“Spotted Buffalo” by John Clymer (1907–1989), 1977, oil on canvas, 24 by 40 inches, $468,000 ($200/300,000).
SCOTTSDALE, ARIZ. – The market for historic and contemporary Western and wildlife art continued its charge on April 7, when Scottsdale Art Auction drove in roughly $10.9 million in gross sales on just under 400 lots at its 14th annual edition of this popular event. That brings the firm’s year-to-date results to more than $18 million, including the tally from its sale of the Leanin’ Tree Museum collection in January.
Top honors this time went to “Spotted Buffalo,” a 24-by-40-inch oil on canvas by John Ford Clymer, the illustrator-artist who studied at the Howard Pyle School in Delaware and completed roughly 90 covers for The Saturday Evening Post. Completed in 1977, the painting, which made $468,000, including premium, depicts a Sioux raid on the Beef Issue of 1873. A second Clymer, a 30-by-40-inch oil called “Return from the Hunt,” fetched $234,000.
The 1907 Thomas Moran oil “Solitude. The Coconino Forest, Arizona” led among historic property. It sold for $438,750.
Also notable in the Western masters group was a small Charles M. Russell oil, “Indian on Horseback.” It made $321,750.
A student of Dean Cornwell, Harvey Dunn and N.C. Wyeth, Gerard Curtis Delano was remembered this round for “The Victors,” $444,600.
“The Victors” by Gerard Curtis Delano (1890–1972), oil on canvas, 20½ by 39 inches, $444,600 ($350/450,000).
In Santa Fe and Taos school category, Joseph Henry Sharp’s “The Artist in the Studio Mirror” went for $204,750; the Victor Higgins oil “Fall Landscape,” $93,600; the Maynard Dixon landscape “Summer Cottonwoods,” brought $117,000 and E. Martin Hennings portraits of Frank Samora, both 14 by 14 inches, crossed the block at $70,200 each.
G. Harvey led the contemporary Western masters division with a selection of seven paintings totaling $972,855. A highlight of the group was “Old London,” $163,800.
In the wildlife division, Bob Kuhn topped all with “Red Fox Contemplating a Snack,” $163,800, and “Seal Hunter,” $152,100.
The two-session Saturday sale kept more than 400 collectors actively bidding in the salesroom while ten operators handled telephone bids, and the Scottsdale Art Auction’s internet bidding platform attracted buyers throughout the United States and Europe.
Prices, as reported by the auction house, include buyer’s premium with no internet surcharge applicable.
Scottsdale Art Auction is operated in partnership by Michael Frost of J.N. Bartfield Galleries of New York City; Jack A. Morris Jr of Morris & Whiteside Galleries of Hilton Head Island, S.C.; and Brad Richardson of Legacy Gallery of Bozeman, Mont., Jackson Hole, Wyo., and Scottsdale, Ariz.
Next year’s Scottsdale Art Auction is planned for April 6. For information or to consign art, visit call 480-945-0225 or visit www.scottsdaleartauction.com.
