“High Pass” by Friedel Dzubas, signed, titled and dated 1976, Magna acrylic on canvas, 73 by 73 framed. Selling to a private collector for $158,600, it was the top lot of the sale ($78/82,000).
Review by Madelia Hickman Ring
KNOXVILLE, TENN. — “It was a very energetic sale, with more than 6,000 registered bidders from more than 60 countries taking part in person, by phone and online, and a 98 percent sold rate. There was strength across the board. Art, of course, led the categories as it usually does with us, and demand for mid-Twentieth Century Abstract Expressionist art was quite robust. This particular sale featured several such paintings — mostly from European artists — deaccessioned from a Southern institution, and there was strong international demand for those pieces. However, the regional crowd came out in force too. We had our biggest floor crowd since Covid — we even had to set up extra chairs!”
Such was the positive feedback Sarah Campbell Drury, vice president of fine and decorative arts at Case Auctions, shared with us following the firm’s July 6-7 Summer Fine Art & Antiques auction, which offered nearly 1,100 lots.
Earning $158,600 and the sale’s highest price was a colorful abstract composition by Friedel Dzubas (American, 1915-1994). “High Pass” had been exhibited at M. Knoedler & Co. in 1977 and was an example of the artist’s experimentations with color field painting and the use of Magna acrylic. Noted to be from the Nashville, Tenn., estate of philanthropist Richard J. Eskind, Drury confirmed the painting sold to a phone buyer who beat out competition on the phones and online, as well as an absentee bid.
Anna Catherine Wiley’s portrait of a woman with a green parasol sold to a phone bidder for $146,400, a new world auction record for the artist. The oil on canvas composition was dated 1911 and retained its original 40½-by-32¾-inch giltwood frame ($60/70,000).
A new world auction record for Southern impressionist painter Anna Catherine Wiley (Tennessee, 1879-1958) was set at $146,400, for a portrait of a woman in white holding a green parasol. The catalog noted Wiley had been one of the early women students at the University of Tennessee, where she later established formal art instruction, and the Art Students League in New York City. She studied with Frank Dumond, Robert Reid, Jonas Lie and Martha Walter. The portrait had been exhibited at the Knoxville Museum of Art from September 1995 to January 1996. Drury noted four phone bidders competed for it, with one prevailing.
Two mid-Twentieth Century abstract compositions that were being deaccessioned by a Southern institution earned the third and fourth place finishes. An untitled mixed media collage by Alberto Burri (Italian/French, 1915-1995) made $134,200, well ahead of the $67,100 achieved by “September in Segovia” by Guiseppe Santomaso (Italian, 1907-1990). Both sold to phone bidders and Drury shared that the Santomaso painting is going back to Italy.
Alexander Calder’s (French/American, 1898-1976) ink painting of a landscape with pyramids and moon from 1953 had hung on several walls previously. Its provenance included Sarah Gaunt, the former assistant to Willem de Kooning, the Sovereign Arts Corporation (N.Y.C.), the Washington, DC, collection of Stuart C. Davidson, George Weisz and Nicholas Guppy, both of London. It rose to $61,000, more than doubling its high estimate.
Alexander Calder, landscape with pyramids and moon, 1953, black ink on a 29¼-by-42¾-inch sheet of Johannot wove paper, signed and dated, is registered in the Calder Foundation’s archives and sold for $61,000 to a private collector ($22/26,000).
Regional works were in plentiful supply and found an eager, oftentimes local, audience. A pair of circa 1831 portraits by William Scarborough (Tennessee/South Carolina, 1812-1871) of Rogersville, Tenn., founder Joseph Rogers (1764-1833) and Mary Amis Rogers (1768-1833) had descended in the Rogers and Walker families. Though the portraits were offered separately, they sold to the same private Tennessee collector, underbid by a museum, for $67,100 and $61,000, respectively. Another pair of portraits from the same family were of Dr Hugh Kelso Walker (1802-1866) and Frances Rogers Walker (1795-1883/85) by Samuel Shaver (Tennessee, 1816-1878). Also sold in consecutive lots, the Walker portraits were both purchased by another Tennessee collector, for $17,080 each.
An out-of-state buyer, bidding online, won for 34,160 an oil on canvas portrait of CSA Colonel Randal William McGavock (1826-1863) by George Dury (Tennessee, 1817-1894). The catalog note describes McGavock as being “one of the most colorful figures in Nashville history. A descendant of one of Nashville’s prominent founding Scotch Irish families, he attended Harvard Law School and traveled extensively in Europe as a young man.” According to family history, the portrait had been slashed with a sword by a Union soldier during the latter part of the Civil War. More recently, it was exhibited at the Two Rivers Mansion in Nashville in 1990 and Carnton Plantation in Franklin in 2000.
This oil on canvas portrait of Colonel Randal McGavock by George Dury, 46½ by 41½ inches, framed, was the cover image of Pen and Sword: The Life of Randal McGavock, edited by Herschel Gower and Jack Allen (1959). It sold to an out-of-state collector for $34,160 ($8/10,000).
Five “memory paintings” by modern Kentucky artist Helen LaFrance (1919-2020) were offered, three on the first day and two on the second, some of which had been handled by the Shelton Gallery in Nashville. Bringing the highest price of the group at $18,300 was “Church Picnic,” which came to auction from a private Tennessee collector who had acquired it directly from the artist; it will be staying in-state. Other results were “Baking Pies” ($5,368), an untitled farm scene ($5,612), “Saturday Night Street Scene” ($9,150) and another untitled farm landscape that featured a cabbage patch next to a barnyard ($14,640).
“Wash Day” by Louisiana artist Clementine Hunter (1886/7-1988) was a highlight on the second day, bringing $8,540, the sale’s second highest price. While the buyer wasn’t disclosed, the catalog noted it came to sale from a private Southern collection and had been authenticated by Thomas Whitehead, a longtime friend of the artist and scholar of her works.
A Knoxville collection consigned three late Eighteenth and early Nineteenth Century portrait miniatures that achieved prices high enough to place them among the sale’s highlights. James Peale Sr’s (Maryland/Pennsylvania, 1749-1831) watercolor portrait of John Johnson Sr (1770-1824) had been in the family of sitter, the attorney general and fourth chancellor of Maryland. It found a new home in an institution, for $9,760. The same museum acquired, for $9,150, an oval example of David McMechan (circa 1754-1810) that had been painted by Charles Willson Peale (Maryland/Pennsylvania, 1741-1827) and which was documented in Portraits and Miniatures by Charles Willson Peale by Charles Coleman (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 1952). The third miniature from the collection was of Henrietta Maria Hemsley Earle (1779-1821) by Robert Field that a private collector won for $8,540.
Residing in the family of the sitter and now going to an institution was this watercolor portrait miniature of John Johnson, Sr, by James Peale, Sr. Measuring 2-5/8 by 2-1/8 inches and accompanied by an original red tooled leather storage case, it sold for $9,760 ($4/5,000).
Not all the top prices were for fine art. Topping the furniture category with an $18,300 result was a Hans Wegner Papa Bear chair and ottoman that dated to the 1950s and came from the same estate as the Dzubas abstract.
Glassware topped off at $10,370 for a set of four Eighteenth Century blown, cut and engraved glass tumblers possibly made in Ireland for export and engraved “JM,” either for Jacob Motte or his son, Jacob Motte II of Charleson, S.C.; the set had descended in the historic Pinckney family at South Carolina’s Runnymede Plantation. A seven-piece sterling silver tea service by Gorham from a Knoxville estate topped off the silver category at $9,760, while $5,612 was the highest price for ceramics — a pair of Twentieth Century Chinese famille rose ginger jars from the estate of US Ambassador Ronald Schlicher, Brentwood, Tenn.
Prices quoted include the buyer’s premium as reported by the auction house.
Dates for forthcoming auctions have not yet been announced but Drury noted the house is accepting consignments. For more information, www.caseantiques.com/auctions or 865-558-3033.
