Clyde Singer’s “Pink Lady,” oil on canvas, 30 by 10 inches (excluding frame), sold to a phone bidder for $8,260 ($2/4,000).
Review by Madelia Hickman Ring
WHIPPLE, OHIO — Hollie Davis and Andrew Richmond conducted their fifth auction of the year with Meander Auctions’ Holiday Antiques and Art sale on November 23. Nearly 450 lots crossed the block and Richmond reported a sell-through rate above 90 percent. It was the first auction for the firm’s dedicated online bidding platform, which applied a 19 percent buyer’s premium compared to the 20 percent of HiBid and the 23 percent charged to bid via LiveAuctioneers.
Richmond reported, “We managed to attract a significant percentage of our overall bidders to this new bidding method, and those bidders bought a full one-fourth of the auction. We love the big platforms for helping us get our auctions out there and in front of tens of thousands of eyes, but it’s nice to be able to build up a ‘local’ virtual following, with which we will be better able to engage.
“We met or exceeded all of our goals in our second year. We increased the number of sales and more than doubled last year’s sale total (even if we include our spring 2023 auction which was under our previous incarnation The Ohio Company Antiques and Art). Our team has grown this year and we expect to hire more next year on our way to adding at least 1-2 more auctions to the calendar and doubling our sale total.”
Karel Appel’s “Symphony in Orange,” 1958, mixed media on paper, sold after the sale for $9,000 to a buyer in Europe who had never purchased from Meander previously ($10/15,000).
While two works by Karel Christiaan Appel (1921-2006) — which carried the highest estimates of the day at $10/15,000 each — failed to sell from the podium, Richmond told Antiques and The Arts Weekly that Appel’s “Symphony in Orange” sold after the sale for $9,000, to a new client in Europe.
The highest hammer price of $7,000 on sale day was achieved by four lots, though two were purchased via LiveAuctioneers and incurred higher buyer’s premiums.
The collection of the late Pete Slates of Carrollton, Ohio, offered five works by Clyde Singer (Ohio, 1908-1999), two of which sold high enough to reach the top tier of the sale. First to do so was “McSorley’s – Passing the Bar,” which was painted in 1972 and sold to a bidder on LiveAuctioneers for $8,610; the second, titled “Pink Lady,” reached $8,260 and earned a home with a phone bidder.
A pair of circa 1875 life-size cast iron greyhounds attributed to Robert Wood of Philadelphia that was being sold to benefit the Dr James Dawson Women’s Clinic in Uganda had additional provenance to Clifton Anderson, Fred Giampietro and the estate of Mary Elizabeth Whitney Tippett, which was sold by Weschler’s in January 1989. A bidder on LiveAuctioneers won the pair for $8,610.
Bidders chased this pair of cast iron greyhounds to $8,610, with a LiveAuctioneers buyer prevailing ($1,5/3,000).
Dawson’s collection was also the source of several more top sellers, including Edgar Tolson’s (Kentucky, 1904-1984) “Expulsion from the Garden of Eden,” a circa 1970 carving that had previously been on the market at Christie’s, on January 15, 1999. A determined phone bidder prevailed at $8,260.
Furniture highlights included a Bucks County, Penn., Chippendale desk-and-bookcase ($2,478) and a sackback Windsor armchair that had provenance to Clark Garrett and Mike Clum auctions ($2,499). Both also helped raise money for the Dr James Dawson Women’s Clinic in Uganda.
Richmond was particularly pleased with how a few specific categories performed, including Japanese swords, Native American artifacts and nearly 20 lots of painted circus wagon models, made in the mid Twentieth Century by Stanley Furst Byram (1905-1993) and named for his father, William Byram (1871-1954). The group of 17 had an aggregate estimate of $2,100/4,200 and was led at $554 by one with flag and figural decoration and marked “Bill Byram Circus.”
Meander Auctions’ next sale will take place on Saturday, January 18, and will include part two of the Dr Virginia Gunn textile collection.
Prices quoted include the buyer’s premium as reported by the auction house. For information, 740-760-0012, info@meanderauctions.com or www.meanderauctions.com.
