A redwood organ screen carving made by American artist Sargent Johnson, originally commissioned by the Federal Arts Project in 1937, made a splash in 2011 when half of it was unwittingly sold by UCLA-Berkeley for $150 plus tax. The lucky buyer turned around and sold it to the Michael Rosenfeld Gallery for $225,000, who then sold it to the Huntington Library for an undisclosed six-figure sum.
Johnson was one of the first African American artists in California to achieve a national reputation for his imagery of animals and people in an abstract figurative and modern style. He likely got his interest in art from his aunt, sculptor May Howard Jackson, who he lived with at age 14 following the death of his mother in 1902, which came on the heels of the death of his father five years earlier.
In 1915, Johnson moved to the Bay area of San Francisco and would live there for the rest of his life. His affiliation with the Harlem Renaissance was through the Harmon Foundation in New York City, where he would exhibit for a decade beginning in 1926. Aside from the screen, Johnson would receive one other WPA project in 1939, decorating the interior of the San Francisco Maritime Museum in Aquatic Park.
Johnson’s style, like a few other modernists of the time, was influenced by the arts of West Africa, Latin America and Mexico. That influence is on exhibit in an extraordinary ceramic teapot — and two tea cups in a separate lot — that now approach the block at Treadway. They join other top lots from around the United States in this week’s picks.
TREADWAY
Sale Date: June 30, 2019
Lot 170
Sargent Johnson Teapot
Teapot, 1941. Ceramic, signed and dated, 5 inches high.
Estimate: $20/30,000
BURCHARD GALLERIES
Sale Date: June 30, 2019
Lot 1168
Two Opposing Carved Wooden Italian Baroque Cherubic Columns
Two columns having surmounting cherubs with gilt-draping, standing on high-relief gilt-scrolling Acanthus leaves, over carved square base, 74 inches high.
Estimate: $1,5/2,500
CARLSEN GALLERY
Sale Date: June 30, 2019
Lot 232
Thomas Chambers,“Figures In A Landscape”
Oil on canvas, 14 by 18¾ inches.
Estimate: $2/3,000
LOTUS INTERNATIONAL AUCTIONS
Sale Date: June 30, 2019
Lot 1247
Large 1930 Hopi Kachina Figured Polychrome Basket
Basket measures 17¼ by 21 inches and is made of natural colored materials and aniline dyes. Second Mesa.
Estimate: $2,2/3,200
AHLERS & OGLETREE
Sale Date: June 29–30, 2019
Lot 1061
Julius E. Hilgard Large Sevres Presentation Vase
Sevres (French, founded 1745), 1873; together with a stand and “Annual Report of the National Museum 1910”; hard-paste gilded porcelain with cobalt marble ground and gold powder; with applied bronze dore handles having mask decoration; body decorated with tied gilded oak leaves. Vase 27 inches high.
Estimate: $2/4,000
WHITE’S AUCTIONS
Sale Date: June 30, 2019
Lot 30A
Henri Robert Bresil (Haiti, 1952–1999)
“Waterfall,” circa 1990 colorful oil on canvas with palm trees and flamingos. Signed lower right, 70 by 69 inches unframed.
Estimate: $2,5/5,000
TIME & AGAIN
Sale Date: June 29, 2019
Lot 3
Erté, “Flight of Love” Baccarat Crystal Vase
Baccarat hand cut and polished crystal vase with gilt-bronze mounts at top of two birds feeding on grape clusters. Limited Edition #120/395.
Estimate: $2/3,000
COTTONE
Sale Date: June 26, 2019
Lot 183
Northwest Coast Carved & Painted Stool
Twentieth Century, carved with eagle having killer whale design and totemic legs, 20 inches high.
Estimate: $75/125
VERO BEACH AUCTION
Sale Date: June 29, 2019
Lot 68
American Independence Washington & Franklin Textile
Framed Apotheosis of Benjamin Franklin & Victory of George Washington textile. This is probably an English toile made for the American market. Measures 34 by 27½ inches sight.
Estimate: $1/2,000
