Lane Massachussets harbor scene, complete with a pair of bulls, from 1849; an Oscar Bluemner Cubo-stained glass take on the view from Tottenville to Staten Island (or vice versa); and an unabashedly corny Norman Rockwell magazine cover portrait from 1927 of an old-time cowboy absorbed by a victrola. All three paintings carried estimates of $2 million-$3 million, but the only one to sell was the Rockwell, which at $2.3 million was the auctions second priciest lot.

First place was taken by Mary Cassatts Sara Holding a Cat (1907-08), painted when the artist was in her 60s and beginning to suffer from arthritis and cataracts (note the large signature). It sold for $2.6 million, about double the presale high estimate of $1.2 million. During the last century, the much-reproduced painting -- widely available as a poster and commercial print -- passed through the hands of Knoedlers twice and Hirschl & Adler once, and last sold at auction in 2000 at Sothebys New York for $830,750.

Other top lots included a Frederick Carl Frieseke Japonisme-inspired painting of a lady with a pink parasol in a garden of blue Foxgloves from ca. 1912 ($2.2 million), Georgia OKeeffes melodramatic 36-inch-tall Deer Horns from 1938 ($1.9 million, bought by New York dealer Baird W. Ryan), and Maxfield Parrishs otherworldly Puss-in-Boots illustration ($1.4 million), all of which sold within or near presale estimates.

A second, earlier OKeeffe, a dark, abstract pastel of concentric circular forms titled Lake George in Woods (1922), sold for $902,500, well above its presale high estimate of $500,000.

Milton Avery was represented by a small fleet of paintings, and three far exceeded their estimates. A 1947 oil, Adolescent, showing a beret-topped girl standing confidently beside a chair, made the top ten at $1 million (est. $400,000-$600,000). A nude that was a gift back in 1948 from the artist to Janice Newman Rosenthal, the paintings consignor, brought $722,500 (est. $250,000-$350,000). And perhaps most surprisingly, Averys Swans from the 1940s vaulted past its presale high estimate of $60,000 and sold for $434,500. Swans was deaccessioned by the Columbus (Ohio) Museum of Art to benefit the acquisitions fund.

The Ohio museums take-away was dwarfed by the funding windfall of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, thanks to the sale of a painting from its collection, Edward Hoppers Bridle Path (1939), for $10.4 million (est. $5 million-$7 million) at Sothebys New York on Thursday, May 17, 2012. The animated picture, which seems poised between the artists early magazine illustrations and his signature later works, shows a trio of horseback riders approaching the Riftstone Arch at 72nd Street in Central Park. After seeing sketches of the painting, Hoppers wife, Jo Hopper, wrote in her diary, I am most excited over this new picture -- it will be outstandingly fine.

by: aarenbrowns

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