While not the top lot of the auction at Shannon’s on Thursday evening, October 20, the W. Herbert Dunton oil on canvas was the lot that created the most interest prior to the auction and the most conversation after. The painting, a simplistic Impressionistic Western oil depicting a cowboy on horseback, carried a modest presale estimates of $20/30,000, yet hammered down to a phone bidder at $179,250, more than five times the high estimate. “He is the darling of the auction and of the Western artists right now,” stated Gene Shannon after the sale. A Taos artist and illustrator, virtually all of Dunton’s works are known and housed in either institutions or private collections. The top lot of the sale came as a surprise as the two highest estimated lots in the auction failed to find buyers. The monumental William Trost Richards took up the slack, however, with “Mountain Lake” surpassing the $60/80,000 estimates to sell in the room for $215,100. A complete review will appear in a future issue. -DSS
25 Oct 2005 / 0 Comment
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