Fanciful utilitarian forms accentuated by a seemingly endless palette of brilliant colors enhancing classic Old World Germanic motifs � these are the hallmarks of a style of highly revered Americana known simply as Pennsylvania folk art. Long associated with and often misattributed to the eastern portions of the state, continued scholarship and a new exhibition sheds new light on the masterful folk designs created throughout Pennsylvania, particularly in the western counties. �Made in Pennsylvania: A Folk Art Tradition,� a comprehensive exhibition organized by the Westmoreland Museum of American Art in Greensburg, Penn., explores the folk art of the western regions of the state and examines the similarities and differences, county by county, of the wares produced there from the mid-Eighteenth to the late Nineteenth Century. The exhibition, on view through October 14, brings together almost 400 significant examples, virtually all of which have been loaned from private collections.
George Washington, the 65-inch-tall folk art figure who was the star lot at the Backofen auction on June 29 brought $200,000, plus the ten percent buyer’s premium. The figure sold to retired auctioneer Jim Norman of Alabama who commented after the sale, “I thought it would be more expensive.” Joel M. Woldman, 69, a recognized expert on American antiques, and a retired US foreign policy specialist at the Library of Congress, died of complications from leukemia on May 6 at the Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore.
Some may still perceive the Antiques In The Valley show, now in only its third year, as a fledgling event; however, those that made the trip to this highly regarded show know better A 150-year-old Bible that is believed to have once belonged to Charles Goodyear, the Naugatuck inventor famous for developing vulcanized rubber, was stolen from the Naugatuck Historical Society over the weekend of June 16–17.
Beginning July 5, the National Academy Museum will join two other New York art institutions — the Brooklyn Museum and the New-York Historical Society — in honoring the accomplishments of pioneering American landscape painter Asher B. Durand.
“Gateway Bombay,” opening July 14 in the Peabody Essex Museum’s (PEM) Herwitz Gallery, presents the work of 13 artists who are deeply connected to the city, which is today — 60 years after India’s independence — a booming commercial and financial hub and a leading center of the art world.
William-Adolphe Bouguereau’s reputation has swung from the heights of worldwide success to the depths of scholarly and public neglect. “In the Studios of Paris: William Bouguereau & His American Students,” on view at The Frick Art Museum July 6–October 14, brings together 50 paintings, drawings and prints.
Sotheby’s June 19 sale of important Twentieth Century design brought a total of $10,796,080, above a high estimate of $9.4 million, and set records for a range of Twentieth Century modernist designers from John Bradstreet to Ron Arad.
Kamelot Auctions further solidified its standing as a prominent source to sell garden antiques at auction in its recent garden and architectural antiques sale.
Fine examples of period frames are on view at the Butler Institute of American Art, which is presenting a segment of the exhibition, “The Secret Lives of Frames: One Hundred Years of Art and Artistry from the Lowy Collection,” through September 23.
Morgan MacWhinnie hosted an early season country antiques show for the Bridge Hampton Historical Society, June 1 and 2, on the grounds of its Corwith House, one of several properties the society owns and maintains. Skinner opened the summer season with a June 3 sale rich in American portraiture, large and small. The 670-lot session totaled $2,360,939, the tally helped along by record auction prices for two Boston wall clocks by E. Howard.
Fanciful utilitarian forms accentuated by a seemingly endless palette of brilliant colors enhancing classic Old World Germanic motifs — these are the hallmarks of a style of highly revered Americana known simply as Pennsylvania folk art. Long associated with and often misattributed to the eastern portions of the state, continued scholarship and a new exhibition sheds new light on the masterful folk designs created throughout Pennsylvania, particularly in the western counties. “Made in Pennsylvania: A Folk Art Tradition,” a comprehensive exhibition organized by the Westmoreland Museum of American Art in Greensburg, Penn., explores the folk art of the western regions of the state and examines the similarities and differences, county by county, of the wares produced there from the mid-Eighteenth to the late Nineteenth Century. The exhibition, on view through October 14, brings together almost 400 significant examples, virtually all of which have been loaned from private collections. Saturday Night in New Lebanon is Meissner’s Auction’s weekly sale, bringing out several hundred prospective bidders for early furniture and household articles. On holiday weekends, Keith and Dolores Meissner host somewhat larger and more important events, so for Saturday night on May 26 — Memorial Day weekend — they had even more to offer visitors. A gifted American storyteller in paint, William Tylee Ranney (1813-1856) depicted mythic heroes of his time — soldiers, pioneers, trapper, hunters — as exemplars of courage and independence. At a time when the country struggled for national unity and a sense of American identity, Ranney offered an inspiring interpretation of the history, character and future of the United States and its people. Regarded as an important yet underappreciated American artist, his relative obscurity is due in part to the brevity of his career — he painted for little more than a decade, dying of tuberculosis at age 44. Some 60 works comprise “Forging an American Identity: The Art of William Ranney,” on view at the Philadelphia Museum of Art through August 19. The exhibition organizers argue that, “Taken together, Ranney’s paintings present a portrait of early American life and westward expansion while at the same time evoking a mythology that vividly reflected the artist’s time and place.”
Nearly 40 years after buying it as a dirty and unattributed canvas for $325, Ira Spanierman’s “acquisition,” now identified as “Portrait of Lorenzo de’ Medici, Duke of Urbino” by Raphael, established not one, but two record prices paid at auction last week as it sold for $37,277,500. J.K. Rowling, creator of Harry Potter, is suing the online auction platform eBay, charging that scam artists used the Indian version of the website to sell unauthorized versions of her books. John Edward “Jack” Whistance, a well-known dealer and an authority on early American antiques who for more than 50 years ran Lock, Stock, and Barrel Antiques with his wife MaryEllen, died at Benedictine Hospital on Saturday, July 7, after a long battle with prostate cancer. He was 85. The School of Visual Arts (SVA) here mourns the passing of its founder and chairman, Silas H. Rhodes, who died in his sleep on June 28, at age 91.
The Mount Hope Garden and Antiques Fair, a new fundraiser for The Mount Hope Farm, attracted 50-some dealers June 15–17. The inaugural show was managed by Ferguson & D’Arruda. The Litchfield County Antiques Show, staged at the indoor hockey rink at the Kent School, put its best foot forward over the June 23–24 weekend with 40 exhibitors offering a nice variety of antiques in attractive booth settings. The tenth Greek Sale at Bonhams’ 101 New Bond Street gallery recently achieved $7.6 million and broke a number of world records for Greek artists.
Many serious bidders examined the Salem Federal mahogany sofa carved by Samuel McIntire up for sale June 12 at Landry Auctions, but in the end only one bidder could take it. The sofa, which had a replaced rear leg but was otherwise untouched, brought $167,250.
“Flora and Fauna: Themes and Symbols in the Decorative Arts of China,” explores the concept of Chinese symbolism, with an emphasis on nature as a unifying theme, across a broad spectrum of the decorative arts, at the Bruce Museum through September 9,
“Art in America: Three Hundred Years of Innovation,” the largest and most comprehensive exhibition of American art to travel to Russia, will be on view at the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts July 24–September 9.
The Rufus Porter Museum begins its yearlong 2007 exhibition season with a special loan exhibit of historic schoolgirl needlework. There are 27 pieces on display, dating from the 1600s to 1840, created by schoolgirls and young women as examples of their education and needlework ability.
The market for bronze sculpture, flatlined for well over a decade, was jolted vigorously back to life recently, when the Reingold collection of American sculpture went on the block at Rago Arts and Auction Center. Originally intended as a small but thoughtful exhibition, “Fakes and Forgeries: The Art of Deception,” on view at the Bruce Museum, Greenwich, Conn., through September 9, has exploded into an unexpected blockbuster. Inspired by Bruce Director Peter C. Sutton’s work on authentication issues, the exhibit contains items from such famous study collections as the Conservation Center, Institute of Fine Arts, New York University and the International Foundation for Art Research (IFAR), New York City. At one point, the 60 artworks included in the show, with their suspicious signatures and tainted attributions, might have been sneaked into the museum through the back door and under the cover of night. It is quite the opposite story today as “Fakes and Forgeries” brings to the forefront a host of startling counterfeit works, each revealing the circumstances of its deception and in some cases allowing a peek at those who perpetrated the sham.
Dorothy S. Justinius died on July 10, after a short illness. A longtime member of the Connecticut Antiques Dealers Association, she and her late husband owned antiques shops in Fairfield, Conn. area and managed several antiques shows. In its battle against reproductions, The Professional Show Managers Association recently met with directors of the Federal Trade Commission to add an antiques and collectibles category to the agency's website where consumers can report consumer fraud. A pocket watch that was a gift from Adolf Hitler to his personal physician has made its way to auction as a result of the work of John Farkas and Connie Rose of Antiques and Estate Auctioneers.
The Chubb Group of Insurance Companies has donated a damaged painting to the Morris Louis Conservation Fund, which helps conserve works by Morris Louis and other Color Field painters. The Philadelphia Antiques Show recently cut five of 56 exhibitors from its roster. The cuts follow the April announcement that the fair is moving to Philadelphia’s Navy Pier in 2008. The Hyde Collection art museum presents “Drawn from Life and Legend: European Works on Paper from the Permanent Collection.” The exhibition includes 25 works on paper from the museum’s permanent collection that date from the Renaissance to the early Twentieth Century.
A suite of heavily carved mahogany furniture attributed to New York’s Horner workshop dominated the action at William Jenack’s auction on June 10.
Crocker Farm's May 19 stoneware sale at York Fairgrounds grossed $585,000 on just under 500 lots. It was the Zipps’ biggest auction to date.
A rare, painted Wythe County, Va., blanket chest, crafted around 1800, sold for $99,000 in a sale of Southern furniture, pottery and folk art held recently by Case Antiques.
With gross sales of $6.7 million, the 32nd Special Auction of Modern Art recently provided a new high point in sales for Nagel.
Design-driven, the striking new look of the summer Olympia Antiques Fair with wide aisles and boulevard-style entrances leading to freestanding, detached booths received well-deserved and lavish praise in its June 7–17 showing.
Surprising sales, including many career-high records, blessed many dealers at the 20th presentation of the Marburger Farm Antiques Show in central Texas
“The collections of and accumulations by the Backofens” is how Bill Smith of William A. Smith, Inc, Auctioneers and Appraisers, described the contents of his June 29 on-site sale in the firm’s attractive, full-color catalog. And that’s just what it was. No understanding of modernism in America is complete without knowledge of the crucial role played by the Katherine Dreier and the Société Anonyme. Concerned that avant-garde art, introduced to America at the Armory Show of 1913, was losing steam in this country, around 1920 artist/patron Dreier (1877-1952) began a campaign to promote the new ideas and new art forms. In so doing, she became one of the most significant champions of Modern art. “The Société Anonyme: Modernism for America,” an ambitious exhibition organized by the Yale University Art Gallery, celebrates Dreier’s central leadership role and documents the transformation of the organization from a driving force for the acceptance of the avant-garde to an important collection of art. Comprising some 240 works, it is on view at the Dallas Museum of Art through September 16. The exhibition is fascinating both for its rich array of fine works by celebrated artists and often-eye-popping art by relatively unknown figures.
The tumultuous years of the Civil War will be seen through the eyes of Revolutionary War descendents in the exhibition “Inheriting the Revolution: Loyalty, Brotherhood and the Society of the Cincinnati during the Civil War,” on view through January 5 at Anderson House, the Society of the Cincinnati’s headquarters. The New Orleans Museum of Art presents the exhibition “Windows Of Heaven: Russian Ikons from the Collection of Daniel R. Bibb and the New Orleans Museum of Art” through August 26.
“Shiva as Brahma,” South India, Chola dynasty, Tenth/ Eleventh Century, a life-sized granite sculpture of one of the supreme deities of the Hindu pantheon, recently made its Cleveland debut alongside other key works from the museum’s holdings of Indian sculpture in the exhibition, “Shiva: A Recent Acquisition.”
A painting on original found cardboard of a blue cat by the Alabama freed slave folk artist Bill Traylor (1856–1947) sold for $42,550 at Slotin Auction’s sale of self-taught masterpieces and pottery recently.
Theriault’s auction of “A Cherished Collection” at the Venetian Hotel recently featured 65 Jumeau dolls, among its 700 lots of dolls and playthings.
Sotheby’s recent sale of American paintings, drawings and sculpture enjoyed lively bidding, the top lot being Albert Bierstadt’s “Mountain Lake,” selling to a phone bidder for $4,856,000.
A rare and important lantern clock, dating back to the reign of James I (1603–1625), was sold for $286,000 at Bonhams on June 19 — a world record price for a clock of this kind.
In this far eastern Long Island village, about 100 miles from New York City, Jean Sinenberg conducted the 21st Annual Historic Mulford Farm Antiques Show and Sale on June 23.
The June 16–17 Prallsville Mills Antique Show attracted a host of knowledgeable dealers and patrons, who experienced an educated interplay regarding the treasures found at this Ellen Katona and Bob Lutz event. This year, the Le Mans 24-hour sports car race was conducted June 22–23 and preparation dislodged northern France’s largest antiques trade event from its usual third Wednesday into the following week.
Antiques and The Arts Weekly has received late word that Wayne Pratt, prominent expert and dealer in American furniture, died in his sleep Wednesday night. Ima Hogg, well known in collecting circles as the creator of Bayou Bend, the historic house museum in Houston, Texas, containing one of the premier assemblages of American antebellum decorative arts, gave her home and collection to the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, in 1957. To celebrate Bayou Bend’s 50th anniversary, the museum is publishing a new book, due out in September, that explores Bayou Bend’s past with an eye toward the future. Certain to engage casual readers and experts alike with its behind-the-scenes account, America’s Treasures at Bayou Bend: Celebrating Fifty Years offers a warmly personal introduction to Hogg and her circle while limning the museum’s evolution since its founder’s death in 1975. Meant to show one of Houston’s great cultural resources in its best light, the book presents 100 highlights from a collection containing more than 5,000 examples of Seventeenth, Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century furniture by John Townsend, John and Thomas Seymour, John Henry Belter and others; paintings by Charles Willson Peale, John Singleton Copley, Gilbert Stuart and Thomas Sully; silver by John Coney, Paul Revere and Samuel Kirk; prints by John James Audubon and Nathaniel Currier; and ceramics, glass and textiles.
It is an event that only takes place one Saturday — every other year — yet it has earned a reputation as one of the best one-day flea markets around. With its unique flavor and setting, the Dorset Antiques Festival once again pleased the masses on July 14. On Wednesday, July 25, after watching a Boston Red Sox game with his friend and client Jerry Conway, Wayne E. Pratt retired for the evening. Sometime before morning, the well-known dealer died in his sleep, several weeks after elective heart surgery from which he appeared to be making a full recovery. Pratt was 64.
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