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MAXFIELD PARRISH (American 1870-1966)
Sugar Hill, Late Afternoon, 1930
Oil on prepared board
25 x 30-1/2 inches (63 x 76 cm)
Signed and dated lower right: Maxfield Parrish 1930
Titled, inscribed, dated and signed verso: Sugar Hill:Late Afternoon/Plainfield, New Hampshire/1930/Maxfield Parrish

Provenance:
The Artist;
Estate of the Artist;
Eli Lily Collection (Indianapolis, Indiana);
Private Collection (Tennessee)

Literature:
Letter of authentication from Maxfield Parrish, Jr. dated July 19, 1975; Letter from the same to Rosalind Mikesell, discussing a photograph of his father's studio dating from about 1932 in which the painting appears, dated July 19, 1975; Bruce Weber, American Paintings IX (New York: Berry-Hill Galleries, 2001), pp, 110-111 (reproduced)

Sugar Hill, Late Afternoon was painted in 1930 and records a view of the hill behind Parrish's property in the central New Hampshire town of Plainfield where he lived from 1898 until his death in 1966. Parrish, an enormously successful illustrator, developed a serious interest in landscape painting during the course of the 1930s, which intensified as the result of a particular commission: in 1934 the firm of Brown and Bigelow engaged him to paint summer and winter scenes of his own choosing for a series of calendars. As Alma Gilbert has noted, during the last thirty years of his life Parrish 'sought to capture the tranquil, idyllic settings of the spectrally picturesque New England area where he lived' (Alma Gilbert, Maxfield Parrish: The Masterbooks (Berkeley, California: Ten Speed Press, 1995], p. 168).

Parrish purposefully sought to make his images direct and eye-catching. He consistently gave equal attention to all details in his compositions in order to achieve 'a quality of reality and consequently a beauty of truth' (Coy Ludwig, Maxfield Parrish [New York: Watson-Guptill Publications, 1973
Auction 652 | Lot: 23157 | May 25, 2007

Sold For: $310,700.00
FREDERIC REMINGTON (American 1861-1909)
A Mexican Buccaro - In Texas, circa 1890
Oil on canvas
21-1/2 x 17-1/2 inches (54.6 x 44.4 cm)
Signed lower left: Frederic Remington

Provenance:
Newhouse Galleries (New York);
Mr. And Mrs. F. Howard Walsh (Fort Worth, Texas);
Walsh Family Art Trust (Fort Worth, Texas)

Literature:
Harby, Lee C. "Texan Types And Contrasts", Harper's New Monthly Magazine (vol. 81, issue 482, July 1980, p. 241)

In 1881, Frederic Remington set off for the vast territories of Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and veered north to Montana and the Dakotas armed with the goal of recording the people he encountered there as well as a vanishing way of life. His subsequent work as an illustrator for Harper's New Monthly Magazine depended upon this initial trove of highly detailed imagery, and in 1885 he was sent back West by the magazine editors to record Native American conflicts and capture in paint a feeling for life in the southwest. Within a decade, Remington became the dean of Western illustrators, just as the "Wild West" was vanishing forever.

Painted circa 1890 The Mexican Buccaro - in Texas is an outstanding example of Remington's illustration style, which captured the imagination of the reading public. This painting was featured in the July 1890 issue of Harper's New Monthly Magazine, and accompanied an article entitled "Texan Types and Contrasts" by Lee C. Harby. The text sketched a romanticized portrait of the Mexican life in Texas, and waxed poetic on subjects ranging from spicy and flavorful Mexican foods to the dignified and passionate demeanors of the Mexican people. While Harby acknowledged that numerous nationalities contributed to the colorful tableaux of Texan life, all of Remington's illustrations, by contrast, depict only Mexicans. Remington showed them engaged in a range of activities, which was the primary focus of the article.

Painted
Auction 652 | Lot: 24030 | May 25, 2007

Sold For: $310,700.00
WILLIAM HERBERT (BUCK) DUNTON (American 1878-1936)
Summer Silhouette, circa 1926
Oil on canvas
14 x 14 inches (35.56 x 35.56 cm)
Signed lower left: Dunton
Inscribed on the reverse in paint: "Summer Silhouette" / by W. Herbert Dunton; in pen: Taos. New Mexico, and lower in pencil: Oil Painting / Catalogue - No. 7 - / $450.00 / 1927?

Provenance:
Bessie Heard (McKinney, Texas);
Bessie Heard Trust

William Herbert "Buck" Dunton was a precocious illustrator who left school at the age of sixteen to pursue his art full time. His illustrations appeared in books and magazines such as Scribner's, Collier's and Harper's Weekly, among others. The proceeds from these ventures funded his summer trips West, beginning in Montana in 1896. In fact, these summer excursions were inspired as much by his love of the outdoors as for his need for fresh ideas for the Western imagery his new profession required of him.

Dunton attended the Cowles Art School in Boston and the Art Students League in New York City, where he studied under Joseph de Camp and Ernest Blumenschein. It was Blumenschein who first suggested Taos to Dunton, and the latter permanently relocated there in 1912. Together with Oscar Berninghaus, E. Irving Couse, William Herbert "Buck" Dunton, Bert G. Phillips and Joseph H. Sharp, Blumenschein founded the Taos Society of Artists in 1915. Their mission was to sell paintings depicting the people and environs that had captured their imaginations, although the lack of local galleries resulted in a number of traveling exhibitions, which in the end brought their work to a wider public.

In 1922 Dunton left the Taos Society of Artists to pursue an independent career. Giving full rein to his nostalgia for the golden age of the West and the vanishing frontier, Dunton captured nature and cowboys with romance and sensitivity by harnessing a powerful sense of two-dimensiona
Auction 652 | Lot: 24001 | May 25, 2007

Sold For: $286,800.00
WILLIAM GLACKENS (American 1870-1938)
Nude Pulling On Stocking (Nude With Red Hair), circa 1925
Oil on canvas
32 x 26 inches (81 x 66 cm)

Provenance:
Estate of the artist, 1938 to present

Literature:
Touchstone 7 (June 1920): 193 (reproduced);
List made in 1943 of works in estate of William J. Glackens left to Mrs. William J. Glackens, William Glackens File, Whitney Museum of American Art Papers, Archives of American Art, microfilm reel no. N658, frame 601, no. 47;
William Glackens File, Whitney Museum of American Art Papers, Archives of American Art, microfilm reel no. 658, frame 273;
Card file of works by William J. Glackens, William and Ira Glackens Papers, Archives of American Art, microfilm roll 4710, frame 376, no. 30;
Richard Joel Wattenmaker, "The Art of William Glackens," Ph.D. Dissertation, New York University Institute of Fine Arts, 1973, pp. 247-248m 454, 457 (reproduced)

William Glackens was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. In 1891, following his graduation from Philadelphia's Central High School where John Sloan was a fellow student, he joined the Philadelphia Record as an artist-reporter, and worked in a similar capacity from 1892 to 1895 for the Philadelphia Press. Also working for the Press at this time were Sloan, George Luks, and Everett Shinn-all of whom became associated with a group of progressive painters known as "The Eight." In 1893 Glackens studied briefly with Thomas Anschutz at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. Glackens and the artist Robert Henri shared a studio in 1894, and traveled to Europe together the following year. Upon his return to America in 1896 Glackens settled in New York and worked as an illustrator for the New York Herald and later for the New York World. In 1908 he became a member of the Eight(Henri, Sloan, Shinn, Luks, Maurice Prendergast, Arthur B. Davies, and Ernest Lawson) who held a landmark exhibition at the Macbeth Galle
Auction 652 | Lot: 23141 | May 25, 2007

Sold For: $215,100.00
JOSEPH HENRY SHARP (American 1859-1953)
Taos Fishing Trip, circa October 1932
Oil on canvas
14 x 17 inches (35.6 x 43.2 cm)
Signed lower right: JHSHARP
On verso: original check from Lawrence Slaback endorsed by Joseph Henry Sharp

Provenance:
Mr. and Mrs. Lawrence Slaback, purchased directly from artist on October 4, 1932;
Hazel Risselman, inherited from Slaybacks;
Descended in family to Jim Risselman

Joseph Henry Sharp, the father of the Taos art colony, was born in Bridgeport, Ohio, and saw his first Native Americans near Wheeling, West Virginia, just across the Ohio River. He spent his teenage years in Cincinnati, where he studied art at the McMicken School of Design and the Cincinnati Art Academy. Over the course of the 1880s and early 1890s Sharp continued his studies in Munich, Antwerp and Paris. From 1892 to 1902 he taught life drawing and portraiture at the Cincinnati Art Academy. During this period he often ventured west to paint American Indians.

Sharp made trips to Taos, New Mexico, in 1883 and 1893. From 1902 to 1909, he spent summers in Taos and winters at Crow Agency in Montana. In 1910 he settled permanently in Taos. In the 1930s Sharp traveled to China and Hawaii, and in later years he spent winters in Pasadena, California. Sharp was a founding member of the Taos Society of Artists and received numerous prizes, including a silver medal at the Pan American Exposition of 1901 and a gold medal at the Panama-Pacific Exposition of 1915.

Important groups of Sharp's paintings are preserved in the collections of the Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology, University of California, Berkeley; the Butler Institute of American Art in Youngstown, Ohio; the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, D.C.; the Gilcrease Museum in Tulsa, Oklahoma; and the Stark Museum of Art in Orange, Texas.

Sharp painted numerous landscapes and outdoor studies in Taos. He adapted a shepherd's wagon as a studio-on-wh
Auction 652 | Lot: 24009 | May 25, 2007

Sold For: $179,250.00

Make Offer to Owner
$268,875 or more
MILTON AVERY (American 1893-1965)
Laguna Beach, 1943
Oil on canvas
16 x 20 inches (40.6 x 50.8 cm)
Signed and dated lower left: Milton/Avery/1943
Inscribed, signed and dated verso: "Laguna Beach"/by Milton Avery/16 x 20/1943

Milton Avery's generalized treatment of form and flattened color masses linked him artistically with the development of Abstract Expressionism during the 1940s. Indeed, his friendships woth Mark Rothko and Adolph Gottlieb proved to be mutually inspirational, even though Avery never entirely relinquished a desire for representation in his painting.

Avery began to achieve critical success in 1944, when he had his first museum exhibition at the Phillips Memorial Gallery in Washington, D.C. Major opportunities soon followed, including this first retrospective at the Baltimore Museum of Art in 1952. The Whitney Museum organized retrospectives of Avery's work in 1960 and 1982. Following Avery's death in 1965, Rothko remarked: 'Avery is first a great poet. His is the poetry of sheer loveliness of sheer beauty. Thanks to him this kind of poetry has been able to survive in our time...There have been several others in our generation who have celebrated the world around them, but none with inevitability where the poetry penetrated every pore of the canvas to the last touch of the brush' ('Commemorative Essay,' in Milton Avery (New York: Whitney Museum of American Art. 1982), p. 181).

Avery typically spent his summers in New England ,but in 1941 he drove cross-country from New York to California, and visited Yellowstone and Glacier National Parks along the way. While on the west coast he spent a month in Laguna Beach in Southern California where he painted the present canvas.

Auction 652 | Lot: 23187 | May 25, 2007

Sold For: $167,300.00
JOSEPH HENRY SHARP (American 1859-1953)
Jerry
Oil on canvas
20 x 16 inches (50.8 x 40.6 cm)
Signed lower left: JHSHARP
Titled on stretcher bar on verso: Jerry

Provenance:
Forest Fenn;
Dorothy and William Harmsen, Sr. (Denver, Colorado)<

The painting features Jerry Mirabel (also known as Elk Foot and Túmenah), who was Sharp's favorite model and close friend. Over the course of the period 1913-1949, Mirabel posed for numerous portraits and scenes depicting tribal rituals. He died in 1980 at the age of 110. According to Forest Fenn, upon Mirabel's death "the Indians went into mourning and the pueblo was closed to all outsiders for three days" (The Beat of the Drum and the Whoop of the Dance: A Study of the Life and Work of Joseph Henry Sharp [Sante Fe, New Mexico, Fenn Publishing Company, 1983], p. 237).

The painting features Jerry Mirabel (also known as Elk Foot and Túmenah), who was Sharp's favorite model and close friend. Over the course of the period 1913-1949, Mirabel posed for numerous portraits and scenes depicting tribal rituals. He died in 1980 at the age of 110. According to Forest Fenn, upon Mirabel's death 'the Indians went into mourning and the pueblo was closed to all outsiders for three days' (The Beat of the Drum and the Whoop of the Dance: A Study of the Life and Work of Joseph Henry Sharp [Santa Fe, New Mexico, Fenn Publishing Company, 1983], p. 237).

Sharp established a reputation for his ability to render the distinctive facial features of the various tribes he pictured, as well as their individual costumes, artifacts and ceremonies. He created numerous half-length portraits of Native American men standing in three-quarter profile attired in feather bonnets and hide clothing. Sarah E. Boehme has noted that in these and related portraits beadwork and 'other characteristics of Indian design are evident on the clothing, but details are softened because Sharp painted
Auction 652 | Lot: 24012 | May 25, 2007

Sold For: $155,350.00
LAVERNE NELSON BLACK (American 1887-1938)
Night Out in Taos (Taos Indian Night Watch), circa 1930
Oil on canvas board
16 x 20 inches (40.6 x 50.8 cm)

Signed lower right

Provenance:
Dorothy and William Harmsen, Sr. (Denver, Colorado);
Harmsen Museum of Art (Denver, Colorado)

Exhibition:
Denver Metro Chamber of Commerce, Denver, Colorado, Harmsen Western Art Exhibit, 2000

Literature:
Dorothy Harmsen, Harmsen's Western Americana (Flagstaff, Arizona: Norrthland Press, 1971), p. 25 (reproduced)

Laverne Nelson Black was born in Viola, Wisconsin. As a youngster he began to develop an interest in depicting western subjects--the result of his exposure to the Native American heritage of the Kickapoo River Valley where he grew up. He regularly associated with boys living on the local reservation. In his earliest pictures he used earth and vegetable colors as well as red keel, the soft stone native to the area that was often used by Native Americans for ceremonial purposes. In 1906, Black's family sold their hotel and restaurant business and moved to Chicago. Black attended the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts for two years, and during his final year there was awarded a scholarship. Following art school, he pursued a career as a newspaper illustrator in Chicago, Minneapolis and New York. During the summer months he would travel to the west to sketch on ranches and reservations. He created painting and sculpture, and he appears to have had some success selling his bronze figures of Native Americans and cowboys.

In the late 1920s, health problems demanded Black move to a warmer and drier climate, and he settled with his wife and children in Taos, New Mexico. In 1937, he and his family moved to Phoenix, Arizona, where he received a major commission from the Public Works Administration to paint six panels for the east lobby of the Phoenix Post Office. The series depicts the history of Arizona from the pioneer days thro
Auction 652 | Lot: 24004 | May 25, 2007

Sold For: $143,400.00

Make Offer to Owner
$215,100 or more
JOSEPH HENRY SHARP (American 1859-1953)
Bawling Deer, circa 1924 -1946
Oil on canvas
16 x 13 inches (40.6 x 33 cm)
Signed lower right: JHSHARP
Titled on stretcher bar on verso in artist's hand
Inscribed versro: Francis Taos Indian

Provenance:
Forest Fenn;
Dorothy and William Harmsen, Sr.,(Denver, Colorado)

Bawling Deer is one of numerous portraits Sharp painted of Frank Martinez (who was known both as Bawling Deer and Pâh Wélah) between 1924 and 1946. Here Martinez is wrapped almost entirely in what appears to be a government-issued commercial blanket. Only his wonderfully expressive face and moccasins are exposed. The portrait reflects the growing emphasis on pictorial concerns in Sharp's workit is as much a character study as a study of color, light, form and texture. Sarah E. Boehme has noted that as early as 1905, Sharp's portraits were becoming 'not character studies or records of famous warriors, but studies of pictorial effects, of light falling on subjects. Not only did he pose his subjects, he also probably suggested clothing for them to wear' ('The North and Snow: J. H. Sharp in Montana,' Montana 49 [Autumn 1990]: 43).
Auction 652 | Lot: 24010 | May 25, 2007

Sold For: $143,400.00
EVERETT SHINN (American 1876-1953)
Curtain Call, 1925
Oil on canvas
9-1/4 x 11-1/4 inches (23 x 29 cm)
Signed and dated lower left: E. Shinn/1925

Provenance:
Tullah and Thomas Edward Hanley (Bradford, PA);
William Benton (Connecticut);
Private collection

Exhibitions:
Gallery of Modern Art, New York, Selections from the Collection of Dr. and Mrs. T. Edward Hanley, January 3 - March 12, 1967;
Berry-Hill Galleries, New York, The Spectacle of Life, November 29, 2000 - January 13, 2001

Literature:
Janay Wong, Everett Shinn: The Spectacle of Life (New York: Berry-Hill Galleries, 2000), pp. 86-87, 167 (reproduced);
Janay Wong, "Curtain Call", entry in American Paintings IX, (New York: Berry-Hill Galleries, 2001), pp. 98-99 (reproduced)

Shinn's portrayals of the theater provide some of his most visually spectacular pictures and reveal a life-long fascination with the stage that went beyond the role of mere observer. An active participant in his own productions, he was also on friendly terms with several actors and actresses. Around 1910, after receiving a commission to paint 22 x 45 foot murals for Trenton City Hall, Shinn built a large studio behind his Waverly Place residence. The studio also doubled as a theater which included crimson curtains, a proscenium, and a perfectly equipped miniature stage. Home to 'The Waverly Street Players', an amateur theater group, which included the Shinns, the Glackenses, Jimmy Preston, and David Belasco's assistant, Wilfred Buckland, the theater had the character of a private club for friends. For the performances, Shinn wrote three four act melodramas: The Prune Hater's Daughter, More Sinned Against than Usual, and Wronged from the Star. Shinn first exhibited representations of the theater in 1899 when he showed Scene - Julia Marlowe, Fourteenth Street Theater, and Interior Keith's
Auction 652 | Lot: 23139 | May 25, 2007

Sold For: $119,500.00

Make Offer to Owner
$179,250 or more
W
TITLE, DATE
MEDIUM
DIMENSIONS

Auction 652 | Lot: 23057 | May 25, 2007

Sold For: $101,575.00
MARC CHAGALL (Belarussian-French 1887-1985)
Femme au bouquet, circa 1960s-70s
Colored crayons on Japon paper
26-3/4 x 20-1/2 inches (68 x 52 cm)
Signed at lower right in brown crayon: Marc Chagall

Provenance:
Sale, Sotheby's, London, 24 March 1999, Lot 82, to the following;
Crow Art Partnership collection (Dallas, Texas)

In 1923, after witnessing the enormous toll Germany's aggression had taken on his native Vitebsk, Belarussia, Marc Chagall went into exile and settled in Paris where he was embraced by the avant-garde artists of the day. In Paris Chagall found a freedom of artistic expression that he would not have found in his country, yet he felt strongly that his work reflected his homeland. Chagall thrived in Paris during the 1920s and 30s.

After the war Chagall settled along the Cote d'Azur where he was inspired by the lush gardens and topography of the region. In 1952 Chagall married Russian-born Valentia Brodsky (Vada). She was his model for many of the subsequent floral bouquet and lover themed compositions.

Marc Chagall was a compulsive draftsman who was equally attracted to color and line. During the later decades of his career, drawing took on a new importance for him, and with it came a lighter and sparer line. Despite Chagall's tendency to work with a rather restricted set of imagery, it is possible nonetheless, to date his efforts on the basis of style, compositional arrangements of motifs, and choice of media and way of manipulating them. The present work, Femme au bouquet, has a nimbler touch in its use of materials. In contrast to his paintings, which the artist tended to work over at length, Chagall's late drawings are more spontaneous and playful. In Femme au Bouquet, his favorite motifs are present-the woman, the bouquet, the goat, and the embracing couple-but are sometimes superimposed upon one another in a childlike manner. The sumptuous bouquets found throughout his oeuvre
Auction 652 | Lot: 25191 | May 25, 2007

Sold For: $101,575.00
HUGH H. BRECKENRIDGE (American 1870 -1937)
The Phlox Garden, circa 1906
Oil on canvas
25 x 30 inches (63.5 x 76.2 cm)
Signed lower right: Hugh H. Breckenridge
Incription verso: The Phlox Garden by Hugh H. Breckenridge

Exhibitions:
Worcester Museum of Art, Worcester, Massachusetts, Exhibtion of Paintings by Hugh H. Breckenridge, December 8-30, 1907, no. 9;
Albright Art Gallery, Buffalo Fine Arts Academy, Catalogue of Collection Pictures by Hugh H. Breckenridge, 1908, no. 9

A native of Virginia, Breckenridge attended the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, where he eventually taught after traveling and studying abroad. He is recognized as one of the leading Impressionist landscape painters of his time.

The Phlox Garden features the garden of Breckenridge's home in Fort Washington, dubbed "Phloxdale" because of the profusion of the flower on his property. In his landscape paintings, Breckenridge sought to represent every season and mood of nature, as well as a variety of light effects.

Auction 652 | Lot: 23096 | May 25, 2007

Sold For: $95,600.00
EANGER IRVING COUSE (American 1866-1936)
Study for Flute Player with his Sons (Indian Campfire), 1916
Oil on canvas
6 x 35 inches (15.2 x 58.4 cm)
Signed lower left: Couse

Provenance:
Dorothy and William Harmsen, Sr. (Denver, Colorado)

Literature:
Couse family Archives;
Ellen Landis, Eanger Irving Couse: Image Maker for America (Albuquerque, New Mexico: Albuquerque Museum Foundation, 1991) p. 19;
Nicholas Woloshuk, E. Irving Couse 1866-1926 (Santa Fe, New Mexico: Santa Fe Village Art Museum, 1976), illus. p. 37

Couse was born and raised in the logging town of Saganaw, Michigan, where as a youngster he drew the Chippewa Indians who lived nearby. While still a teenager he attended the Art Institute of Chicago and the National Academy of Design in New York. At the age of twenty he traveled to France, where he studied at the Académie Julien under William Adolphe Bouguereau and Tony Robert-Fleury. Couse remained in France for nearly a decade, and specialized in painting landscapes and peasant subjects. In 1889, he married fellow art student Virginia Walker, a rancher's daughter from the state of Washington. In 1891 they settled for a year at the Walker family's ranch in Klikitat County. While living there Couse produced his first oil paintings of Native Americans.

In 1898, Couse established a winter studio in New York, and spent the next few summers away from the city, painting in Washington, Connecticut and France. In May 1902, Couse learned of Taos, New Mexico through a conversation with his artist friend Ernest Blumenschein. Shortly thereafter he traveled to Taos for the first of his regular summer stays. In 1910 he purchased an old Spanish monastery, which he converted into a studio and home. Five years later, when the Taos Society of Artists was formed, Couse was elected its first President. In 1928, he and his family gave up their New York home and settled permanently in Taos.

Couse
Auction 652 | Lot: 24021 | May 25, 2007

Sold For: $95,600.00
BERT GREER PHILLIPS (American 1868-1956)
Corpus Christi Sunday in Taos
Oil on panel
13 x 18 inches (33 x 45.7 cm)
Signed lower left: Phillips
Inscribed on reverse: Corpus Cristi Sunday in Taos by Bert Phillips

Provenance:
Mark Sublette, Medicine Man Gallery (Santa Fe, New Mexico);
Ex Harmsen Collection, Denver Art Museum (Denver, Colorado)

Born in Hudson, New York, Bert Phillips began his artistic career at age fifteen studying at the Art Students League and the National Academy of Design. He continued his training in Paris at Académie Julian, where he met artists Joseph Henry Sharp and Ernest Blumenschein, who would become life-long friends. Phillips is considered the founder of the Taos art colony and was deeply involved in promoting the town and pueblo to other artists. He adopted a modern approach by painting Taos Pueblo Indians in a vibrantly colored, realistic style that conveyed the romantic notions he felt about the culture.

Considered one the top ten paintings by Phillips, Corpus Christi Sunday in Taos captures over forty worshippers in their Sunday best during the celebration of Corpus Christi. A traditional Catholic festival observed on the Thursday following Trinity Sunday, Corpus Christi commemorates the Christian Eucharist, in which the wine and wafer are symbolically transformed into the body and blood of Christ. The painting is in pristine condition and is accompanied by a letter of authenticity.
Auction 652 | Lot: 24020 | May 25, 2007

Sold For: $89,625.00
JULIUS ROLSHOVEN (American 1858-1930)
Sun Arrow, circa 1916-1920
Oil on canvas
36 x 28 inches (58.4 x 71.1 cm)
Signed and inscribed upper left: "Sun Arrow"/Taos, N.M./J. Rolshoven

Provenance:Dorothy and William Harmsen, Sr. (Denver, Colorado)

Literature:
Van Daren Coke, Taos and Santa Fe: The Artist's Environment 1182-1942 (Albuquerque, New Mexico: The University of New Mexico Press, 1963);
Arrell Morgan Gibson, The Santa Fe and Taos Colonies: Age of the Muses, (Norman, Oklahoma: University of Oklahoma Press, 1983);
Dorothy Harmsen, American Western Art (Denver, Colorado: Harmsen Publishing Company, 1977), p. 173 (reproduced)

Rolshoven was born in Detroit, Michigan. His father Frederick was a master goldsmith of German descent who founded one of Detroit's leading jewelry firms. Rolshoven studied at the Cooper Union in New York, the Dusseldorf Academy, the Munich Art Academy, privately with Frank Duveneck in Germany and Italy, and to the Académie Julien in Paris. After teaching art in Paris from 1890 to 1895, Rolshoven moved to London where he continued teaching for seven years. From there he moved to Florence, where he settled in 1902. Rolshoven returned to America following the outbreak of World War I. In 1915, he and his wife Harriette were impressed by the beauty of the New Mexico Building at the Panama-California Exposition in San Diego. The experience motivated them to travel to New Mexico in early 1916. Captivated by Sante Fe and Taos, they spent nearly five years living in the state. Rolshoven remarked that he had 'traveled all over . . . in search of atmosphere, but nowhere else have I seen nature ever provide everything, even the conception, as it does in New Mexico' (Gibson, p. 11).

Rolshoven became an Associate Member of the Taos Society of Artists in 1917 and an Active Member in 1918. He had a studio at the Palace of the Governors in Santa Fe, but often worked outdoo
Auction 652 | Lot: 24022 | May 25, 2007

Sold For: $77,675.00
JULES-JOSEPH LEFEBVRE (French 1836-1911)
Springtime
Oil on canvas
55-1/2 x 34 inches (140.6 x 86.4 cm)
Signed lower right: Jules Lefebvre

While elegant young women remained Lefebvre's preferred subject throughout his long and distinguished career, his beautiful sitters remained sensitive to the dominant esthetic tastes of the day. In the late 1880s and 1890s, as the Symbolist and Classicist mode of artists such as Puvis de Chavannes or Gustave Moreau supplanted the Naturalist or exotic tendencies of earlier decades, Lefebvre's work shifted accordingly. The present work, most likely of this period, presents an allegorical figure of Springtime crowned with a wreath of pale blossoms and carrying fresh stems in the folds of her classical gown. Despite the idealized, symbolist subject, Lefebvre's commitment to painting from life is evident in the very specific, crisply painted flowers and foliage and in the translucent tones of flesh and fabric.

Jules-Joseph Lefebvre is best known as a romantic allegorical painter who specialized in genre scenes, portraits, and nudes. His father, a baker, encouraged his sons artistic career and sent him to Paris at age sixteen. There he studied with Léon Cogniet and entered the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in 1852. He competed for the Prix de Rome, winning a second place in 1859 and first place in 1861 with his painting of The Death of Priam. While living in Rome he painted his first nude, a Bather, which was sent to Paris in 1863. During his stay in Italy he also painted many works with ancient subject matter, investing them with an elegant or amusing quality. When he returned to Paris, Lefebvre became disenchanted with the academic focus on working from memory and sought to paint directly from life. The result was a series of statuesque women, both nudes and draped, which passed from his studio under the guises of such characters as Pandora, Diana, Sappho, Mary Magdalene and Ophelia.
Auction 652 | Lot: 25157 | May 25, 2007

Sold For: $77,675.00

Make Offer to Owner
$116,512 or more
WILLIAM ROBINSON LEIGH (American 1866-1955)
Blind Hopi Girl Returning from a Desert Watering Hole, September 1915
Oil on canvas
11 x 15-1/2 inches (27.9 x 39.4 cm)
Signed lower left: W.R. Leigh
Signed, titled and dated on reverse: First Mesa Arizona/Sept 1915/W. R. Leigh/A blind hopi girl returning from a desert watering hoal [sic]/The original sketch, from which a picture has been painted.

Provenance:
Dr. H.G. Tonkin of Williamsport, MD, gifted by the artist to Dr. Tonkin for the care of Leigh's ailing mother;
Jane Porter-Post Snyder, heir to Dr. Tonkin's estate;
Collection of Boarman Arts Center (The Arts Centre, Martinsburg, WV) 1999, gifted by Jane Porter-Post Snyder

William Robinson Leigh's genre paintings of Native Americans capture the essence of the American West in vivid color. In the present work, Leigh created a dramatic depiction of a blind Hopi girl retrieving fresh water, drawing upon pictorial conventions from his academic training. A lone figure is shown against a vast, open landscape evoking both a sense of isolation and grandeur. The artist gave this painting to Dr. H.G. Tonkin, as a token of his heartfelt gratitude for the medical care the doctor had given his ill mother.
Auction 652 | Lot: 24008 | May 25, 2007

Sold For: $74,687.50
CHANA ORLOFF (French-Ukrainian 1878-1968)
Maternité, 1924
Bronze
25 x 14-1/2 x 11-1/4 inches (63.5 x 36.8 x 28.6 cm)
Edition 2/8
Susse Fondeur Paris
Inscribed Ch Orloff 1924 2/8 and stamped

Provenance:
Crow Art Partnership collection (Dallas, Texas)

Russian born realist sculptor Chana Orloff lived the majority of her life in Paris where she trained and worked, while identifying strongly with her Eretz-Israel heritage. She ran in avant-garde circles, befriending artists such as Matisse, Picasso and Modigliani. In 1916 she married, but was widowed in 1918, left to raise her one year old son alone. When Paris was invaded during World War II Orloff fled to Switzerland with her son, returning to Paris after the war. She made many trips to Eretz-Israel and Israel throughout her life. Her first exhibition at the Tel Aviv Museum was held in 1935, followed by a number of subsequent exhibitions and retrospectives.

Her sculptures reflect her personal trials and triumphs evidenced by the reoccurring themes of women, children and motherhood through the mediums of wood, bronze and stone. She also favored the subject of animals. Her mannered sculptures such as the above offered work, won her acclaim and a sound flow of commissions for portraits and monuments.
Auction 652 | Lot: 25195 | May 25, 2007

Sold For: $65,725.00

Make Offer to Owner
$98,588 or more
GEORGE INNESS (American 1825-1894)
Landscape, 1857
Oil on canvas-faced academy board
7-3/8 x 10-5/8 inches (18.7 x 27 cm)
Signed at lower left: G. Inness 1857

Provenance:
M. Giblin;
Mrs. Louis Wilson (Washington, DC);
Mrs. Graham B. Peake, to 1952 (New York);
With Grand Central Art Galleries, 1952 (New York);
Private collection (Dallas, Texas)

The painting depicts a peaceful countryside filling with soft light from the right with beautifully colored clouds in the lower sky. The foreground is shaded by trees on the right. A stream with cows wading, flows out from the left of the canvas to the right and then curves back again to the left. The stream passes back through high banks to the left and center, decorated with mature trees and a house at center. The background depicts a rolling landscape and a sloping mountain. An exceptionally detailed example of the period, this Landscape is part of a group of three paintings that passed through the market in 1952. Each painting in the series depicts a different time of day. The other two paintings The Meadows and The Sunset are currently in the collection of the Worcester Art Museum. This particular painting will be included in the supplement to Michael Quick's, George Inness: A Catalogue Raisonné (2006).
Auction 652 | Lot: 23017 | May 25, 2007

Sold For: $56,165.00
GUY CARLETON WIGGINS (American 1883-1962)
The Avenue On A Winter's Day
Oil on canvas
12-1/8 x 16-1/8 inches (30.8 x 41 cm)
Signed lower left: Guy C. Wiggins
Inscribed verso: "The Avenue On A Winter's Day" / Guy C. Wiggins
Accompanied by a letter of authenticity from Guy A. Wiggins

Provenance:
Private Collection (Boca Raton, Florida)
Auction 652 | Lot: 23159 | May 25, 2007

Sold For: $53,775.00
CHARLES MARION RUSSELL (American 1864-1926)
Nancy Cooper Russell's Wedding Ring, circa 1896
24K Gold
Approximately ring size 6

Provenance:
Jack Russell, gifted by Charles Russell in 1925;
Mrs. Jack Russell, Jack Russell's wife;
Bill Reynolds, 1970

Designed by Charles Russell and cast from a gold nugget, this distinctively Western piece of jewelry was made as a wedding ring for his wife Nancy Cooper. Cast in the shape of a western saddle, the ring is likely one of the first three-dimensional sculptural works ever produced by the artist, and therefore possibly instrumental in his introduction to the sculptural medium. Spurred by Nancy's devoted support and promotion, in 1898, just two years after their marriage, Russell cast his first bronze at the Roman Bronze Works in New York, a move that would lead Russell to become one of the greatest Western artists in history.

The ring is accompanied by a signed affidavit by Charles Russell's son, Jack Russell. The illustrated affidavit is photocopied, however the date and original final signature are in Jack Russell's hand, in black ink. The ring is mounted in a custom-made leather clamshell case. The text of the affidavit reads in full

Dear Reader,

My father Charles M. Russell met my mother Nancy Cooper in Cascade Montana. She was living with the Roberts family. After a courtship Charlie proposed to Nancy, and to his surprize (sic) and relief she accepted. Charlie had little money, but much imagination, he took to her a ring duplicating his stock saddle. They were married at the Roberts home, in a small private ceremony. I was just a kid when Dad died. I'll never forget when Dad gave me the saddle ring. Charlie had a small shack or bunkhouse out back, which he used as a studio. This is where I believe the Russell saddle ring was made by my father. I do remember this much...the ring was made out of wax and cast into gold. The ring was an engagement or wedding gift. Jack Russell
Auction 652 | Lot: 24031 | May 25, 2007

Sold For: $53,775.00
EMILIO GRAU SALA (Spanish 1911-1975)
Untitled, 1969
Oil on canvas
23-3/4 x 28-3/4 inches (60.3 x 73 cm)
Signed lower right: Grau Sala
Inscribed verso: Grau Sala / 1969
Auction 652 | Lot: 25218 | May 25, 2007

Sold For: $53,775.00
ALFRED HEBER HUTTY (American 1877-1954)
Charleston, circa 1920
Watercolor on Whatman paper on board
17-1/2 x 23-3/8 inches (44.4 x 59.3 cm)
Signed at lower right: Alfred Hutty

Provenance:
From the Estate of Linda S. Firestone

Alfred Hutty first moved to Charleston in 1920 to teach at the school at the Gibbes Museum and returned every summer thereafter. He worked primarily in drypoint but also painted non-romantized scenes similar to the present lot depicting figures in doorways and dilapidated buildings.
Auction 652 | Lot: 23132 | May 25, 2007

Sold For: $50,787.50
BENJAMIN CONSTANT (French 1845-1902)
Tangiers, 1873
Oil on panel
15 x 21-1/4 inches (38.1 x 54 cm)
Inscribed lower right: B. Constant / Tangier, 1873

Provenance:
Boos Auction Gallery (Famington, Michigan);
Estate of Mr. Robinson, Curator, Detroit Institute of Art (Detroit, Michigan)

Auction 652 | Lot: 23240 | May 25, 2007

Sold For: $50,190.00
JANE PETERSON (American 1876-1965)
A Market, Biskra
Oil on canvas
24 x18-1/4 inches (61 x 46.4 cm)
Signed lower right

Auction 652 | Lot: 23241 | May 25, 2007

Sold For: $45,410.00
HIRAM POWERS (American 1805-1873)
Proserpine, modeled 1844
Marble
24 inches high (61 cm)
Inscription on front of base: Hiram Power

Literature:
Richard P. Wunder, Hiram Powers Vermont Sculptor, 1805 -1873 (Newark, Delaware: University of Delaware Press, 1990), II:187-204

Proserpin was Powers's most popular sculpture. He carved 147 busts of the goddess of flowers in five different versions. The first version was completed in 1843 and shows the figure emerging from an elaborate wicker basket filled with a corsage of spring flowers. The second, the present example, was modeled a year later and features the goddess emerging from a basket filled with acanthus leaves. In the other versions Powers substituted a simple fringe of beads around the base, omitted the molding altogether, and depicted only the goddess's head and neck. Proserpin was originally intended to be a companion piece for Powers's bust Ginerva, which was executed in 1838, shortly after the sculptor's arrival in Florence.

In his description of this sculpture, Hiram Powers recounted the story of Proserpine (the Roman equivalent of Persephone) and explained his specific presentation of the goddess: "She was the daughter of Jupiter and Ceres and while gathering flowers when very young and exceedingly beautiful, was discovered by Pluto who seized her in his arms and bore her down through a neighboring lake to his own infernal dominions. Her mother sought her a long time in vain, but at last found out her fate and besought Jupiter to release her, which request was granted on condition that 'Proserpine' had eaten nothing while with Pluto. But unhappily she had eaten a pomegranate in his garden so a compromise was made, viz., she should come back to earth half the year and remain with her husband the other half. And so she appears in the bust with a wreath of wheat in bloom on her head and rising out of an acanthus (emblem of imm
Auction 652 | Lot: 23016 | May 25, 2007

Sold For: $44,812.50
GUY CARLETON WIGGINS (American 1883-1962)
Snow Storm On The Avenue, 1917-1918
Oil on canvasboard
12 x 16 inches (30.4 x 40.6 cm)
Signed lower right Guy Wiggins
Inscribed verso Snow Storm On The Avenue / Guy Wiggins A.N.A., with a paper label for Russell's Artist's Canvas Boards and Lagakos-Turak Gallery
Accompanied by a letter of authenticity from Guy A. Wiggins;
Accompanied by a copy of the letter dated March 15, 1918 from Lyme, Conn. to the purchaser Mrs. Lawson; and a copy of a letter from The Fox Gallery

Provenance:
Mrs. Lawson, 1918
The Fox Gallery (New York, NY)
Lagakos-Turak Gallery (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania)

Literature:
Henry Geldzahler, American Painting In The Twentieth Century, Metropolitan Museum, New York, 1965, p. 46.
Auction 652 | Lot: 23158 | May 25, 2007

Sold For: $44,812.50
KAREL APPEL (Dutch 1921-2006)
Untitled, 1974
Oil on canvas
19-1/2 x 15-1/2 inches (49.5 x 39.4 cm)
Signed and dated at lower right: appeL.74

Provenance:
Private collection (Detroit, Michigan)

Appel, a Dutch expressionist painter, studied at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts Amsterdam from 1940-1948. In 1948, he helped found CoBra, a post-War Eurpean avant-garde movement. By 1970, however, his surrealist-automatic technique gave way to a more decorative aesthetic, which is evident in this example.
Auction 652 | Lot: 25227 | May 25, 2007

Sold For: $44,812.50
EUGENIO ZAMPIGHI (Italian 1859-1944)
Playing With The Baby
Oil on canvas
24 x 18 inches (61 x 45.7 cm)
Signed at lower right: E. Zampighi

Provenance:
Sale, Sotheby's New York, 19th Century European Paintings, Oct. 25, 2005, Lot 181;
Private collection (New York)
Auction 652 | Lot: 25135 | May 25, 2007

Sold For: $41,825.00

Make Offer to Owner
$62,738 or more
ALEXANDRE IACOVLEFF (Russian 1887-1938)
Woman, Hue - French Indo-China, 1932
Sanguine and charcaol on paper
20-1/2 x 20 inches (52.1 x 50.8 cm)
Signed and dated lower right: A Iacovleff, Hue, 1932

Provenance:
Grand Central Galleries, Inc., 1939 (New York)

Exhibitions:
Explorer's Hall, National Geographic Society, Washington D.C., 1935;
Grand Central Art Galleries, Inc. (New York), Memorial Exhibition of the work of Alexandre Iacovleff, April 11 - 29, 1939, No. 64 as "Chinese Mother and Child" Reproduced in catalogue, p. 10, with title: Woman and Child, Hue - French, Indo-China.

Literature:
Boston Sunday Herald, April 7, 1935, Section B, p. 8 (Reproduced);
National Geographic Magazine, January 1936, Plate XVI (Reproduced in color)
Auction 652 | Lot: 25196 | May 25, 2007

Sold For: $41,825.00
ALFRED STEVENS (American 1823-1906)
Winding The Mantle Clock, circa 1875-1880
Oil on panel
18-1/8 x 11- 5/8 inches (47.8 x 29.5 cm)
Signed lower left: Alfred Stevens

Auction 652 | Lot: 23025 | May 25, 2007

Sold For: $38,837.50
ALEXANDER CALDER (American 1898-1976)
Kakemono, 1973
Gouache and Ink on paper
22-3/4 x 15-1/4 inches (57.8 x 38.7 cm)
Signed and dated lower margin

Provenance:
Merril Chase Gallery (Chicago, IL);
Acquired from the above by the present owner
Auction 652 | Lot: 23213 | May 25, 2007

Sold For: $38,837.50
CHARLES SPRAGUE PEARCE (American 1851-1914)
Home From The Fields, circa 1880-84
Oil on canvas
18 x 11-1/2 inches (45.7 x 29.2 cm)
Signed and inscribed lower left: Charles Sprague Pearce/Paris
Stamped with artist's monogram on stretcher

Literature:
Julia Rowland Myers, "The American Expatriate Painters of the French Peasantry, 1863-1893," Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Maryland, College Park, 1989, p 239, ff 3

Pearce was born and raised in Boston. His grandfather and namesake was the noted poet and banker Charles Sprague, who was a participant in the "Boston Tea Party." After graduating from the Boston Latin School Pearce worked for five years as a merchant in the China trade. During this period he was also actively painting and in 1872 gained some local renown for his early efforts. In 1873 Pearce followed the advice of William Morris Hunt and went to Paris, where he spent three years studying in the private atelier of Leon Bonnat.

In Europe Pearce quickly established his reputation and became one of the most highly regarded American artists of the late 19th century. In the early 1880s he began to spend considerable time painting in the small village of Auvers-sur-Oise in Picardy and settled there permanently in 1885. He exhibited regularly at the Paris Salon and received many distinguished honors including the French Legion of Honor. Pearce maintained close ties with the United States and served as chairman of the Parisian jury for the Chicago Exposition of 1893 and the St. Louis Exposition of 1904. In the 1890s Pearce executed a mural decoration for the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C.

Together with Daniel Ridgeway Knight, Charles Sprague Pearce was regarded during the 1880s and 1890s as the finest and most poetic American painters of French peasant subjects. In 1888 George Sheldon remarked that Pearce and Knight 'each has made a study of the Brittany peasant-woman in her relations to the landsca
Auction 652 | Lot: 23036 | May 25, 2007

Sold For: $35,850.00

Make Offer to Owner
$53,775 or more
ROBERT HENRI (American 1865-1929)
Place In Paris (Place de Breteuil), circa 1895-1897
Oil on panel
10-1/2 x 13-3/4 inches (26.7 x 34.9 cm)
Signed lower left: Robert Henri

Literature:
Robert Henri Record Book, 257A

During the period 1890-1903, Henri principally painted cityscapes, landscapes, and marine paintings. His interest in painting outdoors began in the late 1880s during his summer months he spent in France. The experience led him to experiment with Impressionism and to paint broadly brushed landscapes which recorded the rich effects of color and the transient effects of light. By 1895, Henri began to adopt a style that was equally bold in paint handling but which emphasized chiaroscuro effects and depended upon a more somber range of color. This approach reflects his admiration for the works of Manet, Hals, Velasquez and Rembrandt as well as seventeenth-century Dutch landscape painting and the nineteenth-century Barbizon School.

Place in Paris was painted sometime between the summer of 1895 and the autumn of 1897 while Henri was living at 49 Boulevard du Montparnasse. It was during this time that he formed a close association with the Canadian artist James Wilson Morrice. They would often go on sketching excursions together in Paris, in the surrounding suburbs of Saint Cloud and Charenton, and to Bois-le-Roi near Fontainebleau. They would sketch on small wood panels or, pochades, spontaneously recording the passing scene. Henri, referred to these works as 'memory sketches' or 'mental sketches,' and carried the panels together with brushes, palette, and a few tubes of oil in a small box that fit into his pocket. When creating such works in Paris he often situated himself at the table of an outdoor cafe (especially the Cafe Versailles in the Place de Rennes), and painted views featuring the surrounding street and crowd. He would cover the entire surface with a single tone, then freely work the subject into it.
Auction 652 | Lot: 23065 | May 25, 2007

Sold For: $35,850.00

Make Offer to Owner
$53,775 or more
EUGENIO LUCAS Y VILLAMIL (Spanish 1858-1918)
The Audience Before The King Ferdinand Of Spain And His Queen (ruled 1814-1833)
Oil on canvas
21 x 43-1/4 inches (53.3 x 109.9 cm)
Signed at lower left: E Lucas Villamil

Provenance:
Private collection (New Orleans, Louisiana)

Eugene Lucas y Villamil the son of the famous Spanish painter Eugenio Lucas y Padilla (1824-1870), like his father, painted in the style of Francesco Goya (1746-1828). This colorful painting depicts a command concert at the Spanish court for King Ferdinand VII (1784-1833). Ferdinand was placed on the throne by a military coup in March of 1808, but he was promptly deposed by Napoleon in 1814 and returned to Spain and assumed his throne. He and his queen sit on thrones upon a velvet covered dais with the arms of Spain above their heads. To the right on the dais hangings is the lion of Aragon and on the left the tower of Castille. This location is the throne room of the Royal Palace in Madrid, traditionally decorated in red.
Auction 652 | Lot: 25052 | May 25, 2007

Sold For: $35,850.00
EDOUARD LÉON CORTÈS (French 1882-1969)
Rue Royale á Paris
Oil on board
17-1/2 x 21-1/2 inches (44.5 x 54.6 cm)
Signed at lower right: Edouard Cortes

Provenance:
Galerie F. Clair, circa 1970 (Paris);
Private collection (Loop, Texas)

Sold with a letter of authentication from Mr. David Klein.
Auction 652 | Lot: 25216 | May 25, 2007

Sold For: $35,850.00
DANIEL HUNTINGTON (American 1816-1906)
Portrait Of Cornelius Vanderbilt II, 1896
Oil on canvas
30 x 25 inches (76.2 x 63.5 cm)
Signed and dated lower left: D. Huntington / 1896

Auction 652 | Lot: 23046 | May 25, 2007

Sold For: $33,460.00
WILHELM KUHNERT (German 1865-1926)
Egyptian Landscape
Oil on canvas
26-3/4 x 15-1/2 inches (67.9 x 39.4 cm)
Signed lower left: W. Kuhnert

Provenance:
Gallery G (Heidleberg, Germany)

Auction 652 | Lot: 23235 | May 25, 2007

Sold For: $33,460.00
WALTER CRANE (British 1845-1915)
Europe, Asia, Africa, circa 1870
Panel Triptych
56-1/2 x 16-3/8 inches, each, approximately (143.5 x 41.6 cm)
Monogramed, right panel lower right: CW

Auction 652 | Lot: 23237 | May 25, 2007

Sold For: $33,460.00
ALFRED DE BREANSKI, SR., A.R.C.A. (British 1852-1928)
A Perthshire Valley
Oil on canvas
35 x 53 inches (88.9 x 134.6 cm)
Signed lower left: Alfred de Breanski
Inscribed verso: A Perthshire Valley / Alfred de Branski Sr.

Auction 652 | Lot: 25106 | May 25, 2007

Sold For: $33,460.00
Attributed to THOMAS GAINSBOROUGH, R.A. (English 1727-1788)
Portrait O Elizabeth Honywood And Her Son Philip, 1767
Oil on canvas
30 x 25 inches, oval (76.2 x 63.5 cm)

Provenance:
Newhouse Galleries (New York);
Mr. and Mrs. F. Howard Walsh (Fort Worth, Texas);
Walsh Family Art Trust

Auction 652 | Lot: 25033 | May 25, 2007

Sold For: $28,680.00
LARRY POONS (American, born in Toyko, Japan 1937)
Untitled, 1981
Acrylic on canvas
34-3/8 x 21-¾ inches (87.3 x 55.2 cm)
Signed and dated verso: 1981 / L. Poons

Provenance:
Private collection

The American abstract painter Larry Poons had, as David Carrier has noted, "a fast breaking career--he became famous when he was very young." After studying at the New England Conservatory of Music (1955-57) he switched schools to pursue his other artistic interest--painting--at the Boston Museum School of Fine Arts in 1958. When he was barely twenty, he attracted critical attention for his elegant paintings in the minimalist/pop vein that had replaced the gestural, emotionally-charged art of the Abstract Expressionists a decade and a half before. The high-grade materiality of paint found in the dripped skeins of enamel by Jackson Pollock, the slashes of pigment made with household brushes in the billboard-sized work of Franz Klein, and the puddling and pouring of thinned out pigment onto a canvas so that it bleeds and drips gave way, in the early sixties, to clarity and flatness. Getting messy with materials had been eclipsed by paint that had to behave according to definite lines, patterns and abstract shapes to achieve optical effects of evenly modulated color. Paintings were preplanned designs. It was into this new art world, where formalism rather than the paint or the gesture reigned supreme, that Larry Poons emerged as a major figure. His work had the grid, the mathematics, the geometry, and the incredible discipline of a Mondrian behind it. But it also had his musical sense, too, of timing and syncopation which gave his early canvases a distinctive, personal timbre.

But Poons didn't want to keep making the paintings which made him an art star-nor could he. The tide had turned, plus Poons had new interests. By the beginning of the 1970s, Poons wanted to begin exploring the raw materiality of paint, even though the current trends co
Auction 652 | Lot: 23227 | May 25, 2007

Sold For: $27,485.00
RALSTON CRAWFORD (American 1906-1978)
Nantucket, 1932
Oil on canvas
26 x 22 inches (66 x 55.9 cm)
Signed lower right: CRAWFORD
Inscribed on stretcher: NANTUCKET, 26" X 22" / 1932
Stamped on stretcher: Ralston Crawford Estate 32.24

Provenance:
Lee Nordess Galleries, label verso (New York);
Private collection

Art historically Ralston Crawford has been grouped with the American Precisionists-Charles Sheeler, Charles Demuth and Morton Livingston Schamberg--whose slices of the American landscape and vernacular architecture have characteristic sharp-edged forms, and clearly distilled planes and volumes. Their iconic presentations of grain elevators, docks, shipyards, barns, even common garden flowers in inexpensive vases were, in the 1930s, a new brand of realism--streamlined realism--and were prized as archetypal American imagery. Indeed, within seven years of painting this silvery-blue arrangement of boats and houses at Nantucket, Ralston Crawford produced Overseas Highway (1939), the work which catapulted him to national fame. In Overseas Highway, an empty causeway rushes confidently and aggressively into deep perspective. As Carter Ratcliff noted, "After nearly a decade of economic depression, it [Crawford's painting] was a welcome message" of hope, and relief, and was reproduced in Life magazine.

Crawford produced the present work, Nantucket, in 1932, at the moment in his career when his pictorial style began the shift from a more painterly, European-inspired brand of modernism, to one that was more severe and reductive (Precisionist). Notably, in this and a handful of related works which Crawford produced during the summer of 1932, the artist chose the subject of the sea as the vehicle for exploring a tighter flattening of form, and a greater clarification of planes. For Crawford, the sea was the environment in which he felt most at home, and the motifs associate
Auction 652 | Lot: 23145 | May 25, 2007

Sold For: $26,290.00
JOSEPH HENRY SHARP (American 1859-1953)
California Field of Poppies, 1950
Oil on canvas
9 x 11-1/2 inches (22.9 x 29.2 cm)
Signed lower right: JH Sharp
Inscribed on reverse: Sharp, Oct-9-1950

Provenance:
Private collection, (Montana);
Susan Swift, (Santa Fe, New Mexico)

Literature:
To be published in Thomas Minckler's forthcoming catalogue raisonnée of Joseph Sharp's floral landscapes.

In California Field of Poppies, Sharp uses a vivid color palette in this rare floral landscape. Unlike many of his paintings of the High Sierras, Sharp's use of color emphasizes the flowers in the foreground while the mountain range serves as a backdrop retreating into the distance. Sharp utilizes Impressionist techniques of manipulating perspective through a juxtaposition of cool and warm tones. The cool muted tones of the High Sierras recede and the warm vibrancy of the flora looks as if it will literately burst from surface of the painting.
Auction 652 | Lot: 24014 | May 25, 2007

Sold For: $26,290.00
EUGÉNE RÉMY MAES (Belgium 1849-1931)
Sheep And Chickens In A Barn
Oil on canvas
24 x 31-3/4 inches (61 x 80.6 cm)
Signed lower right: E.R. MAES

Auction 652 | Lot: 25073 | May 25, 2007

Sold For: $26,290.00

Make Offer to Owner
$39,435 or more
EDWARD HENRY POTTHAST (American 1857-1927)
Lawn Tennis, St. Ives circa 1885-1890
Oil on panel
5-5/8 x 9-1/16 inches (14 x 23 cm)
Signed lower left: E. Potthast

Literature:
To be included in Mary Ran's forthcoming catalogue raisonnée of the works of Edward Potthast.

Lawn Tennis, St. Ives was likely painted during the course of Potthast's stay abroad in the late 1880s and early 1890s. Potthast is known to have traveled extensively in Europe at this time. As in many of Potthast's works, faces are featureless or concealed from the viewers gaze. The artist commonly created small outdoor sketches of this type, and then worked them up into larger paintings in his studio.

Auction 652 | Lot: 23062 | May 25, 2007

Sold For: $23,900.00
GUY CARLETON WIGGINS (American 1883-1962)
A Winter's Snow / Plaza
Oil on canvasboard
12 x 16 inches (30.5 x 40.6 cm)
Signed lower left: Guy Wiggins N.A.
Inscribed verso: A Winter's Snow / Guy Wiggins N.A. / Plaza
Accompanied by a letter of authenticity from Guy A. Wiggins
Auction 652 | Lot: 23161 | May 25, 2007

Sold For: $23,900.00

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