2009 December Signature Art of the American West & Texas Auction

PROPERTY FROM THE DUFFY AND TINA OYSTER FOUNDATION

MELVIN CHARLES WARREN (American, 1920-1995)
Searchers
Oil on canvas
25 x 36 inches (63.5 x 91.4 cm)
Signed lower right: Melvin C. Warren
Titled verso: Searchers

In many ways, western artists are visual story tellers. It is not surprising that many of the most successful and influential western artists that rose to prominence in the 1960s and 1970s began their artistic careers as illustrators. They were trained in the traditions of such past masters as N.C. Wyeth, Harvey Dunn, and Frank Schoonover. As illustrators they were given the tasks of bringing to life the words of western writers by providing an accompanying picture to add drama to a particular narrative passage. When these artists made the transition from illustrator to independent artist, they developed their own visual tales of the adventure and action of the Old West. These stories, however, did not have the advantage of being accompanied by a written passage. The stories that their paintings convey are all contained within the parameters of the canvas. In addition to the artistic skill needed to create a painting, these artists must also construct paintings in a way that allows the viewer to place himself in the context of the story being told. The story begins on the canvas and is completed in the imagination of the viewer.

Melvin Warren is one such visual dramatist. His painting, Searchers, places the viewer in mid story. A group of soldiers and their Indian scouts are making their way directly toward the viewer, a vast expanse of western landscape behind. That landscape contains no clues as to the purpose of this trek. It is a lonely and desolate territory that the riders have just traversed. The title of the piece gives a clue to the purpose of this ride. Warren was a master storyteller who knew that sometimes, the less that is actually said or drawn, the greater the drama conveyed by the few details that are present. The small detail he adds that speaks volumes is the solitary canteen marked with the U.S. insignia that signals it once belonged to a now lost soldier. It is easy to miss this detail, but when the viewer does notice it, the full impact of the story being told begins to take shape.

Warren grew up on numerous ranches in Texas and graduated with a degree in art from Texas Christian University in Fort Worth. Before he found success as a full-time artist, he spent years in the field of illustration and commercial art, honing his craft, and developing his talent as a narrative artist. He heard his first stories of the Old West from his father and other family members who spent their days working as cowboys and ranch hands. Warren combined a keen observation of the world around him with an early interest in art. His first art training was through a correspondence course that was delivered to him on a ranch in Seymour, Texas. In 1968, he joined the Cowboy Artists of America, and won many of the organization's top awards prior to his death in 1995. 1968 was also the year that he moved to Clifton, Texas, and helped establish Bosque county as a haven for artists.

TONY EUBANKS (American, b. 1939)
Dallas County Courthouse, 1981
Oil on canvas
30 x 40 inches (76.2 x 101.6 cm)
Signed and dated lower left: © Tony Eubanks / 1981

Another artist who calls Clifton, Texas, home, Tony Eubanks's artistic interests are eclectic and wide ranging. He paints still lifes, landscapes, seascapes, and scenes of both historic and contemporary cowboy life. He entered college with the intent of becoming a rancher, but soon decided that art was his true calling. After graduating from the University of North Texas, he studied at the Los Angeles Art Center and has been painting full time since the late 1970s. He is constantly searching for new subjects and themes in his art in the belief that tackling diverse subjects keeps him fresh. He is as likely to paint scenes from area ranches as he is to create portraits of Native Americans. He also frequently focuses on the historic West and often turns his attention to the history of his native Texas.

Dallas County Courthouse presents a glimpse into the past of Dallas at the turn of the nineteenth to the twentieth century. Eubanks shows the bustling life around the courthouse as Dallas is transitioning to the modern era. While cowboys ride down a rain soaked and muddy street in early evening, the setting sun highlights the red stone of the newly constructed courthouse, which is illuminated by electric lights. Much later, the courthouse became known locally as "Old Red," due to the color of the stones. To create a historically accurate scene, Eubanks drew on period photographs and research as well as first hand observation. He also had the advantage of stories his grandfather told him about the construction of the building. His grandfather was part of the work team that built the courthouse. Eubanks painted the building as it was at the turn of the century, not as it was when the painting was completed. The clock tower, which is a prominent feature of the painting, was removed from the structure in the 1920s after being so severely damaged in a wind storm that city fathers feared it would topple into the street.

In recent years, "Old Red" has undergone a multi-million dollar renovation, which has restored both the inside and exterior of the building to its former grandeur. A highlight of that renovation was the fabrication and installation of a new clock tower that is an exact replica of the original. The courthouse now stands as a gateway to Dallas's history as the home of the Old Red Museum of Dallas County History and Culture.

TONY EUBANKS (American, b. 1939)
Red Pony, 1981
Oil on canvas
28 x 40 inches (71.1 x 101.6 cm)
Signed and dated lower right: © T. Eubanks / 1981

MARTIN GRELLE (American, b. 1954)
The Hunter's Cabin, 1987
Oil on linen
24 x 36 inches (61.0 x 91.4 cm)
Signed and dated lower left: CA Martin Grelle / 1987 / ©

Martin Grelle was fortunate to have been born and raised in Clifton, Texas. As a high school student, he met and was befriended by two highly successful and influential western artists, Melvin Warren and James Boren, who were both members of the Cowboy Artists of America. Those two artists, who helped establish Clifton and Bosque County as something of an artists' colony, became mentors to the young artist. Through their inspiration and guidance, Grelle was able to develop his natural artistic talent and eventually followed in their footsteps. Like his mentors before him, Grelle was chosen to join the Cowboy Artists of America in 1995. Since that time, his work has steadily increased in demand, and he is now one of the most popular western artists in the country. He is one of only five artists that have twice won the Prix de West purchase award at the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City.

His work spans the historic and contemporary West. He is as successful in depicting the lives of nineteenth century Northern Plains Indians as he is at portraying the lives of today's cowboys. His work is informed by his reading of western history and by his ability to record faithfully the grandeur of the western landscape. In The Hunter's Cabin, he creates a scene that could be drawn from almost any time period, a lone hunter leads his pack horse toward a small cabin tucked in a mountain clearing. The season is early fall and the trees are beginning to show their late autumn splendor. The hunter is bringing the supplies that will sustain him through the long winter. Grelle has effectively captured the natural beauty of the mountains and forest and has also added a hint of a story. His intent is to add just enough of a narrative element to pique the interest of his viewer. Of his paintings he says, "I try to execute it in a way that leaves parts of the painting up to the viewer's imagination, so they can enjoy the process of inventing the painting along with me."

MARTIN GRELLE (American, b. 1954)
December Morning, 1985
Oil on linen
20 x 16 inches (50.8 x 40.6 cm)
Signed and dated lower right: CA Martin Grelle / 1985 / ©

MARTIN GRELLE (American, b. 1954)
In High Country, 1985
Oil on linen
20 x 30 inches (50.8 x 76.2 cm)
Signed and dated lower left: CA Martin Grelle / 1985 ©

MARTIN GRELLE (American, b. 1954)
Going Courtin', 1985
Oil on linen
10 x 14 inches (25.4 x 35.6 cm)
Signed and dated lower right: CA Martin Grelle / 1985 / ©

MARTIN GRELLE (American, b. 1954)
Back Roads, 1985
Oil on canvas
14 x 18 inches (35.6 x 45.7 cm)
Signed and dated lower right: CA Martin Grelle / 1985 / ©

B.R. GREENE (American, 20th Century)
Woman Gathering Firewood
Oil on canvas
18 x 24 inches (45.7 x 61.0 cm)
Signed lower right: B.R. Greene

Bruce Greene has been a member of the Cowboy Artists of America since 1995. He is both an accomplished sculptor and painter. Primarily drawing upon the modern West, Greene paints the men and women who make their livings on the farms and ranches of Texas. For several years, he has traveled to the JA Ranch in the Texas Panhandle to participate in the annual round up and other ranching events. He credits his work on the ranch as giving him a special insight into the lives of the cowboys he portrays. He said, "just seeing how they go about their daily lives gives me a deeper understanding of the life that I am trying to portray in my work." Greene lives in Clifton, Texas, along with several other western artists. This painting shows that in addition to portraying horses and men, he is also able to capture with sensitivity the lives of the women who live and work alongside those cowboys.

JAMES ERWIN BOREN (American, 1921-1990)
Horses in the Shade, 1971
Watercolor on paper
27 x 35 inches (68.6 x 88.9 cm)
Signed and dated lower right: James Boren / 1971 CA

James Boren was one of the deans of modern western painters in Texas. Born in Waxahachie, Boren began his career in art as a teacher following his service in the Marines. He was the first art director at the newly established National Cowboy Hall of Fame (now the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum) in Oklahoma City in 1965. Shortly afterward he was inducted into the Cowboy Artists of America and became one of its most celebrated and honored members. In the late 1960s, he and fellow CAA member Melvin Warren, both established homes and studios in the small central Texas town of Clifton and helped turn that city into something of a western artists' colony.

Boren received formal art training at the Kansas City Art Institute and graduated with a master of fine arts degree in 1951. He taught art for two years at St. Mary's college in Leavenworth, Kansas, and followed that with a nine year stint as an illustrator for Martin-Marietta Company. He said that both of those experiences, as a teacher and illustrator, helped him develop the discipline needed to pursue a career as a painter. He said, "Good drawing, good color, an understanding of the basic design and elements such as form, pattern, value, line, and texture are essential to producing good art. This is the foundation on which an artist should build."

Although Boren painted many images of the historic and contemporary West, he was most at ease painting the land and people that he encountered on a daily basis around his Clifton home. As in Horses in the Shade, he frequently chose to portray the quieter and more serene elements of the West and Texas, concentrating on creating paintings that were rich in color, light, and the subtle nuances of the landscape. His preferred media was watercolor. He said, "It offers the greatest spontaneity of expression of any painting medium and lends itself to beautiful transparent passages or to completely opaque gouache techniques, or a combination of the two." Horses in the Shade amply illustrates his watercolor technique. Here he achieves the spontaneity he spoke of with a quiet scene that gives the viewer the sensation of having just arrived on the spot. Boren was adept at placing the viewer at a vantage point where he can easily place himself in the context of the scene presented.

PROPERTY FROM A PRIVATE NORTH TEXAS COLLECTION

G. HARVEY (American, b. 1933)
Hot Grub Coming Up, 1986
Oil on canvas
12 x 16 inches (30.5 x 40.6 cm)
Signed and dated lower left: G. Harvey 1986
Titled, signed, and dated verso: Hot Grub Coming Up / G. Harvey © 1986

The brilliant glow from a storefront window spilling out into a cold gray street has become one of Harvey's most recognizable trademarks. Here, cowboys trudge wearily down a snowy street past these points of light, heading towards a hot meal. Visible over their shoulders are a trinity of oil derricks rising from the edge of town. This image could have been captured in any number of small towns across Texas, and the appeal of its common subject matter is universal.

G. HARVEY (American, b. 1933)
First Spring, 1977
Oil on canvas
24 x 40 inches (61.0 x 101.6 cm)
Signed and dated lower right: G. Harvey 1977 ©
Titled and signed on stretcher: First Spring, G. Harvey

A mare and foal stand together in a nighttime landscape, with prickly pear cactus in the foreground. The head of the older mare turns towards the young foal, directing our attention to the subject of the painting with an almost narrative flair.

G. HARVEY (American, b. 1933)
The Red Gate, 1977
Oil on canvas
22 x 28 inches (55.9 x 71.1 cm)
Signed and dated lower right: G. Harvey / 1977 ©

G. HARVEY (American, b. 1933)
Letter from Home, 1976
Oil on canvas
20 x 24 inches (50.8 x 61.0 cm)
Signed and dated lower left: G. Harvey / 1976 ©
Signed, dated, and titled on stretcher: by G. Harvey, 1976, Letter from Home

The hope and anticipation of a letter from home is contrasted here against a bleak winter landscape. The migrant nature of the cowboy life was an often painted subject of western artists. Although frequently romanticized, Harvey shows a moment of isolation drawn from the lonely realities of daily life.

G. HARVEY (American, b. 1933)
Closing the Winter Gap, 1977
Oil on canvas
18 x 24 inches (45.7 x 61.0 cm)
Signed and dated lower left: G. Harvey / 1977 ©

Each cowboy was the shepherd of his herd, and his priority was the welfare of the livestock. Here, a pair of cowboys is locking up the gate that leads to the mountain pass. The thick winter snows that reveal the horses' tracks in the foreground have closed the gap, making it too treacherous for passage until spring. Any animal to stray towards the pass would surely be lost.

G. HARVEY (American, b. 1933)
Blowin' In, 1976
Bronze
17 x 22 x 12 inches (43.2 x 55.9 x 30.5 cm) (with base)
Edition: 5/40
Signed and dated on base: G. Harvey/ 1976

G. HARVEY (American, b. 1933)
A Breed Apart
Bronze
16-1/2 x 21 x 10 inches (41.9 x 53.3 x 25.4 cm) (with base)
Edition: 39/40
Signed, dated, and titled on base: G. Harvey/ 1981/ 'A Breed Apart'

G. HARVEY (American, b. 1933)
Winter Moon, 1975
Oil on artist's board
9 x 12 inches (22.9 x 30.5 cm)
Signed and dated lower right: G. Harvey 1975

G. HARVEY (American, b. 1933)
Keeping Close, 1970
Oil on canvas
16 x 20 inches (40.6 x 50.8 cm)
Signed and dated lower right: G. Harvey / Austin / 1970

G. HARVEY (American, b. 1933)
His First Burro, 1972
Oil on canvas
24 x 36 inches (61.0 x 91.4 cm)
Signed and dated lower right: G. Harvey / Austin / 1972 ©
Titled on stretcher: His First Burro

G. HARVEY (American, b. 1933)
Cowponies, 1977
Oil on canvas
20 x 24 inches (50.8 x 61.0 cm)
Signed and dated lower left: G. Harvey 1977 ©
Titled, signed, and dated on stretcher: Cowponies, G. Harvey, 1977 ©

Harvey has created a genre scene recognizable to any cowboy across Texas. Sturdy work horses have been saddled and fitted with gear. Tied to the corral, they wait patiently for their riders and the open range.

G. HARVEY (American, b. 1933)
At the Turn of the Century, 1987
Gouache on paper
7 x 5 inches (17.8 x 12.7 cm)
Signed and dated lower right: G. Harvey © 1987
Titled, signed, and dated verso: "At the Turn of the Century" / G. Harvey © 1987 (with artist's stamp)

PROVENANCE:
Altermann Galleries, Santa Fe (label verso).

PROPERTY FROM THE DUFFY AND TINA OYSTER FOUNDATION

G. HARVEY (American, b. 1933)
After Tea
Oil on canvas
20 x 24 inches (50.8 x 61.0 cm)
Signed lower right: G. Harvey
Titled and signed verso: After Tea / G. Harvey ©

ROBERT PUMMILL (American, b. 1936)
Near the Aspen Grove, 1975
Oil on canvas
24 x 40 inches (61.0 x 101.6 cm)
Signed lower left: Pummill

Like many artists, Bob Pummill spends countless hours in his studio; he is an avid researcher of historical periods, and he has spent many days on the road traveling throughout the West in order to assure that his paintings have the look and feel of specific places and times. He carefully works out the composition of each painting and makes numerous small thumbnail sketches before turning to his larger canvases. In short, Pummill puts in a lot of work for each painting. Art has been his full time occupation since 1977, yet he will tell you that in all of that time, he has never looked upon his art as a burden of any kind. As he says, "When you spend your time doing what you love, you never go to work."

While much of his art draws from the period between the Civil War through the Indian Wars (1890s), an era that gave birth to the American cowboy, he also produces timeless paintings of the West such as Near the Aspen Grove. A scene such as this one could take place in almost any time period, including the present. Pummill is adept at creating scenes of high drama and adventure, but he also frequently captures quieter and more reflective moments. With each painting, his goal is to evoke in the viewer a sense of place. He has said, "Every place has its own spirit. I try to imagine what it would have been like to have been in that particular place at that particular time. I want to paint the essence of the situation and to capture the atmosphere and feeling of the era and setting."

Pummill spent nine years in the Air Force, which afforded him the opportunity to travel across the country and gain firsthand experience of the land he would later portray in his art. After the Air Force, he spent many years as an illustrator and draughtsman in the aerospace industry. He confined his painting to nights and weekends until he was able to sell enough to launch his painting career. He compares the whole process of creating a painting from the first concept through the actual execution as being similar to directing a movie, but as he says, "I get to be director, writer, cinematographer, and set designer."

ROBERT PUMMILL (American, b. 1936)
Two Crow, Arikara Dancer, 1983
Charcoal and conte crayon on paper
16 x 12 inches (40.6 x 30.5 cm)
Signed and dated lower right: Pummill ©'83
Artist's label verso

WAYNE BAIZE (American, b. 1943)
Leading 'Em Across
Pastel on paper
12 x 28 inches (30.5 x 71.1 cm) window
Signed lower right: Wayne Baize

Wayne Baize lives the life that he paints. He and his family manage a 1,500 acre ranch in the Davis Mountains in far west Texas. They raise cattle, grow their own vegetables, and are remarkably self-sufficient, much like the pioneer ranches who came before them. When he is not performing the daily tasks of caring for his ranch, Baize paints in a modest studio and concentrates on creating work that is drawn directly from life. The life of the modern cowboy is his primary subject, but he does not suffer from a lack of ideas to paint. An active member of the Cowboy Artists of America for many years, Baize presents a fresh look at the modern West.

EDD HAYES (American, b. 1945)
Roping the Calf, 1990
Bronze
24 x 50 x 39 inches (61.0 x 127 x 99.1 cm) (with base)
Edition: 20/20
Signed and dated on base: Edd Hayes/ 1990
Inscribed on base: Joe Crow/ Ben Johnson (calf ropers)

ROBERT SUMMERS (American, b. 1940)
Breaking Camp, 1974
Oil on canvas
24 x 36 inches (61.0 x 91.4 cm)
Signed and dated lower right: Robert Summers / © 1974

Artist Robert Summers holds a unique distinction in the city of Dallas, Texas. He has created the most photographed site in the city, and it has nothing to do with John Fitzgerald Kennedy. Located in a city park in front of Dallas City Hall is Summers's larger than life-size homage to the western traditions of Texas. His sculpture Pioneer Plaza Trail Drive is composed of 40 bronze steers and three mounted cowboys that are spread out over a 2.8 acre site. Summers, who began developing his talent as an artist at a very early age, was chosen for the task of creating the sculpture due to his success in creating images, both in painting and sculpture, that were drawn from the ranching and cattle driving traditions of Texas. A resident of Glen Rose, Summers still draws his inspiration from the ranchers and cowboys of his home territory.

First hand observation and innate talent have always been the tools that Summers has drawn on. He has had little formal education in the arts, but has developed the talent to utilize many different artistic techniques and media including oils, watercolor, egg tempera, acrylic, pastel, and sculpting clay. Breaking Camp shows Summers at his best in depicting a western scene from historic Texas. Several cowboys are shown preparing to meet the day's work. It is not clear what tasks the day will bring, but these cowboys are armed and prepared to meet whatever comes their way. The dark palette reflects the early morning hour, and the darkness is subtly offset by the use of a few select colors. The overall feeling evoked is one of quiet anticipation of what the day will bring.

GARY LYNN ROBERTS (American, b. 1953)
Last Chance for Supplies
Oil on canvas
30 x 40 inches (76.2 x 101.6 cm)
Signed lower left: Gary Lynn Roberts / ©

Gary Lynn Roberts has had many artistic influences on his career as a painter of historic western scenes. Perhaps the most important was his father, Joe Rader Roberts, who was a well known western painter in his own right. As a teenager in Austin, Texas, Gary had the advantage of tutelage from his father, but also from some other very notable artists who frequently stopped by his father's studio including G. Harvey, A.D. Greer, and Dalhart Windberg. As a young developing artist, Roberts was able to incorporate a little of the techniques and styles of each of these mentors. In addition to that first hand instruction, he has also drawn inspiration from the great illustrators of the early twentieth century such as N.C. Wyeth, W.H.D. Koerner, Harvey Dunn, and others.

He has taken all of those influences and adapted them to his own unique style. He primarily works in themes from the historic West, particularly the 1870s and 1880s. While he is careful to research the facts of the time period, he says his work is more about telling a good story than being absolutely faithful to historic details. He has said, in fact, that his first and foremost job is to place his viewers in the midst of an interesting and comparative narrative, just as those early illustrators were able to do in their work.

For much of his early career, he focused on the stories and history of his native Texas, however, for the last several years, he has shifted his attention to the northern Rockies. He first traveled to the area, when he was invited to participate in the annual auction benefiting the C.M. Russell Museum in Great Falls, Montana. After participating in the event for several years, he eventually moved there and now lives and works in the small town of Hamilton, Montana. Last Chance for Supplies combines all of Roberts's interests and favorite elements. The scene is a snow covered clearing in the northern Rockies. Roberts places the viewer in the middle of an unfolding story showing four cowboys, three mounted and one driving the chuck wagon, on their way to town for one last trip before the winter snows will make that trip impossible. Always the storyteller, Roberts adds a touch of sentimentality with the addition of the cowboy's dog, who is also along for the trip.

BOB LEE (American, b. 1933)
The Headquarters Ranch, 1979
Oil on masonite
18 x 24 inches (45.7 x 61.0 cm)
Signed and dated lower right: © Bob Lee 1979

DAVID SANDERS (American, b. 1936)
Portrait of an Indian
Pastel on paper
29-1/2 x 19-1/2 inches (74.9 x 49.5 cm) window
Signed lower right: David Sanders

A. KELLY PRUITT (1924-2009)
Navajo Land
Oil on canvas
8-1/4 x 10 inches (21.0 x 25.4 cm)
Signed lower right: A. Kelly Pruitt
Titled on stretcher: Navajo Land

FREMONT F. ELLIS (American, 1897-1985)
River Bed at Pajoque
Oil on artist's board
22 x 30 inches (55.9 x 76.2 cm)
Signed lower right: Fremont F. Ellis
Titled and signed verso: River Bed at Pojaque / Fremont F. Ellis / El Rancho de San Sebastian / Santa Fe, N.M.

With Jozef Bakos, Walter Mruk, Willard Nash, and Will Shuster, Fremont Ellis founded in 1921 Los Cinco Pintores, Santa Fe's modernist art movement. Throughout his career he drew inspiration from the light and palette of the New Mexico landscape. He was born in 1897 in Montana, the son of a traveling dentist, and received his only art training during a stint in New York, studying for three months at the Art Students League and copying Impressionist masterworks at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Ellis's first job as an optometrist proved dissatisfying, and in 1919 after a visit to Santa Fe, he decided to plant roots there: he married, worked as a photographer and sign painter, and pursued his true passion of landscape painting. Of the Cinco Pintores, Ellis was the most traditional, never adopting pure abstraction, rather favoring the fractured brushwork and vibrant palette of Impressionism to render the region's mountains, trees, and deserts. During his nearly sixty years in Santa Fe, he maintained ties with the West coast and exhibited at the California Art Club, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and Oakland Art Gallery.

Like the French Impressionist Claude Monet, Ellis painted series of landscapes, often repeating the same scene in different seasons and under varying atmospheric conditions. El Rancho de San Sebastian, a forested region just north of Santa Fe, was one of his favorite serial subjects. With its flickering aspen groves and views of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, this location afforded Ellis ripe opportunities to experiment with light and color. Here, he captures an eerie, pre-storm effect, where light, peeking out beneath turbulent gray clouds, throws into relief the sandy Pojoaque River bed below. Anchoring the composition is a central band of complementary-colored forms, feathery orange aspens superimposed upon rolling blue hills. Ellis's inclusion of an adobe house and conversing locals is unusual and adds human interest to this striking landscape.

FREMONT F. ELLIS (American, 1897-1985)
Sandstorm
Oil on canvas
30 x 25 inches (76.2 x 63.5 cm)
Signed lower left: Fremont F. Ellis
A skilled photographer, Ellis often employed a camera as part of his painting process; by adjusting lenses and settings on his camera, he was able to create images with a broad range of colors and tones, which he then reproduced in paint on canvas. Such color-tone contrasts are visible in Sandstorm, a depiction of the Canyon de Chelly in Arizona, frequented by Ellis on his trips from Santa Fe to California. In the foreground, an Indian woman and her herd of goats, sprinkled like cacti across the desert hills, brace themselves against the approaching storm. Their graphic lines and vivid coloration contrast with the background landscape - a view of the famous 80-ft. sandstone Spider Rock -- enveloped in a pastel haze of swirling sand. Critics applauded Ellis's ability to render the "dry, glowing light of the desert," no doubt aided by his camera work.

ORIN SHELDON PARSONS (American, 1866-1943)
Adobe Village
Oil on board
16 x 20 inches (40.6 x 50.8 cm)
Signed lower right: Sheldon Parsons

Seeking to start a new life following his wife's death, Sheldon Parsons left a highly successful career in New York as a portrait painter and moved with his daughter to Santa Fe, New Mexico, in 1913. Parsons also suffered from tuberculosis at the time, and he thought the high desert air in New Mexico would be a boon to his health. Both he and his art flourished in his new home. He was one of the first established artists to become a full time resident of Santa Fe, arriving there several years before other artists joined him to create a thriving art colony.

Parsons's approach to painting changed dramatically when he moved to Santa Fe. His palette became much brighter and his style turned to Impressionism. He favored paintings of his surroundings, adobe villages, sunlit mountains, and aspen forests. Once establishing himself in Santa Fe, he completely abandoned portraiture and in fact did not include any figures in his paintings. He sold many works at the Palace of Governors in the heart of Santa Fe. He was a popular local figure, and when the new Fine Arts Museum opened in 1918, he was the first director. Adobe Village is a prime example of Parsons's New Mexico work. It features the soft but bright colors of his later work. Here the contours of the land, the sky, and trees blend in with the adobe structures to give a feeling of harmony between man and nature. Parsons skillfully contrasts the autumn gold of the towering tree against the blue sky and white clouds. The tree as focal point also serves to guide the viewer's eye to such details as the placement of the oven just outside of the adobe house. Parsons embraced his new found home and created a successful career there until his death in 1943.

PROPERTY FROM THE DUFFY AND TINA OYSTER FOUNDATION

EANGER IRVING COUSE (American, 1866-1936)
Peasant Girl Seated on Shocks of Grain
Oil on canvas
13 x 16 inches (33.0 x 40.6 cm)
Signed lower left: E.I. Couse
.

PROPERTY FROM A PRIVATE NORTH TEXAS COLLECTION

EANGER IRVING COUSE (American, 1866-1936)
The Encampment, circa 1896
Oil on canvas
12 x 16 inches (30.5 x 40.6 cm)
Signed lower right: E.I. Couse

PROVENANCE:
Wortsman Rowe Gallery, San Francisco (label verso).

Couse's boyhood fascination with Indians led him to sketch and thereby discover his artistic talent. The local Chippewa Indians were his first interest, and although he yearned for formal training, he continued to draw tirelessly. As a teenager, Couse painted ads on the sides of buildings in his hometown in order to earn money for tuition. At sixteen he attended the Chicago Art Institute, but when his money ran out three months later, he was forced to return home to Saginaw, Michigan. He next ventured to New York where his funds sustained him for two years at the National Academy of Design. Couse's natural talent distinguished him from his peers and catapulted him into a successful career. Public recognition followed, and in his first year at the academy, he received the Eliot Silver Medal, winning the prestigious Suydom Bronze Medal in his second year. With these accolades under his belt, he left for Paris in 1886, where he studied at the Académie Julian under Fleury and Bouguereau. Couse's accolades did not lessen in Europe, and his years in Paris were marked by notable awards (Concour de Tete, Prix et Medaille, Concour de Esquisse Prix).

After marrying fellow art student Virginia Walker, the Couses spent time at the Walker family ranch in Oregon in 1891. It was here that Couse, who had never lost his passion for American Indian culture, was presented with the opportunity to study the Klikitat, Yakima, and Umatilla tribes for the first time. It was a challenge to overcome the superstitions of the tribes in order to paint them, primarily their belief that taking a person's likeness also took their soul, effectively killing them. The first sitter Couse was able to gain access to was an old woman whom the tribe did not view as a great loss. Models came more readily when word spread that she survived that first sitting.

The Couses lived in France several more years before returning to America in 1896. Couse set up a summer studio at the Walker family ranch where he settled into sketching the local tribes in their natural setting. For the next six years, Couse translated hundreds of his plein-air sketches into formal paintings. He represented the Indians authentically in their traditional dress with the unique elements of their indigenous culture. The Encampment dates from this period and is recognizable as being of the Klikitat tribe by the distinctive teepees, dress, and Pendleton blankets. Couse painted the Pacific Northwest tribes directly from his first hand observations of their vanishing lifestyle.

Couse's papers mention correspondence with a friend in New York, presumably Ernest Blumenschein, who recommended Taos and promised a place to stay. Restless with the pale light of the northwest and tempted by the promise of a brighter landscape, Couse first visited Taos in 1902. The effect it had on him was a gradual saturation of palette not previously seen in his canvases. His colors slowly intensified in reaction to the brilliance of the new surroundings, and the new Indian cultures gave him material to explore.

In his painting Peasant Girl Seated on Shocks of Grain, we see the end result of Couse's palette transformation. The intensity of the colors place this as a work done later in the artist's career. The warm light falls on the objects from a brilliant external source and illuminates every aspect of the composition. Heritage is pleased to offer these two works from one of the signature artists of the American west.

BERT GREER PHILLIPS (American, 1868-1956)
Line of Children
Oil on canvas
7-1/2 x 18-1/4 inches (19.1 x 46.4 cm)
Signed lower right: Phillips
Although he had sketched Indians and western settlers as a child growing up in Hudson, New York, Bert Phillips never imagined that Taos, New Mexico, would become his source of inspiration and identity. During the 1880s, he concentrated his art experiences in New York City, enrolling in the Art Students League and the National Academy of Design and, after graduation, establishing his first studio there. Wanderlust motivated his move to England in 1894, where he painted pastoral watercolors, and the following year to Paris, where he studied at the Académie Julian with Jean Paul Laurens and the Orientalist Benjamin Constant. It was here that Phillips met fellow expatriates Joseph Sharp and Ernest Blumenschein; Sharp, who had already fallen in love with Taos, so convincingly described the town and its native residents, that Phillips and Blumenschein traveled there as tourists in 1898. Phillips, equally enamored, never left. Indeed, Taos's mountain backdrop and its Pueblo Indians provided perfect subjects for his dual interests in landscape and ethnography. He wrote, "I believe it is the romance of this great pure-aired land that makes the most lasting impression on my mind and heart." Taos, in turn, benefited from Phillips's residence in numerous ways: in 1912, he founded the Taos Society of Artists, along with Blumenschein, Sharp, Oscar Berninghaus, Irving Couse, and Herbert Dunton, and he successfully campaigned to preserve the Pueblo Indian's land as a national forest.

In order to underscore the poetic beauty of his Indian subjects, Phillips frequently placed them in seasonal Taos landscapes. On occasion, he worked in a panoramic format, which allowed him to capture widespread forested vistas. For example, both the 14" x 30" Springtime in Taos Pueblo and the 24" x 75" After the Ceremony superimpose a frieze of Indian figures upon a backdrop of mountains and flowering trees. Line of Children, probably painted shortly after his move to Taos, recalls this formula, particularly in the linear figures, blossoming cherry tree, and elongated composition. The children, however, are not those from the nearby pueblo, but from his academic repertoire.

WILLIAM HERBERT DUNTON (American, 1878-1936)
Character Study, 1933
Ink and graphite on paper
13 x 10-1/2 inches (33.0 x 26.7 cm) window
Signed lower right: Dunton / of / Taos
Inscribed lower left margin: Taos N.M. June 1st, 1933.

This lot accompanied by a letter of authentication from Dunton expert Michael Grauer dated 2004.

WILLIAM HERBERT DUNTON (American, 1878-1936)
The Old Pioneer, 1931
Lithograph on paper
21-1/4 x 16 inches (54.0 x 40.6 cm)
Signed in the plate: Dunton of Taos Signed lower right in margin: by V.E. Dunton
Inscribed lower left: The Old Pioneer/ Model: Chapman Ballard No. 79.
Inscribed lower right: W. Herbert Dunton '31/ "Old Timer" Series

WILLIAM HERBERT DUNTON (American, 1878-1936)
Texas Bronc Twister, 1930
Lithograph on paper
21-1/4 x 16 inches (54.0 x 40.6 cm)
Signed in the plate: Dunton of Taos Signed lower right in margin: by V.E. Dunton
Inscribed lower left: Texas Bronc Twister / Model: Van Price No. 89.
Inscribed lower right: W. Herbert Dunton '30 / Southwestern Series

WILLIAM HERBERT DUNTON (American, 1878-1936)
Indian Elder
Lithograph on paper
21-1/4 x 16 inches (54.0 x 40.6 cm)
Signed and dated in the plate: Dunton of Taos

PROVENANCE:
Estate of the artist by direct descent.

FRANK PAUL SAUERWEIN (American, 1871-1910)
Navajo Portrait, 1900
Oil on artist's board
8-1/2 x 7 inches (21.6 x 17.8 cm)
Signed and dated upper left: F.P. Sauerwein / 1900

EDGAR ALWIN PAYNE (American, 1883-1947)
Canyon de Chelly Riders
Gouache and graphite on paper
7-1/2 x 11-1/2 inches (19.1 x 29.2 cm) window
Signed lower right: Edgar Payne

PROVENANCE:
Goldfield Galleries, Los Angeles (label verso).

NED JACOB (American, b. 1938)
Tom Miraball
Pastel on paper
18 x 14 inches (45.7 x 35.6 cm)
Signed lower left: Jacob
Titled lower right: Tom Miraball

PROVENANCE:
Texas Trails Gallery, San Antonio.

PETER HURD (American, 1904-1984)
Untitled Study, circa 1952
Watercolor on paper
5-1/2 x 7-1/2 inches (14.0 x 19.1 cm) window
Signed lower left: Peter Hurd

PROVENANCE:
Gerald Peters Gallery, Santa Fe (label verso).

EXHIBITED:
Phoenix Art Museum, "Insight to a Painter," June 25-August 21, 1983, SE.1983.7.28 (label verso).

PETER HURD (American, 1904-1984)
Last Call
Lithograph on paper
27-3/4 x 39 inches (70.5 x 99.1 cm) window
Edition: 91/250
Signed lower right: Peter Hurd

GUNNAR MAURITZ WIDFORSS (Swedish, 1879-1934)
A View of the Grand Canyon
Watercolor on paper
10 x 13-1/2 inches (25.4 x 34.3 cm)
Signed upper left: Widforss

PROVENANCE:
Thomas Nygard Galleries , Bozeman, Montana (label verso).

Widforss is best known for his breathtaking watercolors of America's National Parks; primarily Yosemite, Yellowstone, Zion, Mesa Verde, and of course his beloved Grand Canyon. His luminous watercolors capture the unfiltered light and wide open spaces of the American west, believably creating a vastness of scope in his compositions despite the diminutive scale of the canvas. After studying to be a muralist at the Swedish Institute of Technology (1896-1900), Widforss traveled extensively before permanently settling in the United States. His eye for murals made him the perfect candidate to tackle the scale and grandeur of the west. The Director of National Parks, Stephen Mather, convinced Widforss that a career could be made painting America's relatively new national park land. Widforss's epic landscapes were published in the 1923 book Songs of Yosemite and used as cover illustrations for the major American magazines of the time.

Towards the end of his life, Widforss lived alone and worked primarily from his studio, which he built on the rim of the Grand Canyon. He studied the geology of the Grand Canyon from numerous vantage points and painted it from various perspectives. The canyon became his muse and companion, and his depictions of it are delicately rendered yet powerful. Widforss exhibited at the National Gallery in Washington, and in 1969 a retrospective of his work was held at the Museum of Northern Arizona in Flagstaff.

WILSON HURLEY (American, 1924-2008)
Canyon Wall, 1964
Oil on canvas
24 x 30 inches (61.0 x 76.2 cm)
Signed and dated lower right: Wilson Hurley 64

Wilson Hurley was a man of many talents and interests. A graduate of West Point, he was an engineer and pilot, and later a successful attorney in Albuquerque, New Mexico. He moved with his family to Santa Fe as a boy, and with his mother's encouragement, he began to develop his talent as a painter under the tutelage of local artist Theodore Van Soelen. Although art was an important and constant part of his life, he did not turn to painting as a way of making a living until he was 40 years old. As he did with all of his pursuits, Hurley came to excel at his newly chosen profession. He painted in the grand tradition of Thomas Moran and Albert Bierstadt, but with a highly modern and scientific perspective. His canvases, often in large scale, bring the viewer up close to the beauty of the western landscape in great detail. He has garnered numerous awards, including the Prix de West purchase prize at the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City, and his work has been the subject of retrospectives at the Rockwell Museum of Western Art in Corning, New York; the Eiteljorg Museum of American Indians and Western Art in Indianapolis, Indiana; and the Buffalo Bill Historical Center in Cody, Wyoming. He was also presented with a lifetime achievement by the Albuquerque Museum of Art. His greatest artistic achievement was the creation of five mammoth murals at the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum.

Canyon Wall is a relatively early work, completed just before he decided to paint full time, but it reflects both his skill and technique and the primary subject he would pursue throughout his career. His most frequent subject was the New Mexico landscape near his Albuquerque home, and here he presents the beauty of that scene with brilliant light and confident brush strokes.

A highly successful attorney and partner in his law firm, Hurley decided to leave that career after arranging the final affairs for a client with a terminal illness. Toward the end of their association, the client asked Hurley what he would do if he were faced with such an illness. As Hurley describes the incident, he said that the question prompted him to think about what he truly wanted to do. His answer was that he would like to find a studio with good north light and complete one good painting. He far exceeded that goal.

KENT R. WALLIS (American, b. 1945)
Iris by the Row, circa 1990
Oil on canvas
30 x 40 inches (76.2 x 101.6 cm)
Signed lower right: Kent R. Wallis

Primarily self-taught, Kent R. Wallis is a member of the Society of American Impressionists and the Society of Plein Air Painters of America. Before painting professionally, Wallis received his Bachelor's and Master's degrees in business administration from Utah State University. Un-fulfilled in a corporate environment, he turned to painting as a hobby that soon blossomed into his life's work. After moving his family to Logan, Utah, he opened an art supply store, which allowed him to focus on his own painting. The natural beauty of Utah became the source of inspiration for Wallis's bright, colorful, and joyful landscapes. His approach to painting is as an emotional process rather than a thinking process. He feels his way through a composition, applying paint quickly to the canvas as the impression comes to him. Heritage is proud to offer these two wonderful examples of Wallis's joyful and harmonious works.

KENT R. WALLIS (American, b. 1945)
A Row of Color, 1990
Oil on canvas
30 x 40 inches (76.2 x 101.6 cm)
Signed lower right: Kent R. Wallis
Inscribed verso: #2253 / A Row of Color / 30 x 40 / oil / by Kent R. Wallis / 1990

LOUISE MCELWAIN (American, b. 1953)
Los Llanos, Winter Afternoon, 1992
Oil on canvas
24 x 30 inches (61.0 x 76.2 cm)
Signed lower right: McElwain
Signed, titled, and dated on stretcher: Los Llanos, Winter Afternoon; Louise McElwain; 1992

MICHAEL STACK (American, b. 1947)
New Mexico Summer Clouds
Oil on canvas
8 x 12 inches (20.3 x 30.5 cm)
Signed lower right: Michael Stack
Titled and dated verso: New Mexico Summer Clouds © 2003

PROVENANCE:
Altermann Galleries, Santa Fe (label verso).

NANCY BUSH (American, b. 1947)
Rociada Pasture
Oil on canvas laid on board
9 x 12 inches (22.9 x 30.5 cm)
Signed lower left: Bush
Titled and signed verso: "Rocada Pasture" / N. Bush

R. C. GORMAN (American, 1932-2005)
Canyon Harvest, 1984
Serigraph
38-1/2 x 58-1/2 inches (97.8 x 148.6 cm)
Edition of 175
Signed in graphite lower left: R.C. Gorman
Inscribed in graphite lower right: E.P.I

FRANCISCO ZÚÑIGA (Mexican, b. 1912)
Crouching Women, 1967
Charcoal on paper
19 x 25 inches (48.3 x 63.5 cm)
Initialed and dated lower right: FZ / 1967

ANDREW MICHAEL DASBURG (American, 1887-1979)
Still Life with Pear and Parrot, 1961
Oil on canvas
24 x 30 inches (61.0 x 76.2 cm)
Signed and dated lower right: Dasburg '61

EMIL JAMES BISTTRAM (American, 1895-1976)
Calla Lilies
Oil on artist's board
14 x 10 inches (35.6 x 25.4 cm)
Signed lower left: Bisttram

EMIL JAMES BISTTRAM (American, 1895-1976)
Kachina Dancer, 1962
Mixed media on plastic light box
59 x 24 inches (149.9 x 61.0 cm)
Signed and dated lower right: Bisttram/ 62

FRITZ SCHOLDER (American, b. 1937)
A Pair of Lithographs
Portrait of an American Indian #2
29 x 21-1/4 inches (73.7 x 54.0 cm)
Ed. 20/57
Signed in graphite lower left: Scholder

California Mask #1
17-1/2 x 23-3/4 inches (44.5 x 60.3 cm) window
Signed in graphite lower right: Scholder
Titled in graphite lower left: California Mask #1

DOUG HYDE (American, b. 1946)
Native American Family
Carved hardwood
17-1/2 x 13 x 11-1/2 inches (44.5 x 33.0 x 29.2 cm)
Signed on base: D. Hyde

A member of the Nez Perce tribe, Doug Hyde, has excelled at representing Native American culture in his sculpture for over two decades. He studied at the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe under master sculptor Allan Houser. After serving two tours of duty in Vietnam, where he was seriously wounded, Hyde eventually returned to Santa Fe to succeed Houser as the sculpting teacher at the institute. Hyde works in a variety of media: marble, onyx, limestone, alabaster, and bronze. He prefers to work in stone. As this piece illustrates, he also, early in his career, experimented with wood as a medium. These early efforts in wood are quite rare. As in his later pieces, Hyde infuses his art with the mythology and customs of his Native American heritage.

HUBERT ROGERS (American, 1898-1982)
Untitled, 1926
Oil on canvas
50-1/4 x 30-1/4 inches (127.6 x 76.8 cm)
Signed and dated lower right: Hubert Rogers '26

KARL ALBERT (American, 1911-2007)
Ranch
Oil on canvas laid on board
16 x 20 inches (40.6 x 50.8 cm)
Signed lower right: Karl Albert

KARL ALBERT (American, 1911-2007)
Laguna Pueblo
Oil on canvas
18 x 24 inches (45.7 x 61.0 cm)
Signed lower right: Karl Albert
Titled and signed on stretcher: Laguna Pueblo / Karl Albert

KARL ALBERT (American, 1911-2007)
Monument Valley
Oil on canvas
24 x 36 inches (61.0 x 91.4 cm)
Signed lower right: Karl Albert

KARL ALBERT (American, 1911-2007)
Monument Valley
Oil on canvas laid on board
18 x 24 inches (45.7 x 61.0 cm)
Signed lower right: Karl Albert

PROPERTY OF C. HOPPE

GILBERT FRANZ NEUMANN (American, 1906-1970)
Arizona Cactus
Oil on board
7 x 9 inches (17.8 x 22.9 cm)
Signed lower left: Gilbert Neumann
Titled and inscribed verso: Arizona Cactus

JOSE D. (OQUWA) ROYBAL (American, 1922-1978)
Harvest Dance
Mixed media on paper
8 x 11-1/2 inches (20.3 x 29.2 cm) window
Signed lower right: J. D. Roybal

FRANK GERVASI (Italian/American, 1895-1986)
Cattle
Oil on canvas
20 x 30 inches (50.8 x 76.2 cm)
Signed lower left: F. Gervasi
Inscribed verso: Frank Gervasi / Cattle

WALT GONSKE (American, b. 1942)
San Jose Mission (San Antonio, Texas)
Oil on canvas
34 x 38 inches (86.4 x 96.5 cm)
Signed lower left: Gonske
Signed and titled on stretcher: Gonske © the San Jose Mission - San Antonio, Tx

Walt Gonske was born in New Jersey, and despite his non-western origins, has risen through the ranks of living artists to be known as one of the modern leaders of western art. His eastern training and education laid the formal ground work for his later success as an illustrator and painter. Gonske trained with well known illustrator Frank Reilly at the Arts Student League in New York City. As a commercial illustrator, his works have been featured on the pages of such national publications as Esquire, Life, and The New Yorker. Although successful in New York, Gonske decided to leave the big city at the age of 30 in order to pursue his painting career full time. He moved to Taos in 1972 and has been translating the famed New Mexico light and landscape onto canvas ever since.

In his painting San Jose Mission, Gonske's strategic perspective reinforces the verticality of the mission's bulk and lends solidity to the painting. The artist's trademark loose brushwork energizes the façade of the otherwise static stone mission giving it a sense of movement and life. The last rays of fading sunlight reflect softly from the stone, casting it in a pale yellow glow as the contrasting purple shadows encroach. Heritage is pleased to offer this gorgeous large-scale example of Gonske's work.

ALFREDO RODRIGUEZ (American, b. 1954)
Arizona Flower, 1982
Oil on canvas
22 x 30 inches (55.9 x 76.2 cm)
Signed and dated lower right: A. Rodriguez © 81-82
Titled, signed, and dated verso: Arizona Flower / Alfredo Rodruiguez / December 1981

RAMON RICE (American, 1928-1985)
Wide, Wide World
Oil on canvas
24 x 20 inches (61.0 x 50.8 cm)
Signed lower right: Ramon

PROVENANCE:
Altermann & Morris Galleries, Santa Fe (label verso).

JOHN F. ENSER (American, 1898-1962)
Cerra de la Silla
Oil on canvas
24 x 30 inches (61.0 x 76.2 cm)
Signed lower right: John F. Enser
Titled and signed verso: Cerra de la Silla / John F. Enser / Mexico

JOHN F. ENSER (American, 1898-1962)
Up the Road
Oil on canvas
24 x 30 inches (61.0 x 76.2 cm)
Signed lower right: John F. Enser
Titled and signed verso: Up the Road / John F. Enser / Mexico

JOHN F. ENSER (American, 1898-1962)
Mexican Landscape
Oil on canvas
24 x 30 inches (61.0 x 76.2 cm)
Signed lower right: John F. Enser
Titled and signed verso: Mexican Landscape / John F. Enser / Mexico

JOHN F. ENSER (American, 1898-1962)
Deserted Bishop's Palace
Oil on canvas
24 x 30 inches (61.0 x 76.2 cm)
Signed lower right: John F. Enser
Titled and signed verso: Deserted Bishop's Palace / John F. Enser / Monterrey, Mexico

JOHN F. ENSER (American, 1898-1962)
Mexican Cabana
Oil on canvas
24 x 30 inches (61.0 x 76.2 cm)
Signed lower right: John F. Enser
Titled and signed verso: Mexican Cabana / John F. Enser / Mexico

JOHN F. ENSER (American, 1898-1962)
El Casa Blanco
Oil on artist's board
12 x 16 inches (30.5 x 40.6 cm)
Signed lower right: John F. Enser
Titled and signed verso: El Casa Blanco / John F. Enser / Mexico

GEORGE WINTER (American, 1810-1876)
Spotted Faun
Oil on canvas
30-1/2 x 26 inches (77.5 x 66.0 cm) oval

PROVENANCE:
Gerald Peters Gallery, New York (label verso).

S. FRENCH (American, 19th Century)
Epic Western Landscape with Indians, 1871
Oil on canvas
22 x 36 inches (55.9 x 91.4 cm)
Signed and dated lower right: S. French / 1871

CHARLES FERDINAND WIMAR (American, 1828-1862)
Canoe Scene
Charcoal on paper
13 x 20-1/2 inches (33.0 x 52.1 cm)
Signed lower right: C. Wimar

Manner of CHARLES FERDINAND WIMAR (American, 1828-1862)
Buffalo Hunt
Oil on canvas
10 x 14 inches (25.4 x 35.6 cm)

OSCAR EDWARD BERNINGHAUS (American, 1874-1952)
and CARL WIMAR (American, 1828-1862)
Pair of Anheuser-Busch Chromolithographs, 1912
The Father of Waters and Attack on the Immigrant Train
Chromolithographs on paper
Image: 7-1/4 x 16 inches (18.4 x 40.6 cm) each
Paper: 11-1/2 x 20 inches (29.2 x 50.8 cm) each

HENRY FRANÇOIS FARNY (American, 1847-1916)
Wyoming Territory
Watercolor on paper
10-1/2 x 14 inches (26.7 x 35.6 cm)
Signed and monogrammed lower left: Farny
Titled lower right: Wy. Terry.

HENRY FRANÇOIS FARNY (American, 1847-1916)
Deer in the Woods
Gouache, pen, and ink on paper
11-1/2 x 7 inches (29.2 x 17.8 cm) window

PROVENANCE:
Fenn Galleries, Santa Fe (label verso);
Wheelwright Museum of the American Indian, Santa Fe;
Nedra Matteucci Galleries, Santa Fe;
Private Texas Collection.

PROPERTY FROM THE DUFFY AND TINA OYSTER FOUNDATION

CASSILLY ADAMS (American, 1843-1921)
Back from the Hunt
Watercolor on paper
10-1/4 x 14-3/4 inches (26.0 x 37.5 cm) window
Signed lower right: Cassilly Adams

PROVENANCE:
The artist's son Thomas Adams;
Woodrow Wilson Fine Arts, Santa Fe, 1987;
Buffalo Bill Historical Center, Cody;
Mr. and Mrs. Bill Harmsen, Denver;
Zaplin Lampert Gallery, Santa Fe.

EXHIBITED:
Tyler Block and Co., St. Louis, November 18, 1880;
Thonssen's Gallery, St. Louis, November 22-23, 1881;
The Museum of the Great Plains, Lawton, 1977.

E. A. BURBANK (American, 1858-1949)
Indian Portraits Triptych:
Comanche;
Gi-aum-ee, Kiowa;
Chief American Horse, Sioux.
Oil on panel
4-3/4 x 9 inches (12.1 x 22.9 cm) each
Two panels signed along lower edge: E.A. Burbank
Inscribed with names of sitters verso

RICHARD TALLANT (American, 1853-1934)
The Prospector, 1897
Oil on board
12 x 17-3/4 inches (30.5 x 45.1 cm)
Signed and dated lower left: R. H. Tallant 97

CHARLES MARION RUSSELL (American, 1864-1926)
Horse and Woman Rider Hurdling a Bush Fence
Pencil on paper
4-3/4 x 7-3/4 inches (12.2 x 19.7 cm)
Initialed faintly lower right: C.M.R

CHARLES MARION RUSSELL (American, 1864-1926)
Piegan Squaw
Bronze
7 x 5 x 3-1/2 inches (17.8 x 12.7 x 8.9 cm)
5 3/4 x 5 1/4 x 5 1/4 inches (base)
Signed and monogrammed on base: C.M. Russell with buffalo skull
Foundry mark on base: Cal Br Foundry (California Art Bronze Foundry) LA

CHARLES MARION RUSSELL (American, 1864-1926)
Friar Tuck
Bronze
8 x 7 inches (20.3 x 17.8 cm)
Limited Edition: 6/30
Initialled and monogrammed: CMR with buffalo skull
Cast from the original by Joel Meisner & Company, New York.
(authorized by the Trigg Collection, C.M. Russell Museum)

CHARLES MARION RUSSELL (American, 1864-1926)
Longhorn
Bronze
4 x 6 inches (10.2 x 15.2 cm)
Initialed and monogrammed verso: CMR with buffalo skull
Foundry mark on base

SERGEI R. BONGART (Russian/American, 1918-1985)
Chief Redcloud
Oil on canvas
24-1/4 x 30-1/4 inches (61.6 x 76.8 cm)
Signed lower right: Sergei Bongart

NICHOLAS S. FIRFIRES (American, 1917-1990)
Cowboy Working the Herd
Oil on artist's board
13 x 16 inches (33.0 x 40.6 cm)
Signed lower right: Nicholas S. Firfires

PROPERTY FROM THE DUFFY AND TINA OYSTER FOUNDATION

GRACE CARPENTER HUDSON (American, 1865-1937)
Portrait of Ms. Woods
Oil on artist's board
10 x 8 inches (25.4 x 20.3 cm)
Signed lower right: G. Hudson

GASPARD LATOIX (American, 1852-1952)
Indian on Horseback
Watercolor on paper laid on board
19 x 13 inches (48.3 x 33.0 cm)
Signed lower right: Latoix

ALEXANDER PHIMISTER PROCTOR (American, 1862-1950)
Indian Chief, 1917
Bronze
11 x 13 x 13 inches (27.9 x 33.0 x 33.0 cm)
Edition: 6/36
Signed and dated on base: A. Phimister Proctor/ 1917
Inscribed on base: copyright Noma Proctor Church 1973/ Ohm Classic Bronze

EARLE ERIK HEIKKA (American, 1910-1941)
Indian Chief
Bronze
9 x 14 x 8 inches (22.9 x 35.6 x 20.3 cm) (with base)
Signed on base: E. Heikka

JOHN D. FREE (American, b. 1929)
Bluffin' She Ain't, 1969
Bronze
7 x 12 x 8 inches (17.8 x 30.5 x 20.3 cm) (with base)
Edition: 3/30
Titled, signed and dated on base: Bluffin She Ain't / John D. Free/ 69

ACE POWELL (American, 1912-1978)
Group of 2 Bronze Animal Sculptures and 2 Painted Ceramic Indian Figurines:
Mountain Goat: 9.5 x 6.5 x 3.5
Signed and dated on base: Powell/ '39.
Male Indian: 5.25 x 2.5 x 2.5
Signed and copyrighted on base: Powell/ Lostrom.
Female Indian: 5 x 2.5 x 2.25
Signed and copyrighted on base: Powell/ Lostrom.
Gloomy Gus:13 x 7 x 7 inches (with base)
Edition: 3/30
Signed and dated on base: Powell/ 1951
Inscribed on base: Gloomy Gus/ copyright R.E.B. '71.

CARL KAUBA (Austrian/American, 1865-1922)
Buffalo
Bronze
6 x 9-1/2 x 6 inches (15.2 x 24.1 x 15.2 cm)
Signed on base: C. Kauba

LAJOS MARKOS (Hungarian/American, 1917-1993)
The Green Valley
Oil on canvas
20 x 30 inches (50.8 x 76.2 cm)
Signed lower right: L. Markos
Titled and signed verso: The Green Valley / by Lajos Markos

LAJOS MARKOS (Hungarian/American, 1917-1993)
Study of a Cowboy
Mixed media on paper
7-3/4 x 7-3/4 inches (19.7 x 19.7 cm)
Signed lower right: L. Markos

LAJOS MARKOS (Hungarian/American, 1917-1993)
Twilight Tranquility
Oil on canvas
60 x 48 inches (152.4 x 121.9 cm)
Signed lower left: L. Markos / Houston

OLAF WIEGHORST (American, 1899-1988)
His War Pony
Oil on board
11-1/2 x 9-1/2 inches (29.2 x 24.1 cm)
Signed lower left: O-Wieghorst
Signed and titled verso: His War Pony / by Olaf Wieghorst / Copyrighted by the Artist ©

A native of Denmark, Olaf Wieghorst pursued a number of different careers before settling on western art at the age of 46. Soon after he migrated to the United States, he joined the Army and was part of the cavalry chasing Pancho Villa along the Mexican border. After leaving the Army, he served as a mounted policeman in New York, and along the way, he worked on numerous ranches in the Southwest and California. In each of those jobs, he was a keen observer of both horses and men. He sketched and drew both long before he decided to devote himself to painting scenes of the West.

His favorite subject remained horses and riders throughout his career. As with Cowboy Roping, Wieghorst often painted riders on a simple white background with no landscape. He saw his role primarily as a portraitist who focused on both the man and the horse. In addition to cowboy subjects, he also frequently portrayed the Indians of the Southwest. During each of his many occupations, he worked on his art during his spare time, however, it was during his time on the New York police force that he began to devote a great deal of time to painting. Eventually his work was accepted by Grand Central Galleries, and as his sales and prices increased, he decided that he could retire from the force and paint full time. He moved to California soon afterward, and the bulk of his paintings were completed there. His work is found in several museums, including the Gilcrease in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and the Eiteljorg Museum of American Indians and Western Art in Indianapolis, Indiana.

OLAF WIEGHORST (American, 1899-1988)
Roping on the Run, 1965
Colored pencil on paper
10 x 7-1/2 inches (25.4 x 19.1 cm)
Signed and dated lower left: Olaf Wieghorst / 1965

OLAF WIEGHORST (American, 1899-1988)
Roping Cowboy
Mixed media on paper
11-1/2 x 8-1/2 inches (29.2 x 21.6 cm)
Signed lower left: O. Wieghorst

OLAF WIEGHORST (American, 1899-1988)
Seated Cowboy
Bronze
5-1/2 x 4 x 3-3/4 inches (14.0 x 10.2 x 9.5 cm)
Signed on base: O. Wieghorst
Foundry mark on base: Roman Bronze Works/ N.Y.C.

EDWARD SHERIFF CURTIS (American, 1868-1952)
Numerous Volumes and Plates of The North American Indian, 1907-1930
Photogravure
Book: 12-1/2 x 9-1/2 inches (31.8 x 24.1 cm) each
Portfolio: 22 x 18 inches (55.9 x 45.7 cm) each

Volume 2. The Pima. The Papago. The Qahatika. The Mohave. The Yuma. The Maricopa. The Walapai. The Havasupai. The Apache-Mohave, or Yavapai.
1 vintage plate
30 posthumous plates

Volume 3. The Teton Sioux. The Yanktonai. The Assiniboin.
18 posthumous plates

Volume 7. The Yakima. The Klickitat. Salishan Tribes of the Interior. The Kutenai.
29 posthumous plates

Volume 8. The Nez Perces. Wallawalla. Umatilla. Cayuse. The Chinookan Tribes.
26 posthumous plates

Volume 9. The Salishan Tribes of the Coast. The Chimakum and the Quilliute. The Willapa.
24 posthumous plates

Volume 10. The Salishan Tribes of the Coast. The Chimakum and the Quilliute. The Willapa.
22 posthumous plates

Volume 11. The Nootka. The Haida.
32 posthumous plates

Volume 12. The Hopi.
23 posthumous plates

Volume 13. The Hupa. The Yurok. The Karok. The Wiyot. Tolowa and Tututni. The Shasta. The Achomawi. The Klamath.
29 vintage plates

Volume 14. The Kato. The Wailaki. The Yuki. The Pomo. The Wintun. The Maidu. The Miwok. The Yokuts.
30 vintage plates

Volume 15. Southern California Shoshoneans. The Diegueños. Plateau Shoshoneans. The Washo.
31 vintage plates

Volume 16. The Tiwa. The Keres.
10 vintage plates

Volume 17. The Tewa. The Zuñi.
10 vintage plates

Volume 18. The Chipewyan. The Western Woods Cree. The Sarsi.
14 vintage plates

Volume 19. The Indians of Oklahoma. The Wichita. The Southern Cheyenne. The Oto. The Comanche. The Peyote Cult.
27 vintage plates

The North American Indian by Edward Sheriff Curtis was a vast project that spanned over twenty years yet was never fully completed. It was published between 1907 and 1930 in limited editions and was available by subscription only. Due to its limited availability and cost (around $3,000 in 1907), it received mixed reviews. Curtis's intention was to document the customs the North American Indian tribes, and with funding from J.P. Morgan, Curtis set out in 1906 to record this quickly-vanishing culture. Whether intentional or not, The North American Indian held up the American notion of otherness in regards to the indigenous North American inhabitants. Despite this, Curtis's portfolios are the most thorough and significant depictions of traditional Indian culture.

What set Curtis's portfolios apart from the work of other contemporary photographers was the scope and vastness of the project. By its completion, Curtis had taken 40,000 photographic images of over eighty Indian tribes resulting in twenty volumes of approximately seventy-five photogravures. The accompanying twenty portfolios had approximately thirty-five individual photogravures in each folio. In total, there were 1,511 plates in the beautifully bound volumes and 723 plates in the portfolios, totaling 2,234 plates in all. In addition to the photography, he made a film, wrote about tribal history, and described traditional food, garments, ceremonies, and funeral customs. Curtis also made over 10,000 wax cylinder recordings of native Indian music and language, resulting in the only recorded history of such a vast and diverse race.

Despite the vastness and importance of such a volume of work, Curtis went bankrupt before its completion. The profits for the project were liquidated in 1935, and the remaining material sold to a rare books dealer in Boston where it was virtually forgotten until its re-discovery in the 1970s. Today, these photogravure prints are the most regularly traded photographic prints in the photography art market. Heritage is pleased to offer such great examples of Edward Sheriff Curtis's lost works to the modern art market.

WILLIAM HENRY DETHLEF KOERNER (American, 1878-1938)
Forest Hunting Scene
Oil on board
27-3/4 x 39 inches (70.5 x 99.1 cm)
Initialed lower right: W.H.D.K

PROPERTY FROM THE DUFFY AND TINA OYSTER FOUNDATION

WILLIAM HENRY DETHLEF KOERNER (American, 1878-1938)
Couple in a Horse-Drawn Carriage
Oil on panel
24 x 36 inches (61.0 x 91.4 cm)

SAUL TEPPER (American, 1899-1987)
Illustration for The Tall Ladder, 1932
Oil on canvas
35 x 40 inches (88.9 x 101.6 cm)
Monogrammed lower right

This lot accompanied by the original magazine featuring Tepper's illustration.

LITERATURE:
K.N. Burt, "The Tall Ladder" in The American Magazine, September 1932, pp. 42-43 illus.

MATT CLARK (American, 1903-1972)
Smoking Cowboy, 1949
Oil on canvas
34 x 28-1/2 inches (86.4 x 72.4 cm)
Signed and dated lower left: Matt / Clark '49

FROM THE ESTATE OF CHARLES MARTIGNETTE

WILLIAM FULTON SOARE (American, 1896-1940)
Beating the Tom Tom
Oil on canvas
27 x 19 inches (68.6 x 48.3 cm)
Signed lower right: Soare

FROM THE ESTATE OF CHARLES MARTIGNETTE

REMINGTON SCHUYLER (American, 1884-1955)
Indian on a Ridge
Oil on canvas
24 x 18 inches (61.0 x 45.7 cm)
Signed lower right: Remington / Schuyler

EDWIN ROSCOE SHRADER (American, 1879-1960)
Frontier Family Feeding Bear Cub, 1911
Oil on canvas
30 x 21 inches (76.2 x 53.3 cm)
Signed and dated lower right: E. Roscoe Shrader / - 11

VICTOR COLEMAN ANDERSON (American, 1882-1937)
Hitching the Team
Oil on canvas
24 x 30 inches (61.0 x 76.2 cm)
Signed lower left: Victor C. Anderson

PROVENANCE:
Grand Central Galleries, New York (label verso).

WALTER MARTIN BAUMHOFER (American, 1904-1987)
Pecos Bill, 1980
Oil on canvas
36 x 40 inches (91.4 x 101.6 cm)
Signed and dated lower right: Walter M. / Baumhofer / 1980

DONALD MASEFIELD EASTON (American, 1896-1956)
Pair: Night on the Range and
Playing the Banjo, 1932
Oil on artist's board
12 x 27-1/2 inches (30.5 x 69.9 cm) each
Signed and dated lower right: Don Easton / 32

ARTHUR BURDETT FROST (American, 1851-1928)
Good Shot
Watercolor on paper
14 x 10-1/2 inches (35.6 x 26.7 cm)
Signed lower left: A.B. Frost

FROM THE ESTATE OF CHARLES MARTIGNETTE

PETER HURD (American, 1904-1984)
Shooting a Wildcat
Oil on board
29 x 19-1/2 inches (73.7 x 49.5 cm)
Signed lower left: Peter Hurd

ROY MARTELL MASON (American, 1886-1972)
Camping by the Water's Edge
Oil on canvas
20-1/2 x 24 inches (52.1 x 61.0 cm)
Signed lower right: Roy M. Martell

PROVENANCE:
Marie Rose Mates.

TOM BEECHAM (American, 1926-2000)
Taking the Shot
Oil on canvas
20 x 16 inches (50.8 x 40.6 cm)
Signed center right: T. Beecham

DWIGHT V. ROBERTS (American, b. 1908)
Pony Express
Oil on canvas
20 x 30 inches (50.8 x 76.2 cm)
Signed lower right: Dwight Roberts

LLOYD HARTING (American, 1901-1974)
Pioneer Mutual Life Insurance Company
Pen and ink on paper
14-1/2 x 19 inches (36.8 x 48.3 cm)
Signed lower center: Lloyd Harting

JOE BEELER (American, 1931-2006)
Trail Driving Days
Oil on canvas
20 x 30 inches (50.8 x 76.2 cm)
Signed lower left: Joe Beeler
Titled on stretcher: Trail Driving Days


One of the pioneers of modern American Western Art, Joe Beeler was equally at ease with both the sculptor's clay and the painter's palette. He was also equally at ease in his studio in Sedona, Arizona, as he was mounted on his horse with lariat in hand. Like many of his contemporaries, Beeler bridged the gap between the world of the artist and that of the working cowboy. Along with John Hampton, Charlie Dye, and George Phippen, Beeler was a founder of the Cowboy Artists of America (CAA). He grew up in Oklahoma, graduated with a degree in Fine Arts from Kansas State Teacher's College, and received further artistic training at the Art Center School in Los Angeles. One of his first jobs in the art world was as an illustrator for the University of Oklahoma Press.

He was given a one-man exhibition at the Gilcrease Museum in Tulsa, Oklahoma, in 1960 and has since exhibited in numerous museums, including the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City, the Phoenix Art Museum, and the Montana Historical Society in Helena, Montana. He is one of only a few artists who received the top honor from the CAA in both sculpting and painting. Beeler helped guide the CAA for four decades and was an active member of the group at the time of his death in 2006. He literally died in the saddle, suffering a heart attack while roping calves on his ranch.

Beeler's work spans many facets and eras of the West, from early nineteenth century buffalo hunts to modern ranching. Rope Trouble and Trail Driving Days illustrate his ability to move between historic and modern scenes, while keeping a sense of the continuity that connects the cowboys of the 19th century and their modern day counterparts. Beeler used his first hand knowledge of a cowboy's routine activities to portray that life with accuracy and authenticity. Even though paintings like Rope Trouble and Trail Driving Days portray cowboys a century apart, Beeler is able to convey convincingly that much of the work of an historic cowboy is the same as that done by his modern counterpart. Rope Trouble is a dramatic reminder that even the most routine tasks, such as roping a steer, are fraught with danger. Trail Driving Days takes a more nostalgic look at the Old West portraying a lone cowboy at the head of a long line of steers fording a river. As the cowboy glances back over his shoulder toward the herd, he seems to be both monitoring the progress of the herd and taking a backward look at days gone by.

JOE BEELER (American, 1931-2006)
Rope Trouble
Oil on canvas
20 x 30 inches (50.8 x 76.2 cm)
Signed lower right: Joe Beeler / © CA

This lot includes a photograph of the artist holding his work.

JOE BEELER (American, 1931-2006)
Medicine Man, 1965
Oil on masonite
16 x 12 inches (40.6 x 30.5 cm)
Signed lower right: Joe Beeler
Signed and titled on stretcher: Medicine Man - Joe Beeler
Artist letter verso.

A charismatic and approachable man, Joe Beeler embraced the humanity that he strove to capture in his paintings. Beeler wrote a letter to the original owners of this painting, perhaps upon request, which has been lovingly preserved along with the work itself. The letter not only serves to authenticate the piece, but gives an added depth to the subject matter and function of the Medicine Man within Indian culture. The personalized stationery features a cowboy figure sketched in the lower left hand corner, an icon synonymous with Beeler himself.

JOHN WADE HAMPTON (American, 1918-1999)
Buffalo Hunt, 1969
Oil on canvas
20 x 30 inches (50.8 x 76.2 cm)
Signed, monogrammed, and dated lower left: JW Hampton © 1969
Inscribed lower right: CA

John Hampton was one of four western artists who met in a bar in Sedona, Arizona, in 1965 to talk about the current state of western art in America. Although they were all accomplished artists, they also shared a working knowledge of ranching life, each having put in time as a cowboy. All had a deep affinity for the art of Frederic Remington and Charles M. Russell (who had also spent several years as a wrangler on Montana ranches before turning to a full time career in art). The Cowboy Artists of America (CAA) was born that night, an organization that is still today one of the most influential forces in the Art of the American West. Of that first meeting, Hampton said, "We did not feel the necessity of waiting around to hear from the Eastern critics what was appropriate to paint about the West."

Hampton was an Easterner by birth. He grew up in Brooklyn, New York, but made his way to the ranches of New Mexico as a young man. One of his New Mexico bosses once told him that he had the talent to be a good cowboy, but an even better artist.

Hampton became adept at both sculpting and painting. His subjects ranged from scenes of modern ranch life to portrayals of the historic West, particularly the Native American culture of the high plains. His depiction of modern cowboy life was fueled by his own experiences; his paintings of the historic West were driven by his research into particular eras and travels throughout the region.

The Buffalo Hunt is a classic example of his ability to capture with great accuracy the drama and danger of life on the plains. In this painting, the viewer is thrust into the center of the action between a mounted warrior as he pursues a wounded buffalo and another warrior whose horse has been felled by another buffalo. Like Russell before him, Hampton chose buffalo hunts as a recurring theme since they afforded him the opportunity to tell an exciting story that has timeless appeal.

PROPERTY FROM THE DUFFY AND TINA OYSTER FOUNDATION

ROBERT E. LOUGHEED (American, 1910-1982)
Through the Valley of Fire, 1979
Oil on masonite
20 x 30 inches (50.8 x 76.2 cm)
Signed lower right: Robert Lougheed / CA
Titled, signed, and dated verso: Through the Valley of Fire / Robert Lougheed / 1976

EXHIBITED:
National Cowboy Hall of Frame, Oklahoma City (label verso).

Robert Lougheed was without a doubt one of the most influential western artists of the last 50 years. He excelled as a teacher and mentor to many of the modern West's most renowned artists. He was a major force in the development of the National Academy of Western Artists, was a member of the Cowboy Artists of America, and led numerous workshops to develop promising artists' ability to paint in "plein air". Even as a child in his native Canada, he had an inherent talent at capturing his natural surroundings and the animals that lived there. He began developing his artistic talent as a teenager taking a correspondence course in drawing. He landed a job with the Toronto Star as an illustrator when he was only nineteen. Eventually, he moved to New York to study at the Art Students League under the tutelage of artist Frank Vincent DuMond, who described him as "the best student, I ever had." After establishing a solid career as an illustrator for such publications as Reader's Digest and Collier's, he began to spend more and more of his time painting western scenes and subjects. In 1967, he moved to New Mexico and devoted his career to western art.

Through the Valley of Fire is typical of his work. It is based on his on-site sketches, most likely in the ranch country of New Mexico. The bright sun and vivid colors of New Mexico are portrayed with an energetic and vigorous brush stroke. Lougheed's practice of constantly honing his craft through direct observation in nature led him to develop a very bright and contrasting palette for his Southwestern scenes, such as this one. His palette became more subdued when he painted in his native Canada. For Lougheed, nature dictated the direction any individual painting took. His intent was to capture in spirit and feeling the location he chose to paint. In Through the Valley of Fire, he is quite successful in doing that, both the land and the horses and men are painted with skill and clarity.

GEORGE PHIPPEN (American, 1915-1966)
American Quarter Horse
Bronze
10 x 10-1/2 x 5 inches (25.4 x 26.7 x 12.7 cm)
Titled on base: American Quarter Horse


Along with Joe Beeler, Charlie Dye, and John Hampton, George Phippen was one of the founders of the Cowboy Artists of America. Phippen grew up in rural Kansas, where he attended a one room schoolhouse for eight years. At the age of eighteen, he joined the Civilian Conservation Corps and worked on projects throughout the country. He began to pursue a serious interest in art while in the army in World War II. He was a largely self taught, but studied under artist Henry Balink in New Mexico after the war. Of his lack of formal art training, he said, "I have had no schooling in art except what I got from friends, artists, and I've been mighty lucky to have had more friends than enemies."

He also had the respect of his peers. He was the first president of the CAA, but unfortunately did not live to participate in the group's first exhibition at the National Cowboy Hall of Fame and Western Heritage Center in Oklahoma City in 1966. He died of cancer, shortly before the show opened.

Prior to devoting himself to being a full time artist, he worked as an illustrator for several western publications and publishers, as well as the Brown and Bigelow Calendar Company. He also worked as a ranch hand, horse trainer, and hunter. All of those experiences gave him first-hand knowledge of his favorite subject, the American Cowboy. While other artists focused on the historic West, Phippen specialized in depicting scenes of modern ranch and cowboy life.

In 1961, he was commissioned by the King Ranch in Texas to sculpt a statue of the ranch's prize Quarter Horse, Wimpy. In 1941, Wimpy was named the grand champion at the Fort Worth Stock Show, an honor that afforded him the designation as the number one registrant in the newly established American Quarter Horse Association's National Stud Registry. In 1989, the horse was inducted into the Association's Hall of Fame. This sculpture is a smaller version of the original statue. It captures both the horse's natural beauty and stature (he stood 15 hands tall and weighed 1200 pounds) and his unique personality.

PROPERTY FROM THE DUFFY AND TINA OYSTER FOUNDATION

JOHN FORD CLYMER (American, 1907-1989)
Horned Chief
Oil on canvas
20 x 10 inches (50.8 x 25.4 cm)
Signed lower left: John Clymer CA

PROVENANCE:
Acquired from the artist by Robert Learned Hand, Broken Bow, Oklahoma;
Jack Ravage, Sequim, Washington.

EXHIBITED:
Grand Central Gallery, New York, 1992;
Gilcrease Museum, Tulsa, 1994;
Hendricks Fine Arts, San Antonio, "American Artists," 1997.

LITERATURE:
Art of the West, March 1990, p. 28.

John Clymer literally bridged the gap between two generations of artists who depicted the American West. He followed in the footsteps of the early twentieth-century illustrators like Harvey Dunn, with whom he studied, and was a mentor and role model to many of the earliest members of the Cowboy Artists of America, an organization that he joined in 1969. By the time he joined that group of artists, he had produced over 70 cover illustrations for the Saturday Evening Post and countless illustrations for many other national publications. His illustration career was not devoted exclusively to western images, but they formed a significant cornerstone for his later artistic offerings. The last twenty years of his life were devoted exclusively to painting the historic West. His work can be found in major museums, such as the Rockwell Museum of Western Art in Corning, New York, the Eiteljorg Museum of American Indians and Western Art in Indianapolis, and the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City.

Clymer prided himself on historical accuracy. He and his wife, Alice, carefully research each of his subjects to make sure that each detail of costume and setting was true to the historical period portrayed. They would then travel to the site depicted to get a feel for the area. As a result of these intensive preparations, Clymer's paintings are both rich in accurate historical detail and successful in capturing the essence of the geographical settings.

PROPERTY FROM THE DUFFY AND TINA OYSTER FOUNDATION

JOHN FORD CLYMER (American, 1907-1989)
Untitled (Portrait of a Cowboy)
Pencil and charcoal on paper
9-1/2 x 7-1/2 inches (24.1 x 19.1 cm) window
Signed lower center: John Clymer

PROPERTY FROM THE DUFFY AND TINA OYSTER FOUNDATION

TOM LOVELL (American, 1909-1997)
Fremont Crossing the Rockies
Oil on canvas
22 x 32 inches (55.9 x 81.3 cm)
Signed upper right: Tom Lovell

PROVENANCE:
Private Collection, acquired directly from the artist.

Prior to his colorful roles as a California senator, Republican presidential candidate, and Union general, John Charles Fremont claimed the title of "Pathfinder" for his seminal involvement in surveying the West. As a young officer in the U.S. Topographical Corps during the 1840s, Fremont exhibited sufficient pluck and daring to place him in charge of four major geographic expeditions between the Rocky Mountains and California: his first, in 1842, introduced him to scout Kit Carson, who helped him navigate the South Pass on the Continental Divide and map the best route to Oregon; his second, between 1843-1844, charted the Oregon Trail from Missouri to Fort Vancouver, Washington; his third, beginning in 1845, followed the Arkansas River and explored the Rockies and the Great Salt Lake before culminating in 1848 in California, where he fought for the region's independence from Mexico; his fourth, organized in 1848 to identify a railroad passage through the southern Rockies, resulted in disaster. Indeed, for this particular expedition, Fremont insisted that his party of 36 men and 120 mules travel during the winter, as an experiment to test the feasibility of railroad passage in extreme weather conditions. While in the La Garita Mountains, a portion of the Colorado Rockies, a blizzard struck the group, killing all the animals - 100 in a single night - and 11 men, the rest ultimately retreating in defeat to Taos.

For Fremont Crossing the Rockies, artist Tom Lovell closely interpreted Fremont's own journal account of the failed fourth expedition. Here he depicts the fateful moment as the blizzard engulfs the mountain pass: on the right, six men - a boyish Fremont seated in the foreground; to his right, mountain man William Sherley "Old Bill" Williams, exhaling icy breath; an Indian guide behind; and an accompanying botanist, geographer, and laborer - huddle together after frantically chopping down trees for firewood. Not even Fremont's rifle can protect the group from the onslaught of wind, which evokes reactions of both fear and stoicism. Arcing around the men is a swath of dying or dead mules, a harbinger of the human loss.

A New York illustrator turned painter of the American West, Tom Lovell shaped a successful career with his narrative imagery such as Fremont Crossing the Rockies. For forty years, he illustrated for magazines, including Collier's, Life, McCall's, and The Saturday Evening Post, as well as for pulp fiction, learning how to consolidate the critical elements of a story into a single, dramatic scene: "The message on the covers had to outscream a hundred different others." A 1969 commission for fourteen paintings of southwestern history revived Lovell's childhood interest in Native Americans and the settling of the West, which became new favorite subjects. Residing in Santa Fe from 1975 until his death in 1997, he won numerous awards in the fields of illustration and western art, notably two gold medals from both the Society of Illustrators and the National Cowboy Hall of Fame and the Prix de West from the National Academy of Western Art.

PROPERTY FROM THE DUFFY AND TINA OYSTER FOUNDATION

NICK EGGENHOFFER (American, 1895-1985)
Portrait of an Indian
Watercolor on paper
7-1/2 x 7-3/4 inches (19.1 x 19.7 cm)
Signed and inscribed lower right: Nick Eggenhoffer / Cody Wyo

RAY SWANSON (American, 1937-2004)
The Old Cultivator
Oil on board
30 x 22 inches (76.2 x 55.9 cm)
Signed lower right: Ray Swanson

By the time that Ray Swanson joined the Cowboy Artists of America in 1986, he had established a national reputation for his sensitive and detailed portraits of the Native people of the American Southwest. Those portraits are marked by sensitivity and attention to precise details. Prior to his concentration on that subject matter, Swanson brought the same sort of skill to evocative depictions of the western landscape and the Midwestern farmlands of his boyhood. Born in 1937 to a family struggling to make ends meet in the Great Depression, Swanson was raised on a farm in South Dakota. His boyhood was spent helping with daily chores, attending a small rural schoolhouse, and developing his innate talent as an artist. His natural ability was recognized at an early age by both his parents and his teachers, but Swanson did not consider a career in art for many years. His first career path was in engineering, but he spent most of his spare time learning as much about paintings as he could glean from books and correspondence courses. His formal training in art was quite limited, but his perseverance, dedication, and discipline in developing and refining his talent more than made up for the lack of art school training.

One of his most persistent early themes was the closing of an era in terms of the American farm. Swanson traveled extensively across the country and often paused in his native Midwest to paint the remains of family farms. He found in the abandoned houses, outbuildings, and rusted equipment the icons of a bygone age. More than just a nostalgic glance backward, these paintings stand as tributes to the men and women who scratched out a living on small family farms, much like Swanson's parents had done. The Old Cultivator quietly evokes memories of an earlier time. The precise brush strokes he used to create the most minute details of this scene were developed by hours upon hours of practice with dry brush watercolor techniques. The result of that practice is his ability to achieve a realism that details each fleck of paint on the weathered boards of the house and the rust on the cultivator and bucket in the foreground. In these paintings, Swanson focuses on what has been left behind, long vacant buildings, equipment left to blend in with the vegetation, and the scattered tools that were once used on a daily basis by the long absent farmers. Those items and the buildings themselves stand as silent emblems, reminding the viewer of the people who once used the tools and occupied the houses, who are noticeably absent from any of these scenes. Swanson's muted palette effectively adds to the tone of the painting, and his choice of depicting the scene in fall and winter adds another element to the overall theme of the passing of an era.

RAY SWANSON (American, 1937-2004)
Bucket
Oil on board
21-1/2 x 15 inches (54.6 x 38.1 cm)
Signed lower right: Ray Swanson

RAY SWANSON (American, 1937-2004)
Horses Are Sold Now
Oil on board
11 x 15 inches (27.9 x 38.1 cm)
Signed lower left: Ray Swanson
Titled and signed verso: "Horses Are Sold Now" / Ray Swanson

RAY SWANSON (American, 1937-2004)
Catchin Rain, 1969
Oil on board
15 x 22 inches (38.1 x 55.9 cm)
Signed lower left: Ray Swanson
Titled, signed, and dated verso: Catchin Rain / Ray Swanson 69'

RAY SWANSON (American, 1937-2004)
Teton Aspens, 1968
Oil on board
15 x 11 inches (38.1 x 27.9 cm)
Signed lower right: Ray Swanson
Titled, signed, and dated verso: "Teton Aspens" / Ray Swanson 68'

RAY SWANSON (American, 1937-2004)
Flight of the Geese, 1968
Oil on board
18 x 24 inches (45.7 x 61.0 cm)
Signed lower left: Ray Swanson
Titled, signed, and dated verso: "Flight of the Geese" / Ray Swanson 68'

HARLEY BROWN (Canadian/American, b. 1939)
Black Eagle, Assiniboine, 1981
Pastel on paper
40 x 30 inches (101.6 x 76.2 cm)
Titled, signed, and dated lower left: Black Eagle / Assiniboine / Harley Brown / after Curtis ©1981

PROVENANCE:
Altermann Galleries, Santa Fe (label verso).

Harely Brown's career as a portrait painter began on an auspicious note. Following his attendance at the Alberta College of Art in Calgary, Alberta, Canada and the Camberwell School of Art in London, England, he was commissioned to paint a portrait of Sir Winston Churchill. That commission led to several others in the political and entertainment fields. However, it is his sensitive and evocative portraits of Native Americans that have led to his greatest fame. Primarily working in pastels, Brown has specialized in western subjects since the mid 1970s. He was invited by Robert Lougheed to participate in the National Academy of Western Artists exhibit (the forerunner of the current Prix de West exhibition) at the National Cowboy Hall of Fame and Western Heritage Center in Oklahoma City and won a gold medal for drawings in his very first year. Lougheed became a trusted friend and mentor, and Brown credits his sometimes tough criticism as a major factor in his development as an artist. Brown is fascinated with the many nuances in the faces of his subjects. He says that he could paint the same sitter on numerous occasions and still present a fresh interpretation since the each person's face constantly changes.

In Portrait of an Indian and Black Eagle, his skill at capturing the personalities of his subjects is on full display. Both of these portraits reveal the inner depths of their subjects. Their life stories and experiences are caught with great sensitivity and insight. Black Eagle is particularly important because of its size. Brown rarely works in this large a format. Like all of his works, these two riveting portraits reflect both the artist's talent in capturing the details of each face, but also the lives of the men they portray.

PROPERTY FROM THE DUFFY AND TINA OYSTER FOUNDATION

HARLEY BROWN (Canadian/American, b. 1939)
Portrait of an Indian
Mixed media on paper
20 x 14 inches (50.8 x 35.6 cm)
Signed lower right: Harley Brown

HARLEY BROWN (Canadian/American, b. 1939)
Portrait of a Child
Pastel on paper
11-1/2 x 7-3/4 inches (29.2 x 19.7 cm) window
Signed lower left: Harley Brown

GARY LAWRENCE NIBLETT (American, b. 1943)
Trouble with the Grain Wagon
Oil on canvas
24 x 36 inches (61.0 x 91.4 cm)
Signed lower left: Gary Niblett ©

GARY LAWRENCE NIBLETT (American, b. 1943)
A Cowboy's Life, 1974
Graphite on paper
11-1/2 x 13-1/2 inches (29.2 x 34.3 cm) window
Signed and dated lower left: G. Niblett © '74
Titled verso: A Cowboy's Life
Artist's label verso

TIM COX (American, b. 1957)
Pardners, 1981
Oil on masonite
30 x 40 inches (76.2 x 101.6 cm)
Signed and dated lower left: A.T. Cox 81 / ©

Tim Cox has been painting cowboys and horses for as long as he can remember. His paintings are rooted in his personal experiences, and the people he portrays are people that he knows and with which he often has worked. Like Charles M. Russell before him, Cox draws upon his own life to present his images of the contemporary West. He is very particular about portraying his subjects in realistic detail and also at capturing their individual personalities. He has said that he wants to differentiate between each cowboy he paints because each is unique. He also wants to convey the deep affection they have for their work and the animals they care for.

Cox has received numerous awards for his work, including the purchase prize at the Prix De West exhibition at the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum. He is one of the newest members of the Cowboy Artists of America, having joined that group in 2008.

Pardners illustrates all of Cox's talents and artistic interests. The subject is the unique bond between a modern cowboy and two of his closest companions, his horse and his dog. In this brilliantly lit scene, Cox effectively uses light and shadow to frame his three subjects in a quiet moment of solitude. As the title implies, the cowboy, the dog, and the horse all work in tandem; each has a role to play in the day's work, and each depends on the other to complete those daily tasks. They truly are partners, and the affection they share is palpable in this presentation.

BILL ANTON (American, b. 1957)
Rain Along the Front Range
Oil on canvas
24 x 36 inches (61.0 x 91.4 cm)
Signed lower left: Bill Anton ©
Titled and signed verso: Rain Along the Front Range / Bill Anton


Although Bill Anton is frequently called upon to participate in round-ups and various other jobs around the ranches in his home state of Arizona, he does not consider himself to be a "true cowboy." He has a deep respect for those men who work the ranches on a daily basis and whose livelihood depends on their skill on horseback and their knack with a lariat. It is that respect that drives Anton to produce paintings that show the full gamut of modern ranch life, from round-ups to solitary riders engaged in the more mundane life of cowboy work like mending fences and chasing strays. He sees the cowboy as an extension of his natural environment, and he strives to present him in as realistic a fashion as possible.

Anton first traveled to the West when he was seven years old and immediately fell in love with the land and people there. When he was nineteen, he moved to Arizona and has remained there ever since. He began his career as an artist in 1982, and he has steadily developed a solid reputation among western art collectors. He has participated in the prestigious Prix de West exhibition at the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City for eleven years.

He is an advocate of plein air painting and believes by painting outdoors directly from life, he is able to achieve a spontaneity of feeling and a sense of color that studio painting alone would not allow. In Rain Along the Front Range, Anton artfully captures a true sense of place in his depiction of two cowboys working cows and calves. In the distance rain showers the mountain side, perhaps a portent of things to come for these working cowboys. Here, Anton effectively moves from the bright colors of the sunlit foreground to the cool blues and grays of the rain soaked distant mountains. The viewer is positioned to take in the entire scene as if he were another rider, a position that Anton himself most likely occupied.

PROPERTY FROM THE DUFFY AND TINA OYSTER FOUNDATION

DAN T. BODELSON (American, b. 1949)
Mid-day Sun
Oil on canvas
30 x 48 inches (76.2 x 121.9 cm)
Signed and monogrammed lower right: Bodelson

CARL HANTMAN (American, b. 1935)
Night Rustler, 1974
Oil on canvas
24 x 20 inches (61.0 x 50.8 cm)
Signed and dated lower right: Carl Hantman/ 74

PROPERTY FROM THE DUFFY AND TINA OYSTER FOUNDATION

WILLIAM WHITAKER (American, b. 1943)
Ceremony
Oil on panel
18 x 12 inches (45.7 x 30.5 cm)
Signed lower right: W. Whitaker

PROVENANCE:
Altermann Galleries, Dallas (label verso).

THEODORE WADDELL (American, b. 1941)
Longhorn #14, 1984
Oil on canvas
48 x 60 inches (121.9 x 152.4 cm)
Signed lower right: T.J. Waddell
Titled, signed, and dated verso: Longhorn #14 / Theodore J. Waddell / 2/1984 ©

PROVENANCE:
Stephen Wirtz Gallery, San Francisco (label verso);
Private collection.

EXHIBITION:
Yellowstone Art Museum, Billings, Montana (label verso).

Like his Montana artist predecessors Charles Russell and Olaf Seltzer, Waddell paints what he sees in the environment around him. Given their great differences in style and technique, all three of these artists share a common ground. Each drew their artistic inspiration in large measure from ranching. Russell and Seltzer produced paintings that were reflective of earlier times and were successful in creating a body of work that offers a glimpse into the origins of ranching in Montana. Their work has come to be synonymous with the term Western art. Waddell has pushed beyond those artistic boundaries to create a singular vision of the Modern West.

As both a rancher and an artist, Theodore Waddell depicts the animals and the land that he knows. His paintings are striking proof that the Art of the American West has evolved to encompass a wide range of subjects, styles, and techniques. Having trained in the art academies back East, Waddell is a third generation Montanan returned home to teach art and draw inspiration for his own art from his family ranch. Waddell finds his subjects in his everyday pursuits. The animals that he paints - specifically the horses and longhorns seen here - are the animals that he works with each day. Even though his technique is more abstract than realistic, his intent is to reproduce the individual personality of each animal. Waddell is intimately familiar with changes in color, light, even texture that come with the change in seasons. He may return repeatedly to the same subjects, but each painting reflects a different time of year on the ranch.

THEODORE WADDELL (American, b. 1941)
Horse #5, 1985
Oil on canvas
48 x 60 inches (121.9 x 152.4 cm)
Signed lower right: T.J. Waddell
Titled, signed, and dated verso: Horse #5 / Theodore J. Waddell / 4/1985 ©

PROVENANCE:
Private collection.

CAROL WHITNEY (20th Century)
Set of Three Indian Figure Wall Hangings, 1983
Mixed media
46-1/2 x 15 x 6-1/2 inches (118.1 x 38.1 x 16.5 cm) each
Signed on seat of one chieftan: Whitney 83

G. DELANO (American, 20th Century)
Big Sky Country
Oil on canvas
20 x 24 inches (50.8 x 61.0 cm)
Signed lower right: G. Delano

G. DELANO (American, 20th Century)
Heading Home
Oil on canvas
20 x 24 inches (50.8 x 61.0 cm)
Signed lower right: G. Delano

ROGERS ASTON (American, 20th Century)
Indian Defiance, 1979
Bronze
7 x 5-1/4 x 5-1/4 inches (17.8 x 13.3 x 13.3 cm) (with base)
Edition: 7/20
Initialed and signed on base: RA/ R. Aston
Inscribed on base: Santa Fe Bronze/ "Indian Defiance"

DEE TOSCANO (American, b. 1932)
Portrait of an Indian Girl
Bronze
12-1/2 x 11 x 10 inches (31.8 x 27.9 x 25.4 cm) (with base)
Edition: 2/10
Signed on base: Toscano

SKIP GLOMB (American, 1935-1988)
No Free Rides, 1981
Bronze
15 x 16 x 19 inches (38.1 x 40.6 x 48.3 cm) (with base)
Edition: 24/30
Signed, dated, and titled on base: Skip Glomb/ 1981 / No Free Rides

LORENZO GHIGLIERI (American, b. 1931)
Rear Ended, 2003
Bronze
20 x 44 x 13 inches (50.8 x 111.8 x 33.0 cm)
Edition: 8/150
Signed and dated on base: Lorenzo Ghiglieri/ 2003

LORENZO GHIGLIERI (American, b. 1931)
Primitive Power
Polychromed bronze
22 x 33 x 14 inches (55.9 x 83.8 x 35.6 cm) (with base)
Edition: 9/150
Signed on base: Lorenzo Ghiglieri

CARL CLEMENS MORITZ RUNGIUS (German/American, 1869-1959)
Moose, Alberta
Oil on canvas
18-1/4 x 24-1/4 inches (46.4 x 61.6 cm)
Signed lower right: C. Rungius

With an artistic career that spanned over 50 years, Carl Rungius can arguably be called America's greatest wildlife painter. He had extensive artistic training in his native Germany and was already demonstrating his skill as a painter when he migrated to New York in 1894. There he found work as an illustrator, but quickly established his career as an easel painter. He was elected to the National Academy of Design as an associate member in 1913 and gained full membership in 1920. By then he made several trips to the rugged territory of the Canadian Northwest and the mountains of Wyoming and Montana. He was an avid big game hunter and had early on learned much about animal anatomy from his grandfather, who was a taxidermist.
Rungius painted from life and he combined his two great loves, hunting and art, on long trips in the wilderness. He sketched on site, often using the big horn sheep, elks, and moose that he brought down as subjects. He achieved highly realistic studies and paintings of his animal subjects by posing the felled animals with the use of ropes tied to trees.

While he devoted himself to wildlife art throughout his career, his style evolved from precise realism to a more loose impressionistic style toward the end of his life. He produced many sketches, both in pencil and oil, for his larger complete paintings. Moose, Alberta shows his ability to capture the beauty of the landscape with quick, bold brushstrokes.

LYLE TAYSON SR. (American, b. 1924)
Mountain Paradise
Oil on canvas
30 x 40 inches (76.2 x 101.6 cm)
Signed lower left: L. Tayson

TOM BEECHAM (American, 1926-2000)
The Intruder
Oil on canvas
24 x 36 inches (61.0 x 91.4 cm)
Signed lower left: Beecham

RAGAN GENNUSA (American, b. 1944)
Hill Country Buck
Oil on paper laid on board
24 x 30 inches (61.0 x 76.2 cm)
Signed lower right: Gennusa

MAYNARD REECE (American, b. 1920)
Sunset, Canada Geese, 1981
Print
18 x 27 inches (45.7 x 68.6 cm)
Ed. 336/950
Signed lower right in graphite: Maynard Reece

J. MOODY (American, 20th Century)
Ducks in Flight
Oil on canvas
24 x 32 inches (61.0 x 81.3 cm)
Signed lower right: J. Moody

THOMAS HILL (British/American, 1829-1908)
Columbia River
Oil on artist's board
14-1/4 x 21 inches (36.2 x 53.3 cm)
Signed lower left: T. Hill
Titled verso: #6 Columbia River

PROVENANCE:
Mrs. Beatrice Dunn, Bismarck, Arkansas;
Private collection, Hot Springs, Arkansas (by descent).

Columbia River* most likely dates to the late 1880s, when Thomas Hill was discovering fresh subjects after decades of painting the Yosemite Valley. In 1886, Hill agreed to assume the interim directorship of the California School of Fine Arts in San Francisco, a post that ultimately proved unwieldy and unfulfilling. When his friend the naturalist John Muir commissioned him to paint Muir Glacier in Alaska the following year, Hill jumped at the opportunity, eager to leave behind his institutional job and unhappy marriage for outdoor adventure. Together the men embarked on a cruise to Alaska, which introduced Hill along the way to new landscapes in the Pacific Northwest and Canada. Here, he depicts a site probably visited on this trip, the Columbia River, especially famous for its king salmon, which snakes from Canada through Washington and Oregon before emptying into the Pacific near Astoria. Positioning himself like a tourist with camera in hand, Hill frames a perfect postcard, using the mist-kissed Cascade Mountains to bound the blue-green river in the foreground. Signs of recreation - ladies promenading on a boardwalk, a fly fisherman casting for salmon, and a hotel nestled among the mountain evergreens - suggest that this was a vacation spot, possibly near Portland, where the Northern Pacific Railroad met the Columbia. Employing brushwork that is gestural in places and more tightly controlled in others, Hill effects in this small format a wide range of textures, tones, and colors. Especially masterful is his rendering of people and animals - note the spectators in the hotel gazebo or the dog walking behind the ladies - with only a few strokes of paint.

*Although the painting is inscribed verso "#6 Columbia River," new research suggests that this scene is not of the Pacific Northwest, but rather of the Canadian Rockies with the famous Banff Springs Hotel in Alberta, on the Bow River. Built by the Canadian Pacific Railway between 1887 and 1888, the hotel was known for its Scottish castle-like architecture and has remained a premiere resort to this day. Hill likely stayed in the hotel shortly after its opening, while on his tour of Canada en route to Alaska.

PROPERTY FROM THE DUFFY AND TINA OYSTER FOUNDATION

THOMAS HILL (British/American, 1829-1908)
Yosemite View
Oil on canvas
24-1/4 x 20-1/4 inches (61.6 x 51.4 cm)
Signed lower right: T. Hill

EDGAR ALWIN PAYNE (American, 1883-1947)
Spring in the Mountains
Oil on canvas
15 x 48 inches (38.1 x 121.9 cm)
Signed lower right: Edgar Payne

School of THOMAS HILL (British/American, 1829-1908)
Valley Landscape
Oil on canvas
23-1/4 x 35-1/4 inches (59.1 x 89.5 cm)

A. D. GREER (American, 1904-1998)
Bear Bridge
Oil on canvas
30 x 24 inches (76.2 x 61.0 cm)
Signed lower right: A.D. Greer

ROBERT WILLIAM WOOD (American, 1889-1979)
Landscape with Distant Mountains
Oil on canvas
28 x 36 inches (71.1 x 91.4 cm)
Signed lower left: Robt Wood

ROBERT WILLIAM WOOD (American, 1889-1979)
Golden Sunset
Oil on canvas
24 x 36 inches (61.0 x 91.4 cm)
Signed lower left: Robert Wood
Artist's stamp and titled verso: Golden Sunset

ROBERT WILLIAM WOOD (American, 1889-1979)
Sunset Cove
Oil on canvas
20 x 40 inches (50.8 x 101.6 cm)
Signed lower right: Robert Wood

PORFIRIO SALINAS (American, 1910-1973)
Seascape
Oil on canvas
20 x 24-1/2 inches (50.8 x 62.2 cm)
Signed lower left: Porfirio Salinas

PORFIRIO SALINAS (American, 1910-1973)
Coastal Scene
Oil on canvas
12 x 16-1/4 inches (30.5 x 41.3 cm)
Signed lower left: Porfirio Salinas

KARL ALBERT (American, 1911-2007)
Yachats Surf, Oregon
Oil on canvas laid on board
18 x 24 inches (45.7 x 61.0 cm)
Signed lower left: Karl Albert
Inscribed verso: Yachats Surf / Oregon / Karl Albert

KARL ALBERT (American, 1911-2007)
Wind from the Sea
Oil on canvas
20 x 30 inches (50.8 x 76.2 cm)
Signed lower right: Karl Albert

GAMALIEL WALDO BEAMAN (American, 1852-1937)
View of Salt Lake City, Wasatch Mountains, Utah
Oil on canvas
34-1/4 x 54 inches (87.0 x 137.2 cm)

PROVENANCE:
Private collection.

J. CLINTON SHEPHERD (American, 1888-1975)
Wyoming, 1919
Oil on canvas
24 x 30 inches (61.0 x 76.2 cm)
Signed lower left: Shepherd ©

ARTHUR MERTON HAZARD (American, 1872-1930)
Bay of Santa Barbara, California, circa 1925
Oil on canvas
20 x 30 inches (50.8 x 76.2 cm)
Signed lower left: A.M. Hazard

LAURA M. HEWITT (American, 20th Century)
Sentinels of the Desert
Oil on canvas
20 x 26 inches (50.8 x 66.0 cm)
Signed lower right: Laura M. Hewitt
Titled and signed verso: "Sentinels of the Desert." / By Laura M. Hewitt

JOSH ELLIOTT (American, b. 1973)
Outside Ovando, 2006
Oil on artist's board
15 x 28 inches (38.1 x 71.1 cm)
Signed lower right: Elliott
Titled and dated verso: Outside Ovando / 3 - 2006

PAUL GRIMM (American, 1892-1974)
Sierra Sentinels
Oil on artist's board
9 x 12 inches (22.9 x 30.5 cm)
Signed lower left: Paul Grimm
Inscribed verso: Sierra Sentinels

MARJORIE KINNEY (American, 20th Century)
Coastal Summit, 2006
Oil on canvas
30 x 40 inches (76.2 x 101.6 cm)
Signed lower right: M. Kinney / and friends
Signed, titled, and inscribed verso: for Centex / Original Oil / by Marjorie Kinney / and friends / -2006- / "Coastal Summit"

HAL EMPIE (American, 1909-2002)
A Day in April, 1972
Oil on masonite
9 x 12 inches (22.9 x 30.5 cm)
Signed lower left: H. Empie
Titled, signed, and dated verso: "A Day in April" / Hal Empie / Duncan / Ariz / 1972

HAL EMPIE (American, 1909-2002)
Two Mills, 1972
Oil on artist's board
18 x 24 inches (45.7 x 61.0 cm)
Signed lower right: H. Empie
Titled, signed, and dated verso: Two Mills / Hal Empie / 1972

PAUL SALISBURY (American, 1903-1973)
Winter Scene
Oil on canvas
28 x 36 inches (71.1 x 91.4 cm)
Signed lower right: Paul Salisbury
Titled on stretcher: Winter Scene

WARD SHADOMY (American, 20th Century)
Autumnal Landscape
Oil on canvas
24 x 36 inches (61.0 x 91.4 cm)
Signed lower right: Ward Shadomy

WARD SHADOMY (American, 20th Century)
Summer Landscape
Oil on canvas
24 x 36 inches (61.0 x 91.4 cm)
Signed lower right: Ward Shadomy

FORREST MOSES (American, b. 1934)
Abstract Landscape
Oil on canvas
41 x 47-1/2 inches (104.1 x 120.7 cm)

Forrest Moses graduated from Washington and Lee University in 1956 with a Bachelor's in Fine Art. After graduation he entered the Navy, serving three years in the Far East where he was heavily influenced by the strong visual and philosophical disciplines of Japanese art. Moses later completed his graduate work at the Pratt Institute in New York, before taking a job as an interior designer in Houston. Three years later he moved to California in search of the renowned and inspiring natural landscape of Monterrey. With camera in hand, Forrest Moses explores the hidden and serene areas of our country collecting images of nature to be translated to canvas back in the studio. The Zen like serenity he conveys in his paintings is most notably influenced by his early travels to Japan. For Moses, object and space are important as every line has meaning and every brush stroke is intentional. He is a leading abstract painter of landscapes whose works are highly collected.

FORREST MOSES (American, b. 1934)
Abstract Riverscape
Oil on canvas
41 x 47-1/2 inches (104.1 x 120.7 cm)
Signed verso on tacking edge: Forrest Moses - Santa Fe, N.M.

OLEG STAVROWSKY (Russian/American, b. 1927)
Hillside, circa 1980
Oil on canvas
46 x 32 inches (116.8 x 81.3 cm)
Signed lower right: Oleg Stavrowsky
Signed and titled verso: "Hillside" / Oleg Stavrowsky / ©

OLEG STAVROWSKY (Russian/American, b. 1927)
Swauk Creek
Oil on canvas
42 x 60 inches (106.7 x 152.4 cm)
Signed lower right: Oleg Stavrowsky
Signed and titled verso: "Swauk Creek" / Oleg Stavrowsky / ©

DENNIS SCHMIDT (American, 20th Century)
River of the Dance
Oil on canvas
36 x 48 inches (91.4 x 121.9 cm)
Signed lower left: Dennis / Schmidt

DENNIS SCHMIDT (American, 20th Century)
Heaven's Bend
Oil on canvas
30 x 40 inches (76.2 x 101.6 cm)
Signed lower left: Dennis Schmidt

M. PONDER (American, 20th Century)
Group of Three Prints
Ponder, Persimmon, and Thistle Ace; 2000-2001
Monotype
22-1/4 x 16-1/4 inches (56.5 x 41.3 cm) each
Ed. 1/1
Each signed and dated lower right: M. Ponder '00/'01
Each titled lower left

AMERICAN ARTIST (20th Century)
Untitled (Road Through Woods)
Lithograph
29 x 44 inches (73.7 x 111.8 cm)
Ed. 8/44
Signed indistinctly lower right

GEORGE M. LIVINGSTON (American, 20th Century)
Landscape
Watercolor on paper
12 x 16 inches (30.5 x 40.6 cm)
Signed lower left: Geo (?) M. Livingston

JAMES ERWIN BOREN (American, 1921-1990)
Blue Bonnets, 1971
Watercolor on paper
24 x 37-1/2 inches (61.0 x 95.3 cm) window
Signed and dated lower right: James Boren 1971 CA

James Boren was one of the deans of modern western painters in Texas. Born in Waxahachie, Boren was inducted into the Cowboy Artists of America and became one of its most celebrated and honored members. His preferred media was watercolor. He said, "It offers the greatest spontaneity of expression of any painting medium and lends itself to beautiful transparent passages or to completely opaque gouache techniques, or a combination of the two." Wild Bluebonnets blanket the landscape in this lovely watercolor by cowboy artist James Boren.

PALMER CHRISMAN (American, 20th Century)
River Landscape
Oil on canvas
16 x 20-1/4 inches (40.6 x 51.4 cm)
Signed lower left: Palmer Chrisman

DON WARREN (American, 1935-2006)
The Sentinal
Oil on canvas
12 x 16 inches (30.5 x 40.6 cm)
Signed lower left: Don Warren
Titled on stretcher: The Sentinal

G. HARVEY (American, b. 1933)
Spanish Oaks
Oil on canvas
20 x 24 inches (50.8 x 61.0 cm)
Signed lower left: G. Harvey
Titled on stretcher: Spanish Oaks

G. Harvey (Gerald Harvey Jones) was born in the Hill Country north of San Antonio and graduated with honors from the University of North Texas. He has established himself as one of the most successful and versatile artists in America today. In Spanish Oaks, famed Texas artist G. Harvey captures the beauty of the Texas landscape in autumn.

PETER LANZ HOHNSTEDT (American, 1872-1957)
Country Hillside
Oil on canvas
24 x 29 inches (61.0 x 73.7 cm)
Signed lower right: P.L. Hohnstedt

Born in Ohio, Peter Hohnstedt was self taught. After settling in San Antonio in 1929, Hohnstedt moved to Comfort, Texas, in the early 1940s, painting in the surrounding countryside, the Big Bend and Pecos River areas, and Mexico. Peter Hohnstedt exhibited extensively, and his work is in the collection of the Witte Museum, San Antonio.

Country Hillside is an excellent example of American Regionalism in Texas. Unlike his pure landscapes, this image depicts a vista with a farm. The clear, linear style with many earth tones similar to the WPA style that characterizes American Regionalists in the first half of the twentieth century. The popularity of such pictures has grown over the last few years and demand for paintings like this one will likely increase as well.

PETER LANZ HOHNSTEDT (American, 1872-1957)
Texas Landscape
Oil on board
14-1/2 x 16 inches (36.8 x 40.6 cm)
Signed lower right: P.L. Hohnstedt

PETER LANZ HOHNSTEDT (American, 1872-1957)
Meadow Brook
Oil on canvas
20 x 24 inches (50.8 x 61.0 cm)
Signed lower right: P.L. Hohnstedt

With Meadowbrook and Texas Landscape Peter Hohnstedt has created beautiful paintings that communicate a feeling of calm and tranquility. The lush, green landscape is a common subject for this early Texas painter. He uses an impressionistic style of painting to create a soft, dreamy effect similar to Monet's formal approach to subjects from nature as found in his famous paintings of water lilies and the gardens at Giverny. Like them, the ephemeral quality of the painting is enhanced by the flattening of the perspective and the abstracted patterns that take over the surface of the canvas.

PETER LANZ HOHNSTEDT (American, 1872-1957)
Hillside Landscape
Oil on canvas
17 x 24 inches (43.2 x 61.0 cm)
Signed lower right: PL Hohnstedt

ROBERT PREUSSER (American, 1919-1992)
Abstract, 1936
Mixed media on paper
11-1/2 x 17 inches (29.2 x 43.2 cm) window
Signed and dated lower left: Robert Preusser / 1936

Robert Preusser's early work, like Abstract, is the result of his bold explorations of abstraction during the 1930s. That work, along with Isolated Flower, reveals his success in mastering this style. He was born in Houston and studied there with McNeill Davidson, in Chicago at the Institute of Design, in New Orleans at the Newcomb School of Art, and in Los Angeles at the Art Center School. He was an Abstract Expressionist painter, preferring mixed media, and is generally acknowledged as one of the earliest Texas artists to produce and show abstract work.

ROBERT PREUSSER (American, 1919-1992)
Isolated Flower
Oil on board
6 x 9 inches (15.2 x 22.9 cm)
Signed lower right: Preusser

PROVENANCE:
Parkerson Gallery, Houston (label verso).

PERRY NICHOLS (American, 1911-1992)
The Owl, 1964
Gouache with etching on paper laid on board
11 x 7 inches (27.9 x 17.8 cm)
Signed and dated lower right: Nov. 9, 1964 / Perry Nichols

PROVENANCE:
2719 Gallery, Dallas;
Private Texas Collection.

In The Owl, Perry Nichols has used some unconventional techniques and materials to create this charming piece of art. The grain, combined with the paint that has been scraped off the surface, contributes to the interesting texture and pattern of the owl's feathers. A member of the "Dallas Nine," and the artist responsible for the murals that adorn Dallas's Landmark Inwood Theater and the mural in front of the Dallas Morning News Building, Perry Nichols stands as a significant figure in the history of modern Texas Art.

NANCY O'CONNOR (American, b. 1957)
The Crooked Fence, 1981
Mixed media on paper
44 x 39 inches (111.8 x 99.1 cm)
Title and words by Tony Lott (label verso).

PROVENANCE:
Moody Gallery, Houston (label verso).

Nancy O'Connor is a mixed media artist that has exhibited and worked extensively in installation for over twenty years. She was born in Victoria and received a Bachelor of Journalism from the University of Texas in Austin. Her work focuses on creating sites of experience that involve the use of photography, sound, objects, film and video. In this provocative mixed media piece, she explores the link between memory, place, and the mythos of the American West.

BOB "DADDY-O" WADE (American, b. 1943)
Ridin' Straight Up, 1995
Acrylic on linen
20 x 16 inches (50.8 x 40.6 cm)
Titled, signed, and dated on stretcher: "Ridin Straight Up" © Bob Wade '95 - R.S. Wade

Bob "Daddy-O" Wade, Austin native and resident, is a modern Texas art legend. The Chicago Tribune called him a "legendary free spirit" who is "larger than life." Most famous for monumental sculptures and photo-realistic painting, his large sculptures are seen across Texas from San Antonio to Dallas to Abilene, and his paintings can be found in almost every art museum in the state. He has been the recipient of three grants from the National Endowment of the Arts and has had his work exhibited in Biennials in Paris, New Orleans, and The Whitney Museum of Art in New York. Daddy-O is known for painting photos and iconic images to look like vintage hand-tinted photography, allowing him to play with visual iconography and modern concepts of the old and new "American West" in Texas. He creates a surreal sense of the past and present colliding with a large measure of humor, playfulness, and self-proclaimed weirdness that characterizes his work.

BOB "DADDY-O" WADE (American, b. 1943)
Painted Horse
Acrylic on linen
14 x 17 inches (35.6 x 43.2 cm)

OLIN TRAVIS (American, 1888-1975)
Ex Slave
Oil on board
24 x 20 inches (61.0 x 50.8 cm)
Signed lower left: Olin Travis
Monogrammed lower right
Titled and signed verso: An Ex Slave / by / Olin Travis
Artist label verso

Born in Dallas, Olin Travis studied at the Art Institute of Chicago and after graduation remained with the school as an instructor. In 1923, Travis moved back to Dallas, opening a studio. Three years later he founded the Dallas Art Institute where he would eventually teach such Texas artists as Everrett Spruce and William Lester. Over the years, Travis exhibited in local and national shows, including the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. In 1953, Travis was honored with a solo exhibition at the Dallas Museum of Art entitled "50 Years of Painting in Dallas: A Retrospective Exhibition of Paintings and Drawings by Olin Travis."

Ex Slave by Olin Travis is a powerful painting. Many of his portraits were the kind of commissions artists often paint to assure a steady income, but this is not one of those pictures. Travis painted this subject from personal inspiration and interest in the formal qualities of the subject. By using a realistic style and accentuating the sad gaze and gnarled, weather beaten face of this man, Travis was able to create an image that could evoke strong emotions. Furthermore, this portrait serves as documentation of an important chapter of the American experience in Texas. By depicting this former slave, intentionally or not, he invokes the long history of oppression, violence, poverty and racism towards African-Americans. This painting is so much more than an average portrait; it is an important piece of cultural and art history in Texas.

OLIN TRAVIS (American, 1888-1975)
Texas Landscape
Oil on artist's board
12 x 16 inches (30.5 x 40.6 cm)
Signed lower left: Olin Herman Travis

This haunting and beautiful landscape is an early example of Olin Travis's work.

OLIN TRAVIS (American, 1888-1975)
Portrait
Pastel on paper
12 x 12-1/2 inches (30.5 x 31.8 cm)
Signed lower right: Olin Travis
Inscribed verso: Drawing / Olin Travis

This pastel by Olin Travis is a wonderful example of his modernist style. This geometric representation of a woman's head is not a portrait but instead a study in abstraction, much like Picasso used a women's head to work out so many of his formal innovations. The woman is drafted in a style that reveals the influence that "primitive" or "tribal" art had on the development of Modernism. She invokes the volumetric properties of African carvings and monumental sculpture, and the colors reveal further modernist influence. Travis uses color expressively and to create an image that is both visually interesting and invokes an emotional response in the viewer.

CHARLES SCHORRE (American, 1925-1996)
Nude
Watercolor on paper
18-1/2 x 25-1/2 inches (47.0 x 64.8 cm) window
Signed lower right: Char / Schorre

Abstract Expressionist Charles Schorre was born in Cuero, Texas. In 1948, he received a BFA degree from The University of Texas at Austin and moved to Houston. This watercolor shows a different side of the artist from his better known abstract style, largely because he is depicting a traditional art historical subject, a reclining female nude. Nevertheless, the exuberant style and intense colors recall his abstract work.

JUANITA POLLARD (American, 1909-1994)
Portrait of Boy with Goat
Oil on canvas
36 x 24 inches (91.4 x 61.0 cm)
Signed lower right: Pollard

Juanita Tittle Pollard, born in Trent, Texas, spent a lifetime painting and teaching at Abilene Christian College, Lubbock Christian College, and Texas Tech University. She studied with Harry Anthony De Young, Frank Reaugh, Everett Spruce, and William Lester among other notable Texas artists. Portrait of a Boy with Goat is an interesting and striking example of Modernism in Texas Regionalism.

DENNIS BLAGG (American, b. 1951)
Untitled
Watercolor on paper
19-1/2 x 16 inches (49.5 x 40.6 cm) window
Signed lower left: Dennis Blagg

Born in Oklahoma City and a resident of Fort Worth, Dennis Blagg is a self-taught painter whose work chiefly features landscapes of Texas's Big Bend region, and his work is in the collections of museums across Texas. The style of the painting reflects the influence of American Tonalist painters like Andrew Wyeth. In Tonalism, the color palette is manipulated to create the mood. This atmosphere gives additional meaning to whatever subject is being depicted in the realistic style characteristic of Tonalism. In this beautiful watercolor, Dennis Blagg has created a poignant image using that icon of the modern American West: the jean jacket. Hanging in moody, gray-toned isolation, the jacket evokes the solitude, which is often a part of the work life of ranchers and those who work the land.

ED BLACKBURN (American, b. 1940)
Movie Sketch
Mixed media on paper
30 x 40 inches (76.2 x 101.6 cm)
Signed lower right: Blackburn

Amarillo native and Fort Worth resident Ed Blackburn is known for his cinema and figural recreations. This painting of a movie still invokes iconic images of American cinema culture of the 1950s and 1960s. Blackburn attended the University of Texas, Austin, the Brooklyn Museum of Art Scholarship Program, and the University of California, Berkley. His work has been widely exhibited and is in the collections of the Amarillo Art Museum, the Houston Museum of Fine Art, the Dallas Museum of Art, the El Paso Museum of Art, Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, the San Antonio Museum of Art, the Texas Tech Museum, Lubbock, and the Tyler Museum of Art.

COREEN SPELLMAN (American, 1905-1978)
Pair of Still Lifes
Watercolor on paper
11 x 16 inches (27.9 x 40.6 cm) each
Both signed lower right: C.M. Spellman

JOSÉ ARPA PEREA (Spanish, 1860-1952)
Untitled (Outside the Village)
Lithograph with hand tinting on paper
6-1/2 x 9-1/4 inches (16.5 x 23.5 cm)
Signed lower left: J. Arpa

FRED DARGE (American, 1900-1978)
Cowboy Landscape
Oil on canvas laid on board
10 x 12 inches (25.4 x 30.5 cm)
Signed lower right: F. Darge

Fred Darge was born in Germany and immigrated to the United States in 1923. He attended The Art Institute of Chicago and The Art Students League in New York, two of the best art schools in the country. In 1935, he moved to Dallas. He spent his summers painting on ranches in West Texas and New Mexico. As you can see from these paintings, Darge is one of the best early Texas artists who painting horses, using his ranching experience. Rock formations, sage brush, and mountains create a decorative affect that serves as a setting for his horses and riders.

FRED DARGE (American, 1900-1978)
Pair of Paintings: Strawberry Roan, Morning Ride
Oil on artist's board
8 x 10 inches (20.3 x 25.4 cm) each
Both signed lower right: F. Darge

FRED DARGE (American, 1900-1978)
Landscape with River
Oil on canvas
18 x 24 inches (45.7 x 61.0 cm)
Signed lower right: F. Darge

PAUL RICHARD SCHUMANN (American, 1876-1946)
Sailboat
Oil on board
9 x 12 inches (22.9 x 30.5 cm)
Signed lower right: Paul R. Schumann

Paul Schumann has been called the interpreter of the true Texas gulf coast. He is well known for impressionistic paintings of boats, recalling the works of Claude Monet. He worked with bright colors and often used a palette knife to add texture and depth to his canvases. This painting is a fine example of Schumann's quintessential style. Born in Germany, Schumann came to Galveston as a child. He studied painting in New York and elsewhere on the East Coast. His Galveston studio was destroyed in the 1900 hurricane, but Schumann rebuilt it on the same site. Just as his contemporary Julian Onderdonk immortalized the Texas Hill Country, Schumann captured the beauty and essence of the Texas Coast at the beginning of the twentieth century.

JULIAN ONDERDONK (American, 1882-1922)
Flying Shadows, 1910
Oil on board
8 x 10 inches (20.3 x 25.4 cm)
Signed lower left: Julian Onderdonk
Titled, signed, and dated verso: Flying Shadows / S.W. Texas / Julian Onderdonk 1910

PROVENANCE:
Private Collection, Los Gatos, California

Flying Shadows is a beautiful gem Julian Onderdonk has painted in saturated jewel-tones and a soft impressionistic style. It depicts the shadows of clouds that can be seen from a distance moving across the vast landscape and creating flying shadows that sweep over the Texas Hill Country. This subject allows for the contrast of vivid colors. The yellow hills in the foreground are like those typically found in his work, but the shadows in the middle-ground allow him to compliment the yellows with glowing purples and blues. The background is hazy sky-blue that shows clouds like the one casting the shadow while floating above the viewer. Flying Shadows is a wonderful example of Julian Onderdonk's brilliant technique and sense of color.

PROPERTY FROM THE DUFFY AND TINA OYSTER FOUNDATION

JULIAN ONDERDONK (American, 1882-1922)
Flag Mountain, 1914
Oil on artist's board
10 x 14 inches (25.4 x 35.6 cm)
Signed lower left: Julian Onderdonk Titled, signed, and dated verso: Flag Mountain - on the West Prong of the / Medina River - S.W. Texas / Julian Onderdonk 1914

In Flag Mountain - on the West Prong of the Medina River (S.W. Texas), Julian Onderdonk has tried something somewhat different than his typical impressionistic paintings. Usually, he lyrically portrays atmosphere, light, and mist to create that soft, dreamy style that most characterizes his work. Instead, he has created a painting which has a rough surface and abstract style. When viewed up-close the typical Onderdonk will consist of small and subtle, but still painterly, brushwork. Perhaps the most wonderful part of Flag Mountain, and hardest to capture in photographs, is the rich texture. A thick impasto has been created using a palette knife and relatively large brushes. The stunning jewel-toned blues, greens, and lavenders draw the eye, accenting the pink, orange, and white paint. The formal abstraction, expressive use of color, and exuberant style is absolutely inspired. It communicates the joy that Onderdonk felt when painting for himself and his love of the land he spent his life trying to capture on canvas. Flag Mountain will be included in the catalogue raisonné now in progress.

Julian Onderdonk is known as the "Texas Impressionist" for his beautiful landscapes. He was a native of San Antonio and the son of the artist Robert Jenkins Onderdonk. In 1901, at the age of nineteen, he moved to New York City and attended several art schools. He then studied plein-air painting with William Merritt Chase at his summer school in Shinecock, New York. After returning home to Texas in 1909, he enjoyed considerable success during his lifetime. He became best known for his paintings of bluebonnets, but he also loved to depict the Texas Hill Country in all its incarnations. Unfortunately, he suffered an early death at the age of forty. His work can be found in museums and important private collections across the country. In 2008, the Dallas Museum of Art held an exhibition entitled Bluebonnets and Beyond: Julian Onderdonk, American Impressionist, which has further established his work as the most admired and sought-after of the early Texas artists.

BROR ALEXANDER UTTER (American, 1913-1993)
Mission Series, 1965
Oil on canvas
28 x 30 inches (71.1 x 76.2 cm)
Signed and dated lower left: Bror Utter / '65

Throughout the 1960s, Bror Utter continued his frequent travels. He often stayed at the vacation homes of Fort Worth friends and patrons. Two of the places he visited regularly were Italy and Mexico. He painted many cityscapes, ruins, landscapes, and architectural features, most of which were sketched on-site and painted after his return to Texas. The oddly muted oranges, teal greens, and yellows, with gorgeous hints of lavender misting in the gray sky and accenting the mission are absolutely stunning. As always, his incredible skill combining unusual contrasting colors gives the palette his signature Surrealist mood. Another characteristic of this artwork is the use of line to create a decorative affect; the abstract patterns that resemble cracks unify the formal elements of the composition. Throughout his career, Bror maintained a fascination with arches and niches. It is no surprise that Colonial Mexican missions, with their domes and arched windows, would be highly appealing subjects. Mission Series, 1965 is one of the largest and best examples of his Mexican mission scenes.

BROR ALEXANDER UTTER (American, 1913-1993)
Still Life with Roses, Apples, and Plums
Oil on board
18 x 22 inches (45.7 x 55.9 cm)
Signed lower right: Utter

Still Life with Roses, Apples, and Plums was painted by Utter circa 1950. This exceptional picture represents a unique amalgamation of varying modernist influences, especially those of Henri Matisse and Paul Cezanne. With its treatment of the green apples with accents of a bright orange, and the fact that the objects in the composition are all viewed as if from different angles, this painting is reminiscent of Cezanne's many still lifes with fruit. The bright pink roses, however, created with curved and flowing lines, have a lovely decorative effect reminiscent of Henri Matisse. Despite these references to French modernists, Utter's distinctive style is still recognizable in the fine draftsmanship and use of interesting color. In addition, one of his favorite subjects besides niches and arches, were vessels like the goblet. Therefore, it is no surprise to see it carefully rendered as a focal point of the composition. Still Life with Roses, Apples, and Plums is an impressive piece of Texas Modernism.

Bror Utter was born in Fort Worth and studied under Sallie Gillespie as a teenager. While working in his father's lithograph plant in the 1930s, he studied under Wade Jolly at the Fort Worth School of Fine Arts. In 1940, he attended the Colorado Fine Arts Center. Utter taught at numerous Fort Worth institutions, including the Fort Worth Art Center and Texas Wesleyan College, while working as a full-time painter. Bror Utter's work has been extensively exhibited in the United States at institutions including the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, and the San Francisco Museum of Art and is in the collections of the Dallas Museum of Art, the Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth, the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, and the Denver Art Museum. According to one newspaper clipping, "two things chiefly distinguish Utter's work. One is his sophisticated way with color and texture. The other is his ability to discover extraordinary things in ordinary forms and express his discoveries with grace and wit."

BROR UTTER (American, 1913-1993)
Abstract
Watercolor and gouache on paper
22 x 15 inches (55.9 x 38.1 cm)
Signed lower left: Bror Utter

DOROTHY HOOD (American, 1919-2000)
Abstract Composition
Oil on canvas
70 x 60 inches (177.8 x 152.4 cm)
Signed upper right: D. Hood

Dorothy Hood is a noted Abstract Expressionist, born in Bryan, Texas, in 1919. She spent a significant amount of time in Mexico and was influenced by her friend Jose Clemente Orozco. This prolific painter created many oversized canvases with large areas of solid and unusual colors. A poet as well as a painter, she became part of the circle of leading artists and writers of Europe and Mexico. Her life and painting has inspired two films: "From the Heart," 1982, and "Dorothy Hood: The Color of Life," 1985.

FLORENCE ELLIOTT MCCLUNG (American, 1896-1994)
Volcanic Cone at Fort Davis, Texas, 1930
Oil on artist's board
16 x 19-3/4 inches (40.6 x 50.2 cm)
Signed lower right: E. McClung
Inscribed verso: 1930 Volcanic Cone at Ft. Davis, Texas - in Town

Florence McClung began painting in the early 1920s, when she studied with Frank Reaugh, Olin Travis, Frank Klepper, Alexandre Hogue, and Thomas M. Stell before training at several institutions across the country. Often following an urge to romanticize the rural landscape, McClung embraced Regionalist subject matter. She largely followed her own stylistic tendency toward the idealization, instead of the abstraction, of rural settings in the manner of many of her contemporaries and teachers. Volcanic Cone at Fort Davis Texas, 1930 is just such an example of her work. This charming painting captures the scenery in a most eloquent style and invokes feelings of peace and awe that can be simultaneously inspired by the dramatic Texas landscape.

FLORENCE ELLIOTT MCCLUNG (American, 1896-1994)
Pueblo Landscape
Oil on artist's board
14 x 10 inches (35.6 x 25.4 cm)
Signed lower left: F. McClung

DAWSON DAWSON-WATSON (British/American, 1864-1939)
Country Landscape, 1927
Oil on canvas
21 x 16 inches (53.3 x 40.6 cm)
Signed and dated lower right: Dawson-Watson / 27

Country Landscape was painted in 1927 by Dawson Dawson-Watson. In the background of this typical country scene, a barn sits on the horizon. A barbed-wire fence surrounds the meadow with two cacti blooming along the edge. The soft, colorful pastel palette and painterly brushwork are classic elements of his signature impressionistic style. Dawson-Watson is among the most sought after early Texas artists to work in this style. It is an exceptionally beautiful example of Texas Impressionism.

Dawson-Watson was born in London, England, in 1864. Before coming to this country in 1893, he had exhibited at the Royal Academy, London, Paris Salon, Exposition Universelle, Paris, Royal Cambrian Academy, and the Royal Canadian Academy. He showed at most of the exhibitions of importance in the United States. He is represented in many museums, libraries, and private collections, both here and abroad.

CLARA PANCOAST (American, 1872-1959)
Texas in the Fall
Oil on board
19 x 22-1/4 inches (48.3 x 56.5 cm)
Signed lower right: C.C. Pancoast

KATE KRAUSE BALL (American, 1891-1973)
Country Landscape
Oil on canvas
25 x 30 inches (63.5 x 76.2 cm)
Signed lower right: Kate K. Ball

FRANK KLEPPER (American, 1890-1952)
Landscape
Oil on canvas
11 x 14 inches (27.9 x 35.6 cm)
Signed lower left: Klepper

EDWARD G. EISENLOHR (American, 1872-1961)
Texas in the Snow
Oil on artist's board
9-3/4 x 13-3/4 inches (24.8 x 34.9 cm)
Signed lower left: E.G. Eisenlohr

This early Texas artist first studied art with Frank Reaugh and Robert Jenkins Onderdonk, later attending the Art Students League in New York. Over the next twenty years he was known as one of the most accomplished artists in North Texas. He exhibited widely, and his credits include the Art Institute of Chicago, National Academy of Design, Texas Centennial Exposition, New York World's Fair, the Museum of Fine Arts, Santa Fe, and museum exhibitions across the state of Texas.

EDWARD G. EISENLOHR (American, 1872-1961)
On a Garland Farm
Lithograph
5-1/2 x 9 inches (14.0 x 22.9 cm)
Ed. 12/25
Initialed in the plate lower right: E. G. E.
Signed in the lower right margin: Edward G. Eisenlohr
Titled in the lower left margin: On a Garland Farm

ROBERT "BO" POWELL (American, b. 1942)
Texas Panhandle in 1927, 2003
Oil on board
13-1/2 x 39-1/2 inches (34.3 x 100.3 cm)
Signed and dated lower right: Bo Powell / '03

Fort Worth native, Bo Powell, studied art at Texas A&M. He got a chance to see countryside around the United States when he worked as a locomotive engineer. In a recent Western Art Collector feature article, Bo Powell relates how his many travels across Canada, Wyoming, Idaho, New Mexico, Alaska, Colorado and Texas provide limitless subject matter for sketching. In Texas Panhandle in 1927 Powell was inspired by witnessing a sunset with a storm sweeping across the horizon on the highway near Amarillo. He added the 1920s era farmhouse to the painting to help communicate the immense, flat, and starkly beautiful landscape of the Llano Estacado, as well as the stunning sight of the huge storm blotting out the brilliant sunset as it roles in.

CLEMENTINE HUNTER (American, 1886-1988)
Untitled (Cotton Picker in Front of African House)
Oil on board
8 x 10 inches (20.3 x 25.4 cm)
Monogrammed center right: HC

This is a small version of a subject that Clementine Hunter returned to repeatedly in her career. It contains an image of the "Africa House" from the plantation where she lived. What makes this painting especially desirable is the monogram. The symbol is an early version of her signature, in which her initials, a reversed C and H, are painted separately from each other. Later works show the letters touching or overlapping.

CLEMENTINE HUNTER (American, 1886-1988)
Baby Jesus
Oil on canvas
17-1/2 x 24 inches (44.5 x 61.0 cm)
Monogrammed center right

In 1900, Clementine Hunter moved with her family to the Melrose Plantation on the Cane River, outside Natchitoches, Louisiana. Melrose soon became a haven for many artists and writers. At the age of 54, Clementine Hunter began "marking pictures" on any surface she could find - old bottles, cardboard scraps, and even brown paper bags. Her works told the story of plantation life from daily activities to special occasions. One of Louisiana's most celebrated folk artists, Clementine Hunter's paintings can be seen in the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, D.C., the Museum of American Folk Art in New York, the Dallas Museum of Fine Arts, the Oprah Winfrey Collection in Chicago, and the New Orleans Museum of Art.

In this work, Hunter has depicted the Virgin Mary and baby Jesus sitting near the manger. To the right, three field workers represent the Three Wise Men bringing presents to the Savior.

HARVEY WALLACE CAYLOR (American, 1867-1932)
Middle Concho River
Oil on canvas
14 x 20 inches (35.6 x 50.8 cm)
Signed lower right: H.W. Caylor

Primarily self-taught, H. W. Caylor began drawing at a young age. He had two great passions-ranching and art. Beginning at age twelve, he worked as a cowboy and itinerant artist in Texas, Kansas, Colorado, Utah, Arizona, and New Mexico. He moved to Big Springs, Texas, in 1890. He is among the best artists to portray the genuine working life of the West, which was only possible because of his lifetime of first-hand experiences as a cowboy and rancher. In the late 1920s, Dallas artist Edward Eisenlohr gave his opinion that Caylor was one of the great western artists. In Middle Concho River, he has painted a classic Texas image of a lazy summer day on the river, where cattle rest in the shade near the water in an effort to escape the heat. The style and subject contribute to the feeling of languor.

LEWIS TEEL (American, 1883-1960)
Spring in the Desert
Oil on panel
21 x 28 inches (53.3 x 71.1 cm)
Signed lower left: Lewis Teel

ROLLA SIMS TAYLOR (American, 1872-1970)
Rockport
Oil on canvas
16 x 20 inches (40.6 x 50.8 cm)
Signed lower right: Rolla Taylor
Titled on stretcher: Rockport

Rolla Sims Taylor was born in Galveston and reared in Cuero, Texas. Moving to San Antonio with his family in 1889, he studied under Jose Arpa and Robert Julian Onderdonk. Taylor was one of the earliest painters to work in the Big Bend. He loved painting San Antonio views, and his scenes of Texas history won honors from the Texas State Historical and Landmark Association. Rolla Sims Taylor's work has been exhibited all around the state and is in the collections of many Texas institutions. The variety of styles and palettes represented in this lovely group of paintings speak to the versatility of the artist. In Rockport, vivid colors and heavy brushwork show the influence of modernism, just as the soft colors and fine brushwork of San Antonio River is closer to an impressionistic approach. Mission Conception and San Antonio River depict famous landmarks in San Antonio and attest his greatest inspiration most often came from the rich cultural legacy of the city.

ROLLA SIMS TAYLOR (American, 1872-1970)
Pueblo Landscape
Oil on artist's board
8 x 10 inches (20.3 x 25.4 cm)
Signed lower right: Rolla Taylor

ROLLA SIMS TAYLOR (American, 1872-1970)
West Side, 1960
Oil on artist's board
12 x 16 inches (30.5 x 40.6 cm)
Signed and dated lower right: Rolla Taylor / 60
Titled and inscribed verso: West Side / V1199

ROLLA SIMS TAYLOR (American, 1872-1970)
Mission Concepcion
Oil on artist's board
10 x 14 inches (25.4 x 35.6 cm)
Signed lower right: Rolla Taylor

ROLLA SIMS TAYLOR (American, 1872-1970)
San Antonio River
Oil on canvas
16 x 20-1/2 inches (40.6 x 52.1 cm)
Signed lower right: Rolla Taylor

J. W. THRASHER (American, b. 1940)
Autumn Landscape
Oil on canvas
24 x 36 inches (61.0 x 91.4 cm)
Signed lower right: J. W. Thrasher

WILLIAM ROBERT THRASHER (American, 1908-1997)
Wheel Ruts in the Bluebonnets
Oil on canvas
20 x 24 inches (50.8 x 61.0 cm)
Signed lower left: W.R. Thrasher

KELLY FEARING (American, b. 1918)
Country Church, 1941
Watercolor on paper
13-3/4 x 20 inches (34.9 x 50.8 cm) window
Signed and dated lower right: Kelly Fearing ' 41

JERRY BYWATERS (American, 1906-1989)
The Giralda and the Cathedral
Oil on canvas
26 x 22 inches (66.0 x 55.9 cm)
Signed lower right: Gerald / Bywaters

PROVENANCE:
Milton Brown, Dallas;
By descent to Kathryn Johnson.

Jerry Bywaters was a leading member of the early-modernist group of artists known as the "Dallas Nine." He grew up in Dallas, attended Southern Methodist University, and studied under Olin Travis and Thomas M. Still at the Dallas Art Institute. He built a studio in 1928 and became a leader in the regionalism movement in Texas. Best known for his still-lifes, landscapes, and portraits, Bywaters produced a large body of work, while holding positions as an art critic, art editor and contributor, teacher, curator of numerous exhibitions, and served as Director of the Dallas Museum of Art. Jerry Bywaters's work is in many Texas collections including the Dallas Museum of Art and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. The Giralda and the Cathedral is an early work painted in the 1920s, from sketches made following a trip to Spain. It is a lovely painting with a hazy, impressionistic style, soft pastel palette, composition, and atmospheric quality of the light that are directly related to the series of paintings that Monet did of the Rouen Cathedral. Indeed, if not for the trees only the façades and towers of buildings would be different from Monet's cathedrals. Later, Bywaters would reject Impressionism and embrace Realism and Modernism, but this painting offers important insight into the early development of one of the most important Texas Regionalists.

LEE N. SMITH (American, 1950)
Blocks and Sticks, 1988
Oil on canvas
48 x 67-1/4 inches (121.9 x 170.8 cm)
Signed, titled, and dated verso: Blocks and Sticks / 2/88 Paris / LN Smith III

Born in New Orleans, Lee Smith moved to Dallas when he was six. He had no formal art training, but started to paint in 1974 and had his first one man exhibition at the University of Texas at Arlington in 1979. Smith paints works that remind us of our childhoods. Blocks and Sticks is similar to the paintings that were so well received when, in 1984, Lee Smith was one of 26 artists to represent the United States at the prestigious Venice Biennale in Italy. His works are in the collections of the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, the Dallas Museum of Art, and the Tyler Museum of Art.

FORREST CLEMENGER BESS (American, 1911-1977)
Untitled (Sailboats)
Oil on canvas
15 x 18 inches (38.1 x 45.7 cm)
Signed lower left: Forrest Bess

PROVENANCE:
Private Collection, Galveston.

Born in Bay City, Forrest Bess studied architecture at Texas A&M College and art at the University of Texas. He opened a studio and gallery in Houston in 1938 and then entered the army in 1941. Bess suffered a nervous breakdown, was released from the service, moved back to Texas for treatment at the VA hospital, and established a studio in San Antonio. In 1947, he returned to the Bay City area living in a shack on the Intracoastal Canal. Bess sold his roughly textured abstractions, reproductions of his dreams, through a New York dealer and locally. The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, the Menil Collection, Houston, the Witte Museum, San Antonio, the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston have works by Forrest Bess in their collections.

Untitled (Sailboats) by Bess is an early example of his work. With wild colors and the thick impasto of the brushwork, it is easy to see the influence of Modernism early in his career. At first glance, the painting may appear to be a colorful abstract painting of distorted triangle shapes. However, when it is more closely observed, triangles making up the composition become sailboats with mountains, boats, and flags seen in the background, as well as one small fisherman. Sailboats were a common sight on the Gulf Coast where Bess spent most of his life.

PORFIRIO SALINAS (American, 1910-1973)
Bluebonnet Hillside Landscape
Oil on canvas
16 x 20 inches (40.6 x 50.8 cm)
Signed lower left: Porfirio Salinas

PORFIRIO SALINAS (American, 1910-1973)
Texas Bluebonnets
Oil on canvas
25 x 30 inches (63.5 x 76.2 cm)
Signed lower left: Porfirio Salinas

Porfirio Salinas stands among the most widely collected and beloved Texas artists. His impressionistic depictions of the Texas landscape have helped to inspire the rising popularity of Texas art as a focus for collectors, scholars, and exhibitions. Born on a farm near Austin in 1910, Salinas never lost touch with the land, and his work reflects his personal relationship with the beauty of the Texas Hill Country. His career was significantly advanced by the introduction of his work to important private collectors such as Texas Governor John Connally and President Lyndon Johnson. Landscapes by Salinas skyrocketed in value after President Johnson endorsed Salinas as his "favorite artist" despite the derision of regionalist art often expressed by critics of the time.

PORFIRIO SALINAS (American, 1910-1973)
Autumn
Oil on canvas laid on board
25 x 30 inches (63.5 x 76.2 cm)
Signed lower left: P. Salinas

MICHAEL ETIE (American, b. 1948)
West Texas Sunset
Oil on board
24 x 36 inches (61.0 x 91.4 cm)
Signed lower right: M. Etie

Austin artist Mike Etie is a master when using dramatic, brilliant colors to imbue the Texas landscape with an emotional life independent of its often overwhelming beauty. Working in oil and pastels, he travels around the state to find inspiration for these stunning depictions. Etie is quickly becoming known for pictures that are both beautiful and expertly executed. Perhaps the most refreshing aspect of his work is that Etie eschews the tendency of living Texas artists to create artworks which rely too heavily on traditional approaches to the Texas landscape in favor of a fresh and beautiful style. Many of the best known Texas landscape painters have long looked primarily to Impressionism for inspiration. Despite the fact that, like most of the Impressionists, he almost always paints real places en plein-air, his style has more in common with Post-Impressionism. The expressive use of a brilliantly saturated palette evokes the ecstatic intensity of color found in Fauvism; sometimes stylized depictions of forests, trees, and vistas recall Japanese and tribal art of the nineteenth-century; and abstract and decorative patterns emerging independent of the represented subject are all common trends in the works of Post-Impressionists like Henri Matisse, Vincent Van Gogh, and Paul Gauguin. Mike Etie is an exciting artist whose work represents a new evolution in the long Texas of tradition of landscapes. Individually, these stunning artworks speak for themselves.

MICHAEL ETIE (American, b. 1948)
Rio Grande
Oil on board
30 x 40 inches (76.2 x 101.6 cm)
Signed lower right: M.J. Etie

MICHAEL ETIE (American, b. 1948)
Red Maples, Lost Maple Park
Pastel on paper
17 x 15 inches (43.2 x 38.1 cm)
Signed lower left: M. Etie

MICHAEL ETIE (American, b. 1948)
Autumn
Pastel on paper
15 x 17 inches (38.1 x 43.2 cm)
Signed lower left: M. Etie

GEORGE ZIMBEL (American, b. 1929)
Mr. & Mrs. Chester Bonn Take a Ride, 1955
and We Deliver-Houston, Texas, 2000
Silver gelatin, each printed 2000
8-1/4 x 12-1/4 inches (21.0 x 31.1 cm) image, first
8-1/4 x 13 inches (21.0 x 33.0 cm) image, second
Each signed and dated lower right: George S. Zimbel
Each inscribed verso

PROVENANCE:
From the artist's private collection.

In an era of increased manipulation of the photographic image by computer technology, George Zimbel's commitment to the straight photograph has become stronger. His photographs range from the 1940s to the present and are always printed by himself. Mr. and Mrs. Chester Bonn Take a Ride, 1955 and We Deliver-Houston Texas, 2000 represent the span of his work in Texas over the course of his career. Beyond their excellent formal qualities, these photos document the great changes that the Texas landscape and road culture has undergone in the last half century. They were not conceived of as a pair, but one cannot help but see the interesting dialogue invoked when viewed together.

Documentary photographer George S. Zimbel spent his early career in New York, working for national magazines, as well as self-initiated projects. His work in Texas began in 1950 and extended through 2006. Among other things, Zimbel was a noted photographer of Marilyn Monroe and was featured in the 2001 PBS American Master's production, "Marilyn Monroe: Still Life." His photographs are included in many collections from The Museum of Modern Art, New York to The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.

RICHARD SIEGEL (American, 20th Century)
Lost Maples State Park, 1996
Watercolor on paper
35 x 53 inches (88.9 x 134.6 cm)
Signed and dated lower right: Siegel / 96

JOHN BIGGERS (American, 1924-2001)
Bent Figure with Ghosts / KKK, 1965
Mixed media on board
11-5/8 x 18-3/8 inches (29.5 x 46.7 cm)
Dated verso: 65

PROVENANCE:

Yar and Barbara Chomicky.

African-American artist John Biggers was born in Gastonia, North Carolina, and attended Hampton Institute, later Hampton University, in Virginia. In his first year, he enrolled in a class taught by the influential emigre art educator Viktor Lowenfeld, who became his mentor. After two years in the Navy, he entered Pennsylvania State University, where he earned a master's degree in art education in 1948 and a Ph.D. in 1954. In 1949, he joined the faculty of Texas State University for Negroes in Houston, now Texas Southern University, where he established and was chairman of the art department. John Biggers's art is grounded in the humanistic spirit and social realist narrative style of the 1930s and 40s. Over the years it grew increasingly emblematic, with figures and architectural forms arranged in intricate patterns that suggested quilts, African textiles, and modernist geometric abstraction. Biggers received a fellowship from UNESCO, the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization, in 1957, allowing him to become one of the first African-American artists to visit Africa. This trip to West Africa, which Biggers described as "a positive shock" and as "the most significant of my life's experiences," had a profound impact on his personal and world view and directly influenced his artistic synthesis of African art and culture, the injustices of segregation he experienced, and the strong women of his youth. When John Biggers died, he left behind a body of work that, as Maya Angelou stated, "leads us through his expressions into the discovery of ourselves at our most intimate level."

These three works are part of a larger collection of similar pictures assembled by, Yar Chomicky, a friend and professor in the art department at Pennsylvania State University. Painted before his pivotal trip to Africa, racial injustice is the overriding theme of the collection. The subjects deal directly with hatred, violence, fear, poverty, marginalization, despair, and the emotional anguish of racism, appropriate themes considering they were created in the late 1950s to mid-1960s, during the civil rights movement. The drawings are an opportunity to increase understanding of this important artist and the tumultuous times that shaped his creative process.

Bent Figure with Ghosts is a powerful and emotional work of the highest quality. The tormented figure is bent over, wracked with pain, anguish, and fear. The title refers to the figures aggressively haunting the man, and it is obvious that the ghosts are also images of the Klu Klux Klan. This subject is hard today, so it is difficult to imagine how it would have been received by the general public at the time it was made. Despite this, his mentor Victor Lowenfield, a Holocaust survivor, would have encouraged him to explore such a profoundly difficult, but important, subject. The beauty and formal brilliance of the work makes it even more moving.

JOHN BIGGERS (American, 1924-2001)
Hands
Charcoal on board
18-1/2 x 24-1/4 inches (47.0 x 61.6 cm)

PROVENANCE:
Yar and Barbera Chomicky.

Hands could only have been drawn by a brilliant, academically trained artist, but this study is not just expertly executed or striking. These particular hands carry a subtext that was a major component of African-American art in the twentieth century, most notably in the Harlem Renaissance. African-American artists often portray their subjects with large, almost distorted hands that project strength, struggle, and the hard work that was emblematic of the African-American experience. Biggers put a strong emphasis on hands, and these were probably modeled after his own.

JOHN BIGGERS (American, 1924-2001)
Figures in a Landscape
Ink and watercolor on cardboard
12-1/4 x 18-1/4 inches (31.1 x 46.4 cm)

PROVENANCE:
Yar and Barbara Chomicky.

Figures in a Landscape is a modern genre scene, which also allows a glimpse of the African-American experience. Everything about this drawing projects the bleakness of life in the African-American ghettoes of cities across the country. The choppy lines, muddy colors, distorted figures, and crowded composition all contribute to the mood of desperation and hopelessness. As in all of the works in this collection, the uncomfortable themes are contrasted with the high aesthetic quality of the picture.

ROBERT WILLIAM WOOD (American, 1889-1979)
Bluebonnet Time
Oil on canvas
18 x 24 inches (45.7 x 61.0 cm)
Signed lower right: Robert Wood
Inscribed verso: Bluebonnet Time
Artist's stamp verso

ROBERT WILLIAM WOOD (American, 1889-1979)
Boerne Hills
Oil on canvas
24 x 30 inches (61.0 x 76.2 cm)
Signed lower left: Robert Wood
Inscribed verso: "Boerne Hills"

ROBERT WILLIAM WOOD (American, 1889-1979)
December, 1970
Oil on canvas
24 x 48 inches (61.0 x 121.9 cm)
Signed lower left: Robert Wood

ROBERT WILLIAM WOOD (American, 1889-1979)
Autumn Street Scene, 1953
Oil on canvas
29-1/2 x 39-1/2 inches (74.9 x 100.3 cm)
Signed and dated lower left: Robert Wood / '53

JOSÉ VIVES-ATSARA (Spanish/American, 1919-2004)
Casas y Corrales (Catalonia, Spain), 1980
Oil on canvas
24 x 30 inches (61.0 x 76.2 cm)
Signed lower right: Vives-Atsara
Titled, signed, and dated verso: "Casas y Corrales" / Catalonia, Spain / by Vives-Atsara / 80

JOSÉ VIVES-ATSARA (Spanish/American, 1919-2004)
Floral Still Life
Oil on masonite
30 x 23-1/2 inches (76.2 x 59.7 cm)
Signed lower right: Vives-Atsara

JOSÉ VIVES-ATSARA (Spanish/American, 1919-2004)
Taxco
Oil on canvas
32 x 46 inches (81.3 x 116.8 cm)
Signed lower right: Vives-Atsara

Jose Vives-Atsara was born in Vilafranca del Panades in the Catalonian region of Spain and studied art at Saint Raymond College and the School of Fine Arts in Barcelona. He came to San Antonio in 1956 where he established his art career. Vives-Atsara's vibrant oil paintings have been described as both realistic and impressionistic. He used only nine colors, mixing his paints with incredible skill. Jose Vives-Atsara is represented in collections including the Museum of Modern Art, Spain, and the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth. The artist uses contrasting areas of light and shadow to create a dramatic chiaroscuro effect in these paintings. That is not surprising considering he trained in his native Spain where this style has a long tradition in the work of Spanish artists such as El Greco and Velazquez.

DONNA HOWELL-SICKLES (American, b. 1949)
Lady on Horse, 1984
Mixed media on paper
30-1/4 x 22-1/4 inches (76.8 x 56.5 cm)
Signed and dated lower right: D. Howell 84-2


Donna Howell-Sickles was born in Gainesville and raised on a 900 acre farm. In 1972, while earning her BFA at Texas Tech in Lubbock, she acquired an old postcard c. 1935 depicting a cowgirl seated on a horse which read, "Greetings from a Real Cowgirl from the Ole Southwest." Attracted by the charm and confidence of the woman in the image, she began incorporating the cowgirl figure into her work, as well as collecting and researching these old-time cowgirl images. Before long, this icon was the central theme in Howell-Sickles's pieces. Her works are largely mixed-media and can be found in collections throughout the west including the Booth Western Art Museum, Cartersville, Texas, The National Cowgirl Hall of Fame, Fort Worth, and The Buffalo Bill Historical Center, Cody, Wyoming.

DONNA HOWELL-SICKLES (American, b. 1949)
Horse, 1984
Mixed media on paper
22-3/4 x 30 inches (57.8 x 76.2 cm)
Ed. 2/2
Signed lower right: D. Howell

RUTH MONRO AUGUR (American, 1886-1967)
WPA Mural Study, circa 1930
Oil on canvas laid on board
42 x 41 inches (106.7 x 104.1 cm)
Signed lower right: Ruth Monro Augur

Throughout her career, Ruth Munro Augur completed five public murals that were commissioned by the WPA. This featured study was submitted for the San Antonio Post Office mural program, and, although the commission was eventually given to New Mexican artist Howard Cook, Ruth Auger became an artist most recognized for her murals. Born in Austin and raised in Denver, she studied at the Student School of Art. In 1905 she won a scholarship to the New York School of Art, where she was a student of Robert Henri and William Merritt Chase. About ten years later, she studied in California at Carmel for summer school, the California School of Fine Arts in San Francisco, and the Otis Art Institute in Los Angeles.

DAVID PRYOR ADICKES (American, b. 1927)
Golden Trees
Oil on canvas
17 x 23 inches (43.2 x 58.4 cm)
Signed lower right: Adickes

Born in Huntsville, David Adickes, in spite of a degree in math and physics, pursued art, studying at the Kansas City Art Institute and the Atelier Fernand Leger in Paris. He returned to Texas and found success with his first solo show at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, in December 1951. Adickes spent most of his professional life teaching, painting, and creating small bronzes. As you can see from these works, Adickes has a distinctive and vibrant style featuring bold color and texture blended with a serene tone. These mostly abstract paintings and mixed media pieces are charming examples of that style.

DAVID PRYOR ADICKES (American, b. 1927)
Pair: Red Roof Tops and Rain Clouds
Oil on canvas
10 x 8 inches (25.4 x 20.3 cm) each
Each signed: Adickes
Each titled verso

DAVID PRYOR ADICKES (American, b. 1927)
The Wall, 1965
Oil on canvas
12 x 16 inches (30.5 x 40.6 cm)
Signed lower left: Adickes
Titled, dated, and signed verso: The Wall #0610 / 1965 / Adickes

PROVENANCE:
DuBose Gallery, Houston (label verso).

DAVID PRYOR ADICKES (American, b. 1927)
Japanese Garden
Mixed media on cement
12-1/4 x 8 inches (31.1 x 20.3 cm)
Signed lower center: Adickes

PROVENANCE:
James Bute Gallery, Houston (label verso).

DAVID PRYOR ADICKES (American, b. 1927)
Three Works on Paper
Mixed media on paper
5-1/2 x 7 inches (14.0 x 17.8 cm) largest
Each signed: Adickes

A. D. GREER (American, 1904-1998)
Autumn Tranquility
Oil on canvas
24 x 36 inches (61.0 x 91.4 cm)
Signed lower left: A.D. Greer

A. D. GREER (American, 1904-1998)
Sunset Landscape
Oil on canvas
20 x 24 inches (50.8 x 61.0 cm)
Signed lower right: A.D. Greer

A. D. GREER (American, 1904-1998)
Still Life with Chrysanthemums
Oil on canvas
30 x 36 inches (76.2 x 91.4 cm)
Signed upper right: A.D. Greer

WILLIAM A. SLAUGHTER (American, 1923-2003)
Texas in Blue, 1973
Oil on canvas
18 x 24 inches (45.7 x 61.0 cm)
Signed and dated lower right: W. A. Slaughter '73

WILLIAM A. SLAUGHTER (American, 1923-2003)
Autumn in the Hills
Oil on canvas
16 x 20 inches (40.6 x 50.8 cm)
Signed lower left: W. A. Slaughter

HARCO SCHUTTER (Dutch/American, 1864-1931)
Flag of Texas, 1918
Oil on canvas
27 x 22 inches (68.6 x 55.9 cm)
Signed lower right: H. Schutter / 1918

BEN CARLTON MEAD (American, 1902-1986)
Santa Ynez Mission
Oil on linen
36 x 60 inches (91.4 x 152.4 cm)
Signed lower left: Ben Carlton Mead

Ben Carleton Mead was born in Bay City, Texas, but spent most of his childhood in Amarillo. He studied at the Art Institute of Chicago from 1923-1926, was a staff artist for the Witte Museum in San Antonio, and taught art at Amarillo Junior College. During the Great Depression, Mead was commissioned by the WPA to do several murals throughout the Southwest, most notably in the Tucumcari County courthouse. Santa Ynez Mission has a strong narrative quality similar to Mead's Depression-era murals and portrays life in the wide-open spaces of the American Southwest.

JESSE JAY MCVICKER (American, 1911-2004)
Blue Composition, circa 1973
Polymer on canvas
48 x 60 inches (121.9 x 152.4 cm)
Stamped verso: J.J. McVicker

JESSE JAY MCVICKER (American, 1911-2004)
Scape #3, 1981
Etching
16-1/4 x 16-1/4 inches (41.3 x 41.3 cm)
Trial Proof
Signed, titled, and dated lower margin in graphite: Trial Proof #4, Scape #3, McVicker '81

JESSE JAY MCVICKER (American, 1911-2004)
Red Rooster, 1982
Etching
18-1/4 x 12-3/4 inches (46.4 x 32.4 cm)
Artist's Proof
Signed, titled, and dated lower margin: A/P "Red Rooster" McVicker '82

CHAPMAN KELLY (American, b. 1932)
Modern Landscape
Oil on canvas
71 x 47 inches (180.3 x 119.4 cm) oval
Signed center right: Chapman Kelly

C. P. MONTAGUE (American, 20th Century)
Bluebonnet Landscape
Oil on canvas
12 x 16 inches (30.5 x 40.6 cm)
Signed lower left: C.P. Montague

ANNIE LEE ANDRESS (American, 20th Century)
River Scene with Bluebonnets, 1930
Oil on canvas
24 x 30 inches (61.0 x 76.2 cm)
Signed and dated lower left: Annie Lee Andress / 1930
Signed verso: Miss Andress

HUGO ALBERTO HERBECK (American, 1923-2009)
Autumn Landscape
Oil on canvas
28 x 42-1/4 inches (71.1 x 107.3 cm)
Signed lower left: Hugo Herbeck

HANS VON HUEBNER (German/American, 20th Century)
White Rock Lake, Dallas, 1927
Oil on canvas
18 x 24 inches (45.7 x 61.0 cm)
Signed and dated lower right: Hans Huebner / 27

STEPHEN THOMAS RASCOE (American, b. 1924)
Autumn Trees
Oil on masonite
42 x 36 inches (106.7 x 91.4 cm)
Signed lower right: Stephen Rascoe

EDWARD A. HERBES (American, 20th Century)
Texas Peaches
Oil on panel
16 x 20 inches (40.6 x 50.8 cm)
Signed lower right: Herbes
Titled verso: Texas Peaches

WILLIAM HOCKER (American, b. 1918)
Landmark
Oil on canvas
18 x 24-1/4 inches (45.7 x 61.6 cm)
Signed lower left: William Hocker