Category: Record

RECORD! A Star Wars Boba Fett Rocket-firing Prototype Crosses the $100k Threshold at Hake’s

A circa 1979 Star Wars Boba Fett rocket-firing prototype, unpainted, with the L-slot configuration firing mechanism. It set a new world auction record for a Star Wars toy at Hake's in July 2019.

In the course of reporting this story, I learned about the next likely record-breaking Star Wars action figure–an even rarer Boba Fett prototype to be offered in a Hake’s auction that opens on October 15, 2019, and closes on November 6 and 7, 2019. That prototype could sell for as much as $200,000. You will see mentions of that toy, as well as pictures, woven into this article.

What you see: A circa 1979 Star Wars Boba Fett rocket-firing prototype, unpainted, with the L-slot configuration. It comes with a letter from Collectible Investment Brokerage (CIB) assigning the encapsulated toy an 85 (NM+) grade. It sold at Hake’s in July 2019 for $112,926–a new record for any Star Wars toy, and the first time a Star Wars toy has crossed the six-figure threshold at auction.

The expert: Alex Winter, President of Hake’s.

How often do late-1970s Star Wars prototype toys come to auction? What others have appeared? Prototypes for action figures are much more layered than for other things. They go through various stages, various color treatments. That’s why there’s so many Boba Fett prototypes. Only a handful have been at auction. It’s still fairly uncommon for them to come up. We happen to have had the luxury of two back to back, and one coming up. [Scroll down for news on the Boba Fett prototype that’s coming up.]

When I hear “prototype” I assume there’s just one, but you’re telling me that action figures require more than one. What number of prototypes is more typical for an action figure? Three to five? I think so. There’s a few for every figure. Boba Fett went through stages of the rocket-firing figure because it had a spring-loaded mechanism. They had to get it right, so more prototypes had to be produced.

Do we know how many Boba Fett prototypes exist? It’s all very vague and speculative, but there’s a very good article that has an accurate lineage of the Boba Fett action figure. [The 2016 story suggests that maybe 100 Boba Fett prototypes exist: about 80 of the L-slot variety, and 19 of the later J-slot version. The letters describe the shape of the rocket-firing mechanism built into Boba Fett’s backpack.]

Could you talk a bit about this rocket-firing Boba Fett toy, and why it’s legendary? It’s taken on a life of its own. Kenner documented what it was supposed to be and put it all into motion before realizing it was not going to work. [As described in the previously given link, the rocket-firing Boba Fett toy was touted in a winter 1979 Kenner catalog as free with four proofs of purchase of other Star Wars toys. Kids gathered the material, sent it off to Kenner, and waited six to eight weeks for the prize to arrive, only to discover that the much-celebrated rocket was fixed in place.] I was eight when Star Wars came out. I saw the original run and sent away for the Boba Fett figure. I don’t remember being disappointed, but everyone got a fixed rocket. Other kids could have been disappointed.

A circa 1979 Star Wars Boba Fett rocket-firing prototype, unpainted, with the L-slot configuration firing mechanism, shown with its certificate of authenticity from CIB.

This prototype is an example of the L-slot version of the toy. There was also a J-slot version. What is the significance of the slot configurations? The L-slot is the first version [of the rocket-firing mechanism]. It was very touchy–tap the figure, and it fired. The J-slot version made it a little more difficult to fire the rocket, but there was a problem. A piece of plastic could snap off that was very sharp, and could puncture [a kid’s] finger. Because they had already advertised it [as a rocket-firing toy], my guess is when they got to the deadline for when they were going to ship, they said, ‘Let’s just mount the rocket in place and get it out of here.’ [Another factor that might have led Kenner to fix the rocket in place] was a kid had choked to death on a rocket from a Battlestar Galactica toy. That could have been the reason for it. [A rocket-firing toy] sounds like a great concept, but it didn’t work. Kids got a stationary version in the mail.

This figure is unpainted. What’s the significance of that? Is it just further proof that it’s a prototype? This shows you the progression. With action figures, you go through so many stages until you get it right. Because they were still working out the firing mechanism, it was not painted. In the process, the concern is that the figure looks right, then making sure that the rocket works, and then they paint it in the final stages. It [the lack of paint] is a signpost.

Is this toy on a blank card? It’s encapsulated in plastic, in an acrylic case.

How did you set the estimate of $75,000 to $100,000? Was that the first time you’d given a Star Wars toy an estimate that includes a six-figure sum? It’s the second time. The first time was the Obi-Wan. It just got into that estimate. We based the estimate on what other Boba Fetts have sold for.

What’s the difference between this Boba Fett and the Obi-Wan Kenobi that set the record in November 2017? Is it down to one being a prototype and the other being a production toy? That’s really the big difference–one is a prototype and one is a production toy. Very few Obi-Wan have ever come to auction and sold. It’s probably a toss-up which one has fewer in existence.

The world auction record for a Star Wars toy broke three times from November 2017 to now–between the Obi-Wan and this Boba Fett prototype, you offered a different Boba Fett L-slot prototype in March 2018 that sold for more than $86,000. Why is there such strong movement in Star Wars toys now? Why has the record broken three times in less than two years? Five years ago, it [the Boba Fett prototype] was a $25,000 figure. Star Wars collectors are serious, and a lot are of the age where they have disposable income. It’s in the last five years or so that it’s been elevated to the level that it is.

The sale of this Boba Fett marks the first time any Star Wars toy has sold for more than $100,000. Could you discuss the significance of that? And did that milestone come when you expected it to come, or was it a little early, or a little late? The first comic book, the first baseball card, and the first original comic artwork breaking six figures was big news. This getting over $100,000 is a big deal, and a long time coming. A lot of that is [due to] third-party authentication. Other collectibles that have been encapsulated [sealed in plastic] have set the guideline for how the market is trending. That’s why we’re seeing what we see. As for the timing of the six figures, we had thought the Obi-Wan could do that. If it was one grade higher, it certainly would have. It’s trending upwards, as all Star Wars toys are. Collectors are there, and they’re ready and willing to pay what they have to.

What was your role in the auction? I tend to stay off the phones if I can. It’s all Internet bidding or phone bidding. I was monitoring things to make sure everything was running smoothly. I watched the whole auction unfold in front of me.

Did you have a dedicated screen for this Boba Fett lot? I have to watch the entire auction at once. It’s important that I watch everything unfurl.

That sounds tricky. I’ve been doing it for 34 years. But it’s hectic, for sure.

When did you know you had a new world auction record? We had a lot of activity for all three weeks online, to closing. On closing day, the Boba Fett prototype was around $85,000 with premium, which would have been $1,000 under the record. Even if we’d closed at that, we’d be happy, because it was right up to where the other sold. It came down to the wire. We got a bid at 9:19 pm, and that reopened the clock.

It reopened the clock? When you bid on an item, it resets the clock for 20 minutes.

So it extends the bidding life of the lot? Correct. When this was still going, much of the rest of the auction was over. It took to the very end until we eclipsed the record. It was a bit unnerving. A lot of people waited until the last minute, but that doesn’t work with us. We’re not eBay. There’s no sniping.

The Boba Fett sold for just under $113,000. Were you surprised by that? No. No. If it was twice its estimate, I would have been surprised, but it was just over the estimate. We were very pleased, but I wouldn’t say we were surprised.

And I understand Hake’s has another Boba Fett prototype coming up in November 2019 that could break the world auction record for any Star Wars toy again? This is the J-slot, the next version of the firing mechanism. It’s painted, and its grade is 85+. It’s the same grade [as the current record-holder], but it’s more desirable because it’s a J-slot, of which there are fewer. It looks like the one that was released.

Image of a painted rocket-firing Boba Fett prototype with a J-slot mechanism, which Hake's will offer in November 2019.
Image of a painted rocket-firing Boba Fett prototype with a J-slot mechanism, which Hake’s will offer in November 2019.

Do you have an estimate on that upcoming Boba Fett prototype? I haven’t committed to one yet. It literally showed up one day after the [July 2019] auction. It could be $100,000, it could be $200,000. It could beat the record substantially, based on what it is. It’s the more desirable of the two [styles] of rocket-firing mechanisms, it’s painted, and it appears in Star Wars collectibles reference books.

What did Kenner learn from the Boba Fett disaster, if anything? It changed the toy industry dramatically. After that, people were cautious and didn’t want to be sued [over a potential choking hazard]. [The toy industry] moved into a different era.

So it wasn’t just overpromising and underdelivering, it was eek, kids could die. Yep. They made sure every base was covered so nothing would come back on them. Now it’s obvious that a tiny piece of plastic that launches with great force was not the smartest [idea]. But it all led up to this legendary status for the rocket-fired Boba Fett.

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Hake’s is on Twitter and Instagram.

Images are courtesy of Hake’s.

Alex Winter also spoke to The Hot Bid about a 1939 copy of Batman’s comic book debut, which ultimately sold for almost $570,000.

I also wrote a piece about record-setting Star Wars action figures for the Field Notes section of the October 2019 issue of Robb Report.

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RECORD! A Peter Hujar Portrait of David Wojnarowicz Commands $106,250 at Swann

 
Peter Hujar's black and white print, David Wojnarowicz: Manhattan-Night (III), features his friend and mentee. David Wojnarowicz, looking directly at the camera with a moody, faintly sultry expression.

What you see: David Wojnarowicz: Manhattan-Night (III), a 1985 silver print by Peter Hujar. Estimated at $15,000 to $25,000, it commanded $106,250 and a new auction record for Hujar during the first Pride Sale at Swann Auction Galleries on June 20, 2019.

The expert: Deborah Rogal, associate director of photographs and photobooks at Swann Auction Galleries.

Is his name pronounced HOO-jar? Yes.

How often do Peter Hujar photographs come to auction? I would consider them rare. As his work becomes more recognizable by collectors, more will come to the market. About 15 to 20 per year reach the auction market and they attract a lot of attention when they do.

How many prints did he typically make of an image? As far as I know, Hujar did apply edition numbers to his prints, but “four of 15” didn’t mean “four of 15.” It meant he was happy with the print, and generated interest in the print by adding a number. Photography is a young market, and at that time [the photograph dates to 1985], it was incredibly young. There was awareness among photographers of numbering in the print market, but it was not applied. He was not unique in that sense.

How many copies of David Wojnarowicz: Manhattan-Night (III) did he make? As far as we know, this is one of three examples of this image.

Do you know where the other two are? I don’t.

Was this the first print of the three to go to auction? There have been other images of David Wojnarowicz by Hujar at auction, but not this particular image.

Did Peter Hujar typically sign and date his photographs? Typically, yes, but not as a rule.

How involved was he in the process of printing his photos? Did he usually do most or all of the darkroom work? I believe he did do most or all of his own work. Part of the mentorship with David Wojnarowicz involved working in the darkroom together.

Was David Wojnarowicz involved with the production of this particular silver print? I couldn’t say with authority whether it could be true. If it is true, it’s impossible to prove.

Do we know how many portraits Peter Hujar took of David Wojnarowicz? He made several well-known portraits of Wojnarowicz. It was an incredibly close relationship. There are many images.

Are Hujar’s portraits of Wojnarowicz sought after? The result demonstrates that they are. Both are sought-after artists. [The photo] represents a rare opportunity to acquire an object that represents both of them. Hujar was known for taking portraits of figures of the downtown art scene. This is a stellar example of that type of image.

Do we know why Hujar named this photograph David Wojnarowicz: Manhattan-Night (III) ? I don’t. The title was supplied, in this case, by his estate.

The lot notes say this photograph went from the artist to the collector to you. Is that a typical trajectory for a Hujar? Yes. Much Hujar material we see coming to the market doesn’t have a long [provenance] history at all. The work has been held in collections by the first owners. Some were friends or colleagues of Hujar.

The portrait photograph measures 19 3/4 inches by 15 3/4 inches. Is that considered large for Hujar? If it is large, did that fact play a role in the final price? Many of his photographs are on a sheet like this. In the larger photographic market, it [oversize photographs] are often a factor. But much of his work has the same presentation. I don’t think the size was a factor in this case.

What is it like in person? Are there details that the camera doesn’t pick up? We do our best to capture the depth and lustrous qualities in the catalog, but nothing compares to seeing a print like this in person. Hujar is very subtle, very elegant, very rich. This has deep, velvety blacks and it’s rather moody. There’s a lot of detail in the lighter grey and white values. It’s so much more stunning in person. His work is characterized by sensuality–he draws it out of the figures he photographs. It’s one reason why [his work] is so prized by collectors today.

What was the previous auction record for a Hujar? It was set in 2015 at Christie’s by Candy Darling on her Deathbed, 1973. It sold for $50,000.

What was your role in the auction on the day of the sale? The Pride Auction involved almost all the departments at Swann. Sale day was all hands on deck. It was a really exciting moment. Most of the staff worked the phones. I think the whole room was holding its breath watching the phones battle it out [to see who would win the Hujar].

How was the photograph chosen for the Pride Sale? We were actively looking for material for the sale throughout the entire season. The Pride Sale was the right context for the work.

Does the creation of the Pride Sale predate the consignment of the Hujar photo? As I recall, yes, it did. We worked on the sale for quite some time.

Does Swann have plans to hold another Pride Sale? We do plan to hold another next year.

How did the context of the Pride Sale affect the final result? Would the Hujar photograph have done as well in a standard photography sale? I do think the context is really important to the work. The Pride Sale tells a specific story, and helped it [the photograph] gain a level of attention. I have no way of knowing [if it would do as well in a standard photography sale], but I hope so. The quality of the work and its rarity are very high.

Were you surprised that it sold for $106,250? I was. I think we all were very happily surprised at the results.

So you weren’t expecting it to break six figures? I was not. It was pretty stunning. I think everyone in the room was surprised. We knew how important Peter Hujar’s work is, and how stunning it is. It’s the moment we wait for–when something like this just takes off, it’s thrilling.

How long do you think this world auction record for Peter Hujar will stand? What else is out there that could beat it? One of the exciting and beautiful things about the auction market is you don’t know what will turn up tomorrow. I think the Hujar market will certainly grow as more collectors become aware of his work.

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Swann Galleries is on Instagram and Twitter.

Deborah Rogel spoke to The Hot Bid previously about a circa 1865 tintype of Dr. Mary Edwards Walker wearing her Medal of Honor.

Image is courtesy of Swann Auction Galleries.

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RECORD! An Isamu Noguchi Dining Table Sold for $1.6 Million

A unique pink marble dining room table designed by Isamu Noguchi for Mr. and Mrs. Milton Greene.

During the summer, when auction schedules slow down, The Hot Bid showcases world auction records.

What you see: A unique dining room table designed circa 1948 or 1949 by Isamu Noguchi for Mr. and Mrs. Milton Greene. Wright sold it in June 2018 for $1.6 million against an estimate of $1 million to $1.5 million, a record for a Noguchi dining table.

The expert: Richard Wright, president of Wright auction house.

How often did Noguchi accept commissions? He did do commissioned works. He did a relatively small amount of commissioned furniture. Definitely less than ten.

How unusual is it to have a commissioned Noguchi piece as well-documented as this one? [Milton Greene, who commissioned it, recorded the design and creation of the table and two other furnishings in a series of photos that are shown within the lot listing.] It’s pretty exceptional [laughs]. It’s not unusual to have documentation, but it’s unusual that it’s so prolific. Because it was commissioned by a photographer, we were able to find wonderful photo documentation. We have photos of Noguchi planning the installation, and on the installation day, reshaping the leg of a sofa.

Greene also commissioned what came to be called the Cloud sofa and Cloud ottoman from Noguchi. Were the three meant as a suite of furniture, or did they happen to be commissioned around the same time? The sofa and the ottoman were conceived together. Those elements directly relate. The dining table is unrelated, but aesthetically, it’s his work. They’re sympathetic to each other, but they’re not really designed for each other. [The sofa and ottoman went to auction at some point, but their whereabouts are unknown.]

The lot notes say, ‘in a letter, Noguchi wrote that Greene gave him a Leica camera in exchange for the designing of some furniture for him.’ Was that camera the extent of the payment that Noguchi accepted for the creation of the Cloud pieces and this table? It appears to be. That’s the only documentation we have. Financial records are not available. I don’t know if he gave him cash for the production. Leica cameras are not inexpensive, but they certainly haven’t appreciated in the same way [laughs].

How often did Noguchi use pink Georgia marble? He did a very famous sculpture that’s in the Met in the same stone. It’s in his vocabulary, especially at this time. There was something he liked about the expression of the marble–the color spoke to him. It was not widely used, but he used it before on a major sculpture.

What characteristics mark this as a Noguchi? First of all, the overall form of it–the three legs, the ovoid shape of the top, the sunken planter–but it’s really the overall shape and form of the table that identifies it as a Noguchi.

Is this table the first time he uses a hole or a depression in a piece of furniture? It’s a little hard to know for sure. His formal sculptures have voids. They became present in his sculpture before they were in his designed works. At the same time [as he was creating this table], he was developing a coffee table for Herman Miller that looks a bit like the dining table shrunk down. The bowl [the aluminum bowl in the center] is clever. You rotate it to lock it into place. You do it from under the table–seamless integration into the void. It was designed for flower arrangements in the Japanese tradition. It adds a tension point and a visual focus to the table.

The table’s legs do not match. Is that unusual for a Noguchi furnishing? It’s pretty unusual that all three are different–it may be the only time. It’s like he was thinking out the design as he was making it. If it was in production, he may not have articulated the legs individually.

How do the legs add to the appearance of the Isamu Noguchi dining table? It makes it visually light. It’s not a light table, but it adds visual dynamism and visual lightness that comes from having three legs versus four.

And how does the asymmetry of the top and the asymmetry in the placement of the legs of the Isamu Noguchi dining table add to its appeal? The subtle shape of the top versus the legs versus the void placement creates a composition I find dynamic and pleasing. That’s the artistry of it.

The Isamu Noguchi dining table stands 26 inches high, which is lower than most people would expect. Does that make it hard to use? It does. It requires you to use chairs that have a low seat. Standard height chairs make the table feel low. A standard height table is 29 inches. The consigner lived with this his whole life. He wasn’t six foot four, he was an average height. He never had an issue, never thought twice about the height of it. If the table was closer to a standard height, it might have had broader appeal, but it did just fine as it was.

A 1954 photograph included with the lot shows the table set and with three chairs around it. Did it come with chairs? They are Eames chairs, and that particular Eames design has a pretty low seat. Whether they were designed for the table or paired up with it, I don’t know.

How many people can the table seat? Comfortably, six. When we looked at it in the original house, five sat around it and had coffee and we could have had one more.

Has it been restored? No. It’s really in completely original condition, which is fantastic.

Is it heavy? Yup, it’s heavy. I don’t know its actual weight, but it’s probably 500 pounds. Not insignificant. It [the tabletop] is a serious piece of marble, and a single piece of marble.

Does it show signs of wear? Sure. It had a very nice patina. It’s hard to how polished the stone had been originally. There are small chips around the edge, and no significant stains. The surface had become very matte. The legs had nicks, vacuum cleaner marks. But it had been carefully used for 50 years. The presence of the patina, the feel of it is very organic, very honest.

What is the Isamu Noguchi dining table like in person? It has a real presence. It feels bigger in person. It has some qualities about it that are very hard to translate photographically, but I think [the lot photos] did a pretty good job.

What was your role in the auction? What do you remember of the sale? I was the auctioneer. We had multiple bidders. For us, it was a lot of money. As an auctioneer, it’s not often that I say “One million.” I had to practice my increments before, it was such a big dollar amount.

When did you know you had a record for an Isamu Noguchi dining table? I had a pretty good sense by the time we got over the lower estimate [$1 million]. By selling it, we set a record. It was pretty nerve-wracking. It would have been fine to sell it for $1 million but it was better to sell it for $1.4 million. It better reflected the importance and worth of the table. We worked very hard to present it and tell its full story. To sell it well is gratifying. A lot of thought and care went into this. It’s fun when it all works out.

Why will this piece stick in your memory? It’s just going to always be one of the most special pieces I’ll ever handle. There are very few pieces that you come across and say, “Wow, that’s really special.” This checks all the boxes.

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Wright is on Twitter and Instagram.

Image is courtesy of Wright.

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RECORD! A Gang of Five Machine Man Japanese Robot Toy Sold at Morphy Auctions for $86,100 (Updated October 6, 2020)

  
A bright red tin lithographic Machine Man robot toy, circa 1960, the rarest of the Japanese robot toys known as the Gang of Five.

Update, October 6, 2020: Morphy Auctions offered a Machine Man with box in its September 23-24, 2020 Toy, Doll, & Figural Cast Iron auction. It commanded a staggering $159,900, easily setting a new record. That number also beat Sage’s speculation in this 2019 story about how well a Machine Man with box might sell. (Scroll down to see his educated guess.)

What you see: A tin lithographic Machine Man Japanese robot toy, circa 1960. Morphy Auctions sold it in March 2019 for $86,100–a record for this toy and for any “Gang of Five” Japanese robot toy.

The expert: Tommy Sage Jr., head of toys and trains at Morphy Auctions.

What is the “Gang of Five,” and what Japanese mid-century toy robots belong to the Gang of Five? They were all made between the late 1950s and early 1960s, by the same company, Masudaya. They’re kind of all uniform. They’re called “large skirt” robots because it looks like they’re wearing skirts. They’re all the same body type.

Is it the latest of the Gang of Five robots? Probably. It had to be ordered specifically. You could not buy it from a catalog. The other four, you could. It was fairly expensive for the time. It was probably over $10.

Do we have any notion why Masudaya made the Machine Man robot toy? Why would they make something oversize–it’s 15 inches tall–and not even put it in their catalog? Probably because the first four they made did sell well here. Maybe they figured this one would too. It would make logical sense. As for the catalog, maybe it was a test thing, to see how many people would want to get it.

How did the consigner receive the Machine Man robot toy? How old was he? He got it in 1960 on Christmas morning. He was nine. He doesn’t remember getting it with the box, which would be worth $40,000.

How did the consigner display the… restraint needed to keep the toy in this good a condition? He didn’t play with it much. He took good care of it. He put it in a closet. And he was an American guy, too. They had to order it special for him. I don’t know how they did it in 1960, but they did. You had to be in the know.

Was his father a toy retailer or something? How did the adults in the consigner’s life know enough to get this for him? I talked to his dad, but I didn’t ask that question. Maybe he knew somebody who had a toy store 60 years ago.

Is this the only robot toy the consigner got? It was. He’s lucky he got the best one. It’s crazy. He kept it all these years. He’s probably 67 or 68 and decided to sell it now.

Do we have any notion how many Machine Man robot toys Masudaya made, and how many survive? I don’t know that, but as far as what’s out there, there are about one dozen, including two boxed ones. For the other four [in the Gang of Five] there are many, many more than that.

How did this example of the Machine Man robot toy come to you? A friend of mine who also deals in robots knew he was going to sell and talked him into selling at auction. I don’t know the guy personally, but he did.

So, how often does a Machine Man robot toy come up at auction? Every five to seven years? In 16 years, this is the second one we’ve had.

Is the Machine Man robot toy always red, or are there variations? They’re all red. You never see variations. With any Gang of Five robot, they’re all the same.

The lot notes described the toy as a “stunning example” and “Near Mint – Mint.” Could you elaborate? It’s one of the best ones known, and the best ones I’ve ever seen. It’s just about mint.

Does it work? It works. When you turn it on, it moves in a pattern. There’s a metal circle on the bottom with wheels and spins around in a little pattern.

Does it light up or make noise? It just moves.

Do its arms move independently? They do, but they kind of swing. They don’t move up and down.

Is it heavy? It’s not heavy. It’s all tin litho. It’s very well made for what it is. It’s actually quite beautiful. It’s almost like the weight of a baby. Most robots are half this size. Most are six to 12 inches.

A bright red tin lithographic Machine Man robot toy, circa 1960, the rarest of the Japanese robot toys known as the Gang of Five.

What is it like in person? It’s beautiful. It’s very red, very colorful, very vibrant colors. I can imagine being a kid, getting it, would be incredible.

What was your role in the auction? I was on the phone with the winner. I’ve been friendly with them for ten years. They asked my advice. I said, “When are you going to get another one this nice?”

The Machine Man robot toy sold for $86,100. Did that surprise you? No, it didn’t surprise me at all. Personally, I thought it would bring $80,000. If it had had its box, it would have sold for $125,000. The box is incredibly important.

How long will this record stand? What else is out there that could meet or beat it? A few other really rare robots from the 1950s and 1960s I’ve never had at all might push the $100,000 barrier.

Why will this piece stick in your memory? We get a lot of stuff, but we don’t get a lot of things that are quite so special. If you approach $100,000, that’s a lot for a toy. The person who bought it is very, very happy, I can tell you that.

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Image is courtesy of Morphy Auctions.

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RECORD! Mavis Pusey’s Painting, “Nuvae”, Sold for $42,500 at Rago

 
Nuvae, a 1968 abstract canvas by Mavis Pusey, features large blocks of royal blue, milk chocolate brown, red, and white paint.

During the summer, when auction schedules slow down, The Hot Bid showcases world auction records.

What you see: Nuvae, a 1968 oil on burlap canvas by the late Jamaican-born artist Mavis Pusey. Rago Arts and Auctions sold it in May 2019 for $42,500, a world auction record for the artist.

The expert: Meredith Hilferty, fine art director at Rago Arts and Auctions.

Could we start by talking about Mavis… how do you pronounce her last name? Poo-SAY.

Can we talk about who she was, and her contributions to art? She was a Jamaican-born artist who came to New York at the age of 18. She decided to enroll with the Art Students League and fell into painting. She was firmly an abstract expressionist artist, which was unusual for a woman and for a black artist. She decided she was an abstract expressionist and she did not waver, though it wasn’t highly accepted. It was important that she did not waver. She didn’t let someone push her in a direction that she didn’t want to go.

Was she prolific? She was prolific, but not insanely prolific. This is the first work of hers we’ve ever handled, and I’ve been at Rago for 13 years. She painted a lot, but her work doesn’t come out on the market very often. I wouldn’t be surprised if more paintings come to market because of the recent sale.

Do collectors just love her work and hang onto it for decades? I think so. I think that’s one factor. Another is while she’s always had significant four- and five-figure prices, people weren’t faced with the decision, “Do I want to cash in on this?” A lot of times they love them as works of art, but there’s a personal connection there–they got it directly from the artist. Selling it was not necessarily on their minds.

Do we know why she named this painting Nuvae? We don’t know what it means. We certainly tried to figure it out, but we hit a dead end. She did title her work. We found other works with similar titles–one word, and they’re not words anyone would recognize. She also used titles that were very descriptive. She was inspired by urban landscapes, and some titles reflect that and are descriptive of that. This title doesn’t lead you in any particular direction. I kind of like that. [Laughs] It’s an abstract expressionist work of art in every sense of the word.

Is Nuvae part of a series, or is it a stand-alone work? I’d say it stands alone, but she did works in a similar style in the late 1960s. All stand-alone major paintings from that period relate to each other, but they’re not a series in that there’s no direct connection to each other.

She painted this on burlap. Is that typical for her? She did do quite a few paintings on burlap in this period, but she also painted on canvas. We don’t know why she used burlap. There’s not enough information to know the answer. It could have been that she’d run out of canvas, or it could have been that she wanted to try something else. It was purposeful. I think she was successful with it, and she used burlap for a good period of time.

Nuvae measures 30 inches by 40 inches. Is that a standard size for her? No, she actually would work bigger than this, oftentimes. It’s a big painting, but in the same period, she did 40 by 50, 50 by 60. The scale is significant, for sure.

Is Nuvae typical or atypical of her work? It’s very typical of her work from the late 1960s. A good part of her work is simply abstract and not representative. Others seem to reference urban landscapes, or the figures are much more direct. This has a more curving form that reminds the viewer of a figure..

Nuvae, a 1968 abstract canvas by Mavis Pusey, features large blocks of royal blue, milk chocolate brown, red, and white paint.

Is that central blue passage meant to be a figure? It kind of looks like it has a leg and an arm… I don’t know. There’s certainly a suggestion of a figure there, but I think it’s very loose. I think she was more highly focused on shape and color. She’s not making a direct enough connection for us to say it’s a reclining figure.

Pusey included Nuvae in her application for the Pollock-Krasner Foundation award, and she won it. Does that sort of thing affect a painting’s appeal to collectors? I think it does, absolutely. It’s a great honor for an artist to receive the Pollock-Krasner Foundation award. The appeal to collectors is the artist thought enough of the painting to include it in her application, and she won the award based on that application. It’s hard to say how much it affects the value of the piece, but it appeals to buyers.

What condition is the painting in? For a painting from the late 1960s, it’s in good condition. The things it needs are easily fixed by a good conservator. It’s a little loose on its stretcher.

Would that have anything to do with the burlap canvas? It could be. I’m not a conservator, but burlap is a heavier fabric, and it would certainly put more tension on the stretchers. It’s not really a major issue, but if it’s going to be hung in a museum exhibit or a collector’s home, you’d want it to be at its best, and part of that is having the burlap brought back to a taut configuration.

What is the painting like in person? It goes back to scale. When you stand in front of it, the canvas pulls you in and takes up your vision. The shapes play off each other and almost vibrate. You get the impression of a subtle palette, and it keeps your eye moving around the composition.

What was the previous world auction record for a Mavis Pusey painting? It was the same painting, when it sold at Swann in October 2013 for $33,750. You can see very directly how her market has changed in five and a half years. Before that, her record was set a year before, also at Swann, by Recarte, a larger 1968 painting that sold for $31,200. Not only is her work more and more desirable, but her late 1960s work has held records. That’s what people want.

Mavis Pusey died on April 20, 2019, and the Rago auction took place on May 4, 2019. What role, if any, did the timing of her death play in the new world record? I couldn’t say that it didn’t play a role. Certainly there was a little bit more buzz. But there was serious interest before her death was announced. The catalog came out before that, it was in our advertising and press releases and marketing before that. People were interested in the painting. If [her death] pushed it over…I’m not really convinced it was a major factor. I think this [interest in Pusey] has been building up, and she’s been getting more attention. I don’t think there’s a direct connection there. I don’t think it broke the record because she had just died.

What was your role in the auction? Generally, I put these sales together. Typically, during the day of sale, I’m in my office, talking to buyers about bids. This particular lot had a lot of action. I was called out to the phone table [the table where the auction house manages phone bidders]. I got to watch from the floor and see it break the record. I was glad I was pulled from the office to come out. It was really exciting.

How long do you think this world auction record for Mavis Pusey will stand? What else is out there that could meet or beat it? I think other paintings from the 1960s of the same quality [could do it]. She did also paint larger paintings, so, potentially, you could say they could sell for more, but they haven’t been on the market. We really have to wait and see. We find that when a record is set or an artist dies, more works come on the market. I think it really hinges on that.

Why will this piece stick in your memory? I always like to see an artist who hasn’t gotten the recognition they deserve get recognition. I’ve handled works that have set records for many women artists. It’s a satisfying part of the job.

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RECORD! The Bulova Chronograph that Apollo 15 Commander Dave Scott Wore on the Moon Sold for $1.6 Million at RR Auction in 2015

  
The Bulova chronograph that astronaut David Scott wore on the surface of the moon during the Apollo 15 mission, shown in full.

What you see: The Bulova chronograph that astronaut David Scott wore on the surface of the moon during the Apollo 15 mission. RR Auction sold it in October 2015 for $1.6 million against an estimate of $750,000. It set a then-record for an Apollo item, a record for an item owned and directly consigned by an astronaut, a record for a timepiece used on the lunar surface, a record for any Bulova watch, and a RR Auction house record for the most expensive lot that it has handled.

The expert: Bobby Livingston, executive vice president at RR Auction.

The Apollo astronauts relied on government-issued Omega Speedmaster chronographs. How did Scott convince NASA to let him use the Bulova instead? He didn’t. Scott and the others are engineers, responsible for the lives of their crews. They brought backups. Bulova gave him the watch and a stopwatch, which we also sold. The company was U.S.-owned at the time. They tried very hard to get the chronograph contract from NASA. Bulova’s then-boss, Omar Bradley, had said, “How can we put boys on the moon wearing foreign-made watches?” During the second EVA [A NASA acronym that stands for “extravehicular activity,” which describes anything an astronaut does outside a spacecraft that has left the Earth], he noticed that the crystal on his Omega Speedmaster was gone. We don’t know why [it went missing] but the heat emanating from the sun may have heated to a temperature that had it pop off. Scott took the Omega off the strap and replaced it with the Bulova. It was a prototype watch. He brought it as a backup, with no promises to the Bulova company that he would use it.

The Bulova chronograph was a prototype? It was the prototype they made to pitch to NASA on the contract that Omega got. They developed it to go to the moon, but it was never put into production. Only Dave, the [spacecraft] commander, had a Bulova backup. I don’t think the others [his two crewmates] were approached by the Bulova company.

The Bulova chronograph that astronaut David Scott wore on the surface of the moon during the Apollo 15 mission, shown in full.

Could you talk for a bit about why the astronauts needed these watches, and how they relied on them? They all needed wristwatches. Dave basically used it to keep track of the elapsed time on the consumables used. We included a quote from Scott in the catalog: “Time is of the essence during human lunar expeditions–and exploration time on the surface is limited by the oxygen and water (for cooling) we can carry in our backpacks… knowledge of precise time remaining was essential.”

How long did Scott wear the Bulova chronograph on the lunar surface? The third EVA was four hours, 49 minutes, and 50 seconds. [Livingston relayed these numbers from memory, with complete fluency.] What was really cool about the watch was he drove the lunar rover while wearing it. He was the first to drive on the moon, and the watch stood up to that, obviously. It was very much exposed to lunar material. You can see the scratches on the bezel.

Closeup of the dial of the Bulova chronograph that astronaut David Scott wore on the surface of the moon during the Apollo 15 mission. Moon dust is visible on the face of the wristwatch.

Was Scott wearing the watch when he repeated Galileo’s experiment on the lunar surface, dropping the hammer and the feather and proving they’d hit the ground at the same time? Yes, but he didn’t actually use the watch. Each arm was holding out an item, and he didn’t need the timer to see them hit the surface. They hit at the same time. It was apparent. [Laughs] But he wore the watch when he did it. The significance of this particular watch on his arm when he did it was profound to us.

Did the watch and the strap have lunar dust on it? It certainly had remnants of lunar material when I saw it, and obvious damage to the crystal from the lunar surface.

The Bulova chronograph that astronaut David Scott wore on the surface of the moon during the Apollo 15 mission, shown in full, with the fuzzy side of the velcro strap visible.

The strap as well? Yes, it was apparent that lunar material was on it when I got it. There are shots of Dave wearing the watch during splashdown [the term for when a spacecraft makes its return landing in the ocean; the astronauts disembark into a dinghy], so it may have been in the ocean. [RR Auction created a dedicated catalog for Scott’s Bulova. You can see a period photo of a post-splashdown Scott, his watch clearly visible on his wrist, on pages 14-15.] There is a bit of rust on the watch. I saw lunar dust on it. It wasn’t covered. There wasn’t tons of it. But it certainly had it.

What did Scott do with the watch after the Apollo 15 mission? He put it into a baggie and kept it in storage for 40 years until he sent it to us.

Does the watch have inherent value? Would it be worth something even if it hadn’t gone to the moon on Scott’s wrist? It sounds like it might, given that it was a prototype designed to win a NASA contract. Even if it never went to the moon, it has collectible value. Interestingly, when I approached Bulova and said I had Dave’s Bulova, which he wore on the moon, they didn’t believe me.

How did you convince Bulova of your claim? Dave had retained documents from Bulova. I had source material that didn’t exist in their archives of Omar Bradley talking about the watch and getting the contract. Then they believed me. [Laughs]

You set an estimate of $750,000. How did you come up with that number? We based it on other artifacts that we had sold for Dave Scott. We sold his rotational hand controller for a similar price, $610,000, and we sold his cuff checklist for $364,000. We felt it was the most important thing that he had in his collection. We recognized that it was the only watch that’s been on the lunar surface that you could own. The government still retains all of the Omega watches. Anything that’s been on the lunar surface has immense value because it’s critical to the mission. This certainly was.

I imagine there was cross-competition for this between watch collectors and space memorabilia collectors. That was exactly what happened. As it got higher, we had dueling collectors of Apollo [material] and watches. They understood the significance of the item. Not only was it on the surface, it was a watch. It crossed over, certainly.

Did you try it on? I did not. The lunar strap had to fit on the space suit, so it was quite long. I used gloves to handle it. I do own a Bulova chronograph replica because it is my favorite thing.

Closeup of part of the velcro strap on the Bulova chronograph that astronaut David Scott wore on the surface of the moon during the Apollo 15 mission.

Do you wear the Bulova chronograph replica every day? Yeah! [laughs]

How did you convince Scott to consign the watch? We knew it existed. It was rumored in the collecting community that he wore it on the EVA. Once he became a client, it did take some effort for him to consign it, but he’s glad he did. It wasn’t the first thing out of storage. We built a relationship with him, and then he said, “I have this watch…”

Does the watch still work? From the time I got it to the time I sold it, it had a little life in it. Somehow, it showed us it still worked. [Between Scott taking the scouting photos of the watch and Livingston receiving the watch, the hands advanced, but it’s not clear when they briefly winked to life.] I wouldn’t wind it. Usually with a watch, you clean it. This watch, you don’t want to clean it. It’s just too important.

A closeup of the dial of the Bulova chronograph that astronaut David Scott wore on the surface of the moon during the Apollo 15 mission.

What was the auction like? We sold it live at our gallery in Boston. All of us worked really hard on the auction. It was a really intense moment, adrenalin pumping. When we exceeded our client’s expectations, it was unbelievable. If I recall correctly, there were five initial bidders. The lot took eight or nine minutes.

Was Scott there in the sale room? No, but he was listening through a computer. We got his reaction at the time. He was very generous and kind to everyone who worked on the auction. He made it about our staff and the auction. I think he understood the importance of getting the object in the hands of a collector who will take care of it. I think that’s what he cares about.

Were you surprised that it sold for $1.6 million? You know, our expectations were $750,000. It was thrilling for it to get to a $1 million bid and keep going [laughs loudly]. That was unbelievable. It was an achievement for us. We don’t sell fine art. We don’t have Banksy shredding his work on our walls. [laughs]

Why will this piece stick in your memory? It crosses so many lines. It’s history. It was important to the mission. It’s a great story. There’s incredible photographic provenance [evidence]. It comes right from him. It tells so many stories of the mission. It has an emotional resonance with me on so many levels. And it went to the moon! [laughs] And came back!

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Images are courtesy of RR Auction.

In case you missed it above, here’s the link to the digital version of the dedicated catalog that RR Auctions produced for the Bulova chronograph.

And in case you missed it above, here’s video of Dave Scott performing Galileo’s gravity experiment on the surface of the moon during the Apollo 15 mission.

And here’s a short video segment on the sale of the watch.

Livingston spoke to The Hot Bid previously about Dave Scott’s Apollo 17-flown Robbins medal and spoke in 2017 about a ring that Clyde Barrow made in prison to give to his girlfriend, Bonnie Parker.

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(UPDATE) RECORD: A Game-Worn 1920 Babe Ruth Jersey Hit a Grand Slam at SCP Auctions in 2012

  
A circa 1920 gray flannel road jersey with the words New York across the front in blue, worn by Babe Ruth. It sold for $4.4 million in 2012.

Update: On June 15, 2019, Hunt Auctions sold a game-worn Babe Ruth jersey with the word “YANKEES” sewn across the chest for $5.64 million, setting a new record for any item of sports memorabilia.

What you see: A road gray, game-worn New York Yankees jersey that was worn by Babe Ruth. SCP Auctions sold it for $4.4 million in May 2012, setting a record for any item of sports memorabilia at auction.

How rare are game-worn Babe Ruth baseball uniforms? “If you count them all, it’s ten. If you’re talking Yankees, it’s less than half a dozen,” says SCP Vice President Dan Imler, adding that SCP has handled five of the ten.

Ruth was recognized as a superstar in his time. Why weren’t more game-worn Babe Ruth uniforms saved, even as mementoes? “In his era, even the Yankees were fairly frugal,” he says. “It was typical to issue only two home uniforms and two road uniforms for the entire season, and they were considered to be disposable. [Once the season was over,] they would send them to the minor leagues as a cost-saving measure. That’s how a lot of [pre-1970 game-worn baseball uniforms] come to market–a player in the minors is issued a major-league jersey and doesn’t go on to a career, but he keeps his jersey.”

I understand that SCP Auctions uncovered some information that made the jersey even more valuable? “There was an undiscovered element to the jersey,” Imler says. “Before it came to us, we knew it was a Babe Ruth Yankees road uniform in all-original condition, but it was not dated until it reached us. We were able to date it to 1920, which elevated it quite a bit.”

How did you pinpoint the jersey’s date to 1920? “Through photo-matching. Also, it has cut sleeves [shorter sleeves than standard issue]. We were able to find images of Ruth with cut sleeves from that period,” he says.

Your colleague, SCP President David Kohler, called the Ruth road jersey “The finest sports artifact we’ve handled in our 30-year history.” Do you agree? “I absolutely agree with that. It’s arguably the finest piece of baseball memorabilia to surface anywhere,” Imler says. “You have to start with Ruth. Ruth is on a level all his own. When it comes to baseball memorabilia, he is the king. There’s nothing more coveted than a jersey or a uniform he work on his back in the most critical period of baseball history. Any Ruth uniform would be paramount, but he wore it in the earliest part of his career, when he transformed and resurrected the game. It checks all the boxes. It has everything you could ask for.”

Well, maybe not everything. Would it have sold for even more if it was a home jersey–if it had the famous Yankees pinstripes? “I don’t think so. I don’t think anyone looked at it as if it was lacking anything,” he says. “I don’t think anyone was wanting more from it.”

SCP estimated the jersey at $2 million and up. Was it difficult to arrive at that estimate?  “Any sports object in seven figures is very uncommon. Multiple seven figures is very rare territory,” he says. “It was a lofty estimate at the time, but the market spoke and it sold for more than double that estimate. It validated the quality we believed it possessed.”

What factors drove the record price? “It was the best of the best in every category,” Imler says. “It was Babe Ruth. The quality was off the charts. It was completely original. It was from the most pivotal point in his career. And the fact that so few Ruth-worn jerseys come up–it was a huge call to action for high-end clients. When an item like this presents itself, you never know when you’re going to get another shot.”

How long do you think the record will stand? “Certainly this same jersey, if it was ever offered again, would surpass the previous sale price. I could see the record being topped in the next five years if something comparable surfaced,” Imler says, adding that he is not aware of another item, aside from the jersey itself, that could beat the auction record.

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RECORD! Marilyn Monroe’s Happy Birthday Mr. President Dress Sells for $4.8 Million at Julien’s

 
Marilyn Monroe's Happy Birthday Mr. President dress is flesh-colored and covered with 2,500 crystals that were hand-sewn on.

What you see: The gown that Marilyn Monroe wore to serenade President John F. Kennedy in May 1962 at a Democratic fundraiser that also marked his 45th birthday. Julien’s sold Marilyn Monroe’s “Happy Birthday Mr. President” Dress in November 2016 for $4.8 million, a record for any dress sold at auction.

The expert: Martin Nolan, executive director of Julien’s Auctions.

Looking at black-and-white tape of Monroe’s performance on YouTube, it seems that a dimension has been lost. Can you talk about why Marilyn Monroe’s Happy Birthday Mr. President dress made the crowd gasp, and why JFK joked that he could “retire from politics after having had ‘Happy Birthday’ sung to him in such a sweet and wholesome way”? First of all, she had agreed that she’d wear a conservative black dress. But she knew the power of voting, and knew the power of singing at Madison Square Garden, and it was just before her 36th birthday. She was so in tune with the importance of that event. She took her white stole off and stepped to the left of the podium because she didn’t want it to block her in anyway. There was an amazing reaction when the lights bounced off the crystals–15,000 gasps. It looked like she was wearing nothing. You and I are talking about it today, and 50 years from now, we’ll talk about that moment.

So the skin-tight, flesh-colored dress was her idea? She asked [costumier] Jean Louis to make her something that would wow the crowd. Bob Mackie, who was just out of college and 22 years old, drew the sketches for the dress. We sold them a few years ago. 2,500 crystals were hand-stitched onto the dress. Monroe paid for it herself and had matching shoes. We sold the receipt for the dress as well. She spent $6,000 on it [the outfit and related items] which is over $60,000 today–a huge amount of money, a huge investment. She didn’t think about the cost factor. She was thinking about the ‘Wow’ factor. She was very aware of the importance of the event.

Could you talk about what Monroe went through when she wore this dress? I understand that she was sewn into it. Also, in looking at the period tape, her movements are clearly restricted. At one point we see her jumping very vertically to rally the crowd to sing. Was the dress as uncomfortable as it looked? The dress was fragile and difficult to walk in. The stitching was done just below the zip line at the back of the dress. It took a few minutes for her to get from the dressing room to the stage. It was distant, and she could not run, because she was wearing heels. She shimmied her way on stage, wrapped in the cloak, and master of ceremonies Peter Lawford announced her as “the late Marilyn Monroe.” Three months later, she was the late Marilyn Monroe. [She died on August 5, 1962.] Fox promised to fire her if she was late [she was filming Something’s Got to Give at the time, and the studio did not want her to travel across the country and potentially delay the shoot.] She risked it all to go to New York. When she got back, she was fired from the set.

Do we know where that white fur stole went? It got separated from the dress. Monroe passed away in August 1962. She had no family members. Attorneys for her estate put everything from her house into storage. The boxes got shipped back to Lee Strasberg [her  mentor and acting teacher], where they stayed until 1999. The dress was first uncovered for the Christie’s estate sale [in October 1999]. We have not found the fur stole, but believe me, I’m searching for it and the shoes.

How much more would the dress be worth if it were part of a complete stage-worn Marilyn Monroe outfit? It’d be hundreds of thousands extra if we found the shoes and the stole. It would be phenomenal to have them all together.

What condition is Marilyn Monroe’s Happy Birthday Mr. President dress in? It’s in perfect condition, absolutely perfect condition. The consigner [who won the Christie’s auction in 1999] enlisted experts to build a ‘conservative’ mannequin to preserve the shape of the dress. The knee is positioned out so it supports the weight of the dress. The special mannequin was in a special display case with UV-protective glass. Very clever. He [the winner] believed he’d sell it for a profit. The underbidder [in 1999] was Ripley’s Believe It or Not! When the dress came back to auction, Ripley’s was bound and determined not to let it get away.

Do we know how much the dress weighs? It would weigh several pounds. Place 2,500 crystals in a bag or a bowl–that’s a lot of weight right there.

How did you arrive at the estimate of $2 million to $3 million for Marilyn Monroe’s Happy Birthday Mr. President dress? We truly believed that if it fetched $1.27 million in 1999, there had to be a level of appreciation in the dress. It had to double its money. Its historic and political value, matched up with Hollywood history, affected the value of the dress. We felt it would sell for at least $2 million.

What was your role in the auction? I was on the phone with a museum. Everyone [who bid] had to be pre-qualified. It came down to two bidders in the room. The energy in the room was just phenomenal. Marilyn Monroe is beloved worldwide. She’s still relevant and still gets high prices.

Marilyn Monroe dominates the auction records for clothing, but it’s interesting that this dress, which she wore in real life, is now number one, ahead of a white dress she might have worn while standing over the subway grate in The Seven Year Itch. It’s definitely significant. She was not in character in a movie. This was purely Marilyn Monroe singing to JFK, a love affair made public. There was a lot of speculation and a lot of rumors about a romantic relationship between Monroe and JFK, and after this event, people realized there was something to the rumors [laughs]. She disregarded the 15,000 people in the room. It was just her and President Kennedy in those 90 seconds.

How long will this auction record stand? What else is out there that could beat Marilyn Monroe’s Happy Birthday Mr. President dress? I can’t think of anything else that would be so iconic.

Why will this dress stick in your memory? In 2005, I had a wish list. I said what I’d love to auction is Michael Jackson’s red jacket from Thriller, and that came true in 2011.  The next was Monroe’s Happy Birthday Mr. President dress. Now I’m looking for a pair of ruby slippers [worn in 1939’s The Wizard of Oz]. That could potentially be $5 million, but there’s only one Happy Birthday dress. It’s presidential history and Hollywood mixed together.

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Image is courtesy of Julien’s Auctions.

Martin Nolan previously spoke to The Hot Bid about a Joseff of Hollywood simulated diamond necklace worn by Hedy Lamarr, Ava Gardner, and several other Hollywood actresses; a once-lost 1962 Gibson acoustic guitar belonging to John Lennon that sold for $2.4 million–a record for any guitar at auction; and a purple tunic worn by Prince.

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RECORD! A Clapperboard from Steven Spielberg’s “Jaws” Sold for Almost $110,000 (Updated December 2018)

   
A wooden clapperboard that Steven Spielberg used on the set of the 1975 blockbuster horror movie, Jaws. Its clapper is shaped and painted to resemble a row of shark's teeth.

Update: The Jaws clapperboard sold again as lot 1423 in a Profiles in History auction in December 2018. PIH estimated it at $60,000 to $80,000, and reported on its Twitter account that it sold for $128,000.

What you see: A wooden clapperboard that Steven Spielberg used on the set of the 1975 blockbuster horror movie, Jaws. Prop Store sold it in September 2016 for £84,000, or $109,000–a record for any filmset-used clapperboard at auction.

The expert: Stephen Lane, CEO and founder of Prop Store.

When did major film productions stop using wooden clapperboards and start using digital ones? That’s tough to answer. Probably in the early 1990s it started to happen. There are still productions today that use analog acrylic clapperboards. There’s still a crossover going on.

How often do set-used clapperboards from legendary films come to auction? I don’t know of any clapperboards sold at this level previously.

What was the previous auction record for a set-used clapperboard? Probably a second unit Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back clapperboard, which sold for £27,500 a few years ago. Clapperboards are something that collectors locked onto within the last five years. The collectors we speak with aspire to collect objects that were used before the camera.

It strikes me that even before the collecting mentality became ingrained, set-used clapperboards were likely to have been saved because they say, ‘Hey! We made a film!’ Is that a fair assumption? It’s a double-edged sword. A lot of clapperboards come directly from crew members who worked on the films. A lot bring them home from every film they’ve ever worked on, and hang them on the wall and will never part with them. With some clapperboards, the information was taken off to rewrite it for the next film. I’ve seen clapperboards from Star Wars and Indiana Jones, but I’ve never seen one for Wizard of Oz or Gone With the Wind. They probably finished the film, got the paint off it, and got the clapperboard ready for the next film. There was a huge amount of recycling.

Have you handled any other set-used clapperboards from Steven Spielberg films? We had a Raiders of the Lost Ark clapperboard in 2014, a small insert clapperboard. They make them in a variety of different sizes. For a shot on the top of a mountain in Lord of the Rings, they [the LOTR crew] made one that was 8 feet wide. I’ve seen other Indiana Jones ones but clapperboards are tough to pin down. There’s not a huge volume of those around and they don’t pop up very often.

What details on this clapperboard, aside from the obvious, prove that it is a genuine set-used clapperboard from the filming of Jaws? It’s incredibly distinctive. It’s very specific, with the cut teeth, which was hugely endearing to a number of collectors. And there’s a photo of Steven Spielberg holding the clapperboard on the set. It was not only used in Jaws and made for Jaws, Steven Spielberg held it on the set. That’s part of the huge appeal of this particular piece.

How big a deal is it to have this period photo of Spielberg holding the clapperboard? Would the clapperboard be worth less if the photo did not exist? Yes, I would say so. Because they were wiped and redetailed with chalk, it’s very unusual for final shot info to be retained on an individual clapperboard. A lot of these slates originated as rental items that productions used to hire. To get one with all the info on it and match it against a photo, it’s very tough.

Is it unique? No, I’ve had a couple of screen-matched boards in the past. But it’s rare, especially for a significant film.

Do we know how many clapperboards were made for Jaws and used on the set? There’s no record whatsoever. I can say quite comfortably that’s the only Jaws clapperboard that’s ever come to market.

As you mentioned before, the clapperboard is decorated with a line of shark teeth. If it lacked that cool little flourish, would it still have made a record price? Again it’s tough for me to speculate. I hadn’t seen a Jaws clapperboard before. I think it [the lack of the teeth detail] would have definitely impacted it, but I can’t say it’d be 20 percent less valuable. It is one of the most endearing features of the board.

How often do you see decorative flourishes like that on a clapperboard? Almost never. The most elaborate thing you get these days is the film logo laser etched on an acrylic clapperboard. You don’t see ones that are nearly as entertaining as this.

What was your role in the auction? I was in the room. I went and sat with the consigner. He wanted to be part of the experience of it selling. Because of the level of interest prior to the auction, we knew it was going to be an exciting moment. It got a massive amount of publicity. People loved it and the press ran with it. It was such an exciting moment for him and for me. He was over the moon, and I was over the moon with him.

Can you talk about how the consigner reacted? He got more and more excited. He looked at the screen, he looked at me, then back at the screen, and his jaw dropped a bit more. After it finished he had to leave the room, he was so excited. He had to have a drink to calm his nerves.

When did you know you had a new world auction record? By the time it got to £30,000. At that point, we were there.

How long do you think this record will stand? I haven’t seen anything that comes remotely close to this. Maybe if a Star Wars: A New Hope clapperboard came up, but it’s unlikely any survive. If a Wizard of Oz or a Gone With the Wind clapperboard came up, they’d be worth tens of thousands. This really was the perfect storm. An interesting-looking clapperboard, the most interesting film in Spielberg’s back catalog, brilliantly documented, and a huge amount of production use. It ticked all the boxes you want to tick.

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Prop Store’s September 20, 2018 auction will include Harrison Ford’s screen-worn Han Solo jacket from Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back, Rose’s farewell note from Titanic, and also a Jaws lot with 40 storyboard pages and a crew t-shirt.

Image is courtesy of Prop Store.

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WHOA! That 1834 Ornithological Book Sold for $100,000

 
An 1834 first edition of Oiseaux brillans du Brésil by Jean Théodore Descourtilz. Pictured is the Red Curlew plate from the book.

Update: The 1834 first edition of Oiseaux brillans du Brésil by Jean Théodore Descourtilz sold for $100,000–about five times what Heritage Auctions expected, and a record for this book at auction.

What you see: An 1834 first edition of Oiseaux brillans du Brésil by Jean Théodore Descourtilz. Heritage Auctions estimates it around $20,000. Featured above is the Red Curlew plate from the book.

The expert: James Gannon, director of rare books for Heritage Auctions.

I see the quote in the lot notes from Rubens Borba de Moraes, the former director of the United Nations library in New York, saying, “This book is so rare that I had begun to doubt its existence,” but how many copies are there? Do we know? From what we can tell, we think this is the fifth known copy.

Can you talk about how the book came to be? Was Descourtilz the illustrator? He did illustrate it. It was toward the end of the color plate period, which ran from 1790 to 1830. It was fairly early for a hand-colored ornithological [bird] book. Audubon was contemporaneous in the 1830s. This book was never published. It was issued, and someone made lithographs that were then hand-colored, but it was never published, and never had a table of contents or text. The lithographic plates were put together in a book. I don’t know much about Descourtilz. I’d never heard of him before the book crossed my path. His dad was a botanist and a physician who did a book on the flora of the Antilles. Descourtilz did the illustrations for his father’s book. It’s better known because it was published.

The book is described as a first edition, but it was not published. Why might it have been made? It was probably a mockup, made to engender interest from publishers and get the money to be able to produce the book.

Was it intended to be sold by subscription, as Audubon’s Birds of America was?Maybe the [60] plates were issued in five groups of 12. That was the style then. Audubon published in parts. The reason they did it was so they could start reaping profits against their costs sooner.

The lot notes say the ornithological book has 60 plates. Does that mean it’s complete? I don’t know, but there’s no reason to think there were more. We call it complete. Other copies might have a similar number or a lesser number. Whether he envisioned an epic work like Audubon, we don’t know.

Are all the plates in the ornithological book as vibrant as the Red Curlew plate, shown above? Pretty much. I think it’s just a matter of [the book] being closed. We don’t know much about where it came from beyond being in the same family for decades. It probably was not handled very much over the almost 200 years since it was made.

The lot notes say the ornithological book‘s illustrations are “heightened with gum arabic.” How did that detailing enhance the plates? Gum arabic is a clear sheen, almost a clear varnish. Lots of color plate books use it. You’d put it over the color in certain places so it created a sheen when you looked at it. It makes the plates look more vibrant, and it catches the light in different places. It would help make the plates stand out. [The effect is not visible in the photo shown.]

The book is French, but it has no text. Does that make it more appealing to American collectors, or does it not matter? It doesn’t matter in this case, because it wasn’t issued with text. The collector for this is someone who collects bird books or hand-colored plate books. Anyone sophisticated enough to spend tens of thousands on a book understands why it has no text.

And we don’t know why it wasn’t published? Descourtilz may never have found the backing. Maybe there were other reasons why it was never published. It was certainly publishable if the right circumstances existed. If there was a similar kind of thing for Audubon [Birds of America], where Audubon made lithographs and had them hand-colored to get the backing, get the money [to make it]–if that existed, it’d really be worth a lot, because it predated the book.

How did this ornithological book come to you? It came through another person on staff. She told me the family had had it for a long time, decades. The consigner had a connection to one of the people listed in the front of the book, which is why I think it sat for 80 to 100 years on a shelf. It didn’t get looked at by book fairs and dealers. They [the family] probably didn’t think about it for a long time.

How did you arrive at a value for this ornithological book? It hasn’t come on the auction market. There are so few copies around. Probably, other collectors and dealers have never seen it. There may be more copies we don’t know about that have never become public. If it sold for mid-five figures, we’d be satisfied.

What was it like to look at it for the first time? I didn’t see it until it had been researched by [Heritage Auctions] staff. We knew it was special, and we knew we wanted to use it in the advertising campaign [for the auction].

What is it like to leaf through it, and how does that experience compare to handling Audubon’s Birds of America? I’ve seen Audubon many times. Here, everything is a surprise, everything is new. Many of the plates are stunningly beautiful.

Why will it stick in your memory? How rare it is to see this book. There aren’t many around. Many more people have seen our catalog cover with the Red Curlew on it than have actually seen the book.

How to bid: Oiseaux brillans du Brésil is lot #45090 in the Rare Books & Maps Signature Auction at Heritage Auctions on September 13, 2018.

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Image is courtesy of Heritage Auctions.

James Gannon has appeared three other times on The Hot Bid, speaking about the typewriters Larry McMurtry used to write Lonesome Dove; a British first edition of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone that ultimately sold for a world auction record; and an inscribed presentation copy of Jack Keroauc’s On the Road.

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RECORD! A Near-complete Dodo Skeleton Sold for $430,000 in 2016

 
A nearly complete (95 percent) Dodo skeleton, assembled by a collector over the course of four decades. Maybe a dozen similarly complete Dodo skeletons exist, and all of them are in museums. In November 2016, Summers Place Auctions sold it for £280,000, or about $430,000, a world auction record for a Dodo skeleton.

What you see: A nearly complete (95 percent) Dodo skeleton, assembled by a collector over the course of four decades. Maybe a dozen similarly complete Dodo skeletons exist, and all of them are in museums. In November 2016, Summers Place Auctions sold it for £280,000, or about $430,000, a world auction record for a Dodo skeleton.

The expert: Rupert van der Werff, director of Summers Place Auctions.

How abundant are Dodo bones, generally? Are some harder to get than others, making it difficult to piece together a fuller skeleton? The way bones are found are by people walking through the swamp [on Mauritius]. Given that they come from one small swamp on one small island from one small species, they’ve never been particularly abundant.

When did Mauritius ban the export of Dodo bones? It became illegal in 2016, but it was generally considered unacceptable post-World War II.

Did the collector who consigned the skeleton set out to piece one together, or did he realize after several years that he had a nearly complete Dodo skeleton? He was a passionate collector of all things Dodo-related. He’d been acquiring bones as they popped up. He came to the realization that he may well have a skeleton, started piecing it together, and realized he did indeed have a skeleton.

How did the nearly complete Dodo skeleton come to you? We’ve sold a diplodocus, a mammoth, and an allosaurus–we’ve had some pretty fabulous star lots. The publicity and the prices we managed to achieve certainly alerted the person to us. In a way, it was natural for him to come to us.

But how did you learn of the Dodo skeleton’s existence and come to receive it? I got a call. He said what he had. It was so unlikely, but there was a chance it could actually be true. He was a few hours away. I popped in my car and went as soon as it was practicable. It was in his shed. He had mounted it. Even I, who wouldn’t pretend to be an expert, could see it was the real deal. I took pictures, talked to the owner, picked it up, and drove very carefully back to work to start the publicity rolling.

What do you do in a moment like that? I mean, he may as well have shown you a unicorn skeleton. Did you try to maintain a poker face? It is something of a Holy Grail in terms of natural history. If I’d tried to remain straight-faced, it wouldn’t have worked. It was quite extraordinary, not something I ever dreamed would happen.

How did you put an estimate on the nearly complete Dodo skeleton? There aren’t really Dodo comparables other than the skeleton that sold in 1914. I tried to negotiate with the owner for the lowest estimate he would consider acceptable and use the auction for what auctions can do–establish what something is worth on any one day.

What was your role in the auction? I was on the phone with a a pretty serious collector we’ve done a lot of business with in the past.

Were you surprised by the result? I was pleased it sold, of course. But when you find something as rare as this, as iconic as this, as exciting as this, you can’t help but getting a little carried away in your imagination and think it can go on and on.

In the material that Summers Place assembled to promote the Dodo, you noted that the last time a Dodo skeleton sold was in 1914. The Cardiff Museum paid £350 for it, but you estimate that because Britain was on the gold standard back then, the sum is equivalent to £5 million, or $6.5 million. Does this mean that the 2016 bidder got a bargain? I think so. As far as anyone knows, there’s only one in private hands. Any future discoveries belong to Mauritius. It’s unique. That word is used a lot in the art world, but it’s rarely true. In this case, it actually is. Frankly, it could have made anything [sold for anything].

And the only way this record will be beaten is if this particular Dodo skeleton returns to auction? Yes. There are no others unless a museum deaccessions, which isn’t going to happen. If it’s back to market, that’s the only chance there is.

Why are we still so fascinated by the Dodo, a bird that went extinct centuries ago? It’s clearly quite an unusual animal, and it does look a bit unfortunate. To think it existed on one little island in the Indian Ocean 300 years ago and man wiped it out, it’s incredibly sad. If it were a better-looking animal, it wouldn’t figure in the public consciousness. But it’s got a great name and an unfortunate look. Like a T-Rex, everyone has heard of one. And there are more relatively complete T-Rex skeletons than Dodo skeletons, which puts it into perspective, and shows you how special it is.

Why does this Dodo skeleton stick in your memory? Because I never considered… when I got the opportunity to include a diplodocus, I couldn’t believe it. Never in 100 years would I dream of handling a diplodocus skeleton. It’s right up there, one of the icons of natural history. If I handle a T-Rex, that’d also be incredible, and there’s probably more of a chance of getting a T-Rex than a Dodo. If anything, things like this almost transcend monetary value. It’s surprising that a private individual was able to secure it.

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Image is courtesy of Summers Place Auctions.

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RECORD! The Preakness Trophy Given to Alfred Vanderbilt, Jr., Owner of Native Dancer, Sells for $100,000

A sterling silver Preakness Trophy, won in 1953 by Alfred Gwynne Vanderbilt, Jr., owner of the thoroughbred Native Dancer. Doyle sold it in May 2018 for $100,000 against an estimate of $20,000 to $30,000, which is a world auction record for a Preakness Trophy.

What you see: A sterling silver Preakness Trophy, won in 1953 by Alfred Gwynne Vanderbilt, Jr., owner of the thoroughbred Native Dancer. Doyle sold it in May 2018 for $100,000 against an estimate of $20,000 to $30,000, which is a world auction record for a Preakness Trophy.

The expert: Peter Costanzo, senior vice president at Doyle as well as its executive director for books, autographs, and photographs; coins, bank notes, and postage stamps; and estate and appraisal services.

How often do Triple Crown trophies come to auction? Infrequently, and for the Preakness, it’s even less frequently. What you normally see are Kentucky Derby Trophies. They’re highly prized by the families who win them. Kentucky Derby Trophies tend to be valuable. The race has name recognition and the trophy is made out of high-karat gold. The Preakness Trophy is made of silver. A Preakness trophy sold at Christie’s on January 17, 2008, won in 1970 by Personality, which was owned by Ethel D.Jacobs, a very notable horse owner, sort of on a par with Vanderbilt. [He later provided a link to a story that mentioned a third sale of a Preakness Trophy at SCP Auctions in November 2017. Scroll down for the mention.]

How much is this trophy worth simply as a Preakness Trophy, without factoring in the names of Vanderbilt and Native Dancer? Any winner of the Preakness would be a notable horse, bred and raised and trained by notable owners. You’ve got to go back a ways to find a no-name. The Preakness trophy was not available before 1953. The original trophy was the Woodlawn Vase, a pre-Civil War trophy made by Tiffany & Co. for a racecourse in Kentucky called Woodlawn. Not until the late 19th or the early 20th century did Pimlico host the Preakness–the vase was not made for Pimlico. It passed to the next winner until 1953, when Native Dancer won. Vanderbilt decided that the original trophy was too valuable, and should be safely held in the Baltimore Art Museum. 1953 was the first time a replica trophy was issued, and that’s what we sold. It’s notable in that it was the first one you could get. I think that helped its price in the end.

How did the Vanderbilt name affect the value of the 1953 Preakness trophy? Lots of people collect things related to prominent Vanderbilts. The cross-current of competition [with collectors of horse-racing memorabilia] helped drive the price up. This trophy belonged to Alfred Gwynne Vanderbilt, Jr., and was sold [consigned] by Alfred Gwynne Vanderbilt III. Vanderbilt Jr., was very influential in the history of American racing and particularly in Maryland.

And how did the Native Dancer name affect the value of the trophy? Native Dancer is one of a small group of horses that lost the Kentucky Derby but won the Preakness. That’s the only mar on his record. He was a big favorite going into the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness. In 1953, the Preakness was shown on live television and got huge national attention. The country fell in love with Native Dancer.

How did you arrive at the estimate of $20,000 to $30,000? We matched the estimate on the trophy sold at Christie’s in 2008. That sold for $32,200. Ours really took off.

What is the 1953 Preakness trophy like in person? It wasn’t huge, but it was imposing, though. It had a very nice look to it, and it was in good condition. I think it was two-thirds the size of the original Woodlawn Vase. It’s a good, presentable size.

What was your role in the auction? Were you in the room? I acted as a specialist. I wrote the essay about the horse and its owner. The silver specialist cataloged it. And I was there, watching it sell. The whole thing took maybe two minutes. There was a pretty big pool of bidders that dropped down to two once it was over $60,000.

How long do you think the record will stand? I think this Preakness record should stand for a while. Probably none of the owners of horses that won the Preakness have the name recognition of the Vanderbilt family. It would probably have to belong to a horse that won the Triple Crown.

Why will this piece stick in your memory? It’s a major sports collectible, probably the highest-ranking sports collectible I’ve ever sold. It’s a case of a fantastic owner, Vanderbilt, with a fantastic horse, Native Dancer, and the Preakness. It’s hard to get trophies for major horses. That’s why it’s special. The trophy clearly spoke to a lot of people.

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Image is courtesy of Doyle.

Doyle is on Twitter and Instagram.

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RECORD! A Walter Dorwin Teague Nocturne Radio Sold for $149,000

A Nocturne radio, model 1186, designed by Walter Dorwin Teague for the Sparton Corporation in 1935.

What you see: A Nocturne radio, model 1186, designed by Walter Dorwin Teague for the Sparton Corporation in 1935. Wright sold it in November 2015 for $149,000 against an estimate of $70,000 to $90,000–a record for any work by Teague.

The expert: Richard Wright, president of Wright auction house.

Sparton unveiled the Nocturne radio in 1935, during the Great Depression. It was priced at $350 to $375, which means it almost cost as much as a car. Who would have been the market for this high-end radio? It was always a Cadillac premium item, not intended for the masses. They didn’t sell a lot of them, but it was marketed to high-end posh interiors–hotels and similar venues. They did it as futuristic branding of the company as opposed to selling a lot of these.

I look at the Nocturne radio and to me, sitting here in the 21st century, it still seems futuristic. Do we know how the public reacted to the radio at the time? People looked at it and felt optimistic about the future. The fact that it came out at the depths of the Great Depression spoke to the idea that there was real hope and promise in technology. Things are different today, but the promise is out there that technology can make the world better. We still do that. Computers and technology products tend to be futuristic in design.

This represents an auction record for a work by Walter Dorwin Teague, but is it also an auction record for any radio? It seems to be, but I can’t verify that. There are auction databases, but you can’t just search on radios. Enigma machines have a radio component, but that’s a different category. For a straightforward radio, I do think it’s a record.

Could you explain what the yellow dial at the top does? I think it’s the frequency tuner. This radio works but we were very reluctant to plug it in. I didn’t play around with all the things it could do.

And the black box at the bottom is the speaker? Yes.

And the ladder structure and the blue glass–is it decorative or functional? Does the glass help amplify the sound? It’s purely aesthetic. There’s no functional aspect to that.

About two dozen Nocturne radios survive, and they pop up at auction every now and again. How does this one compare to the other examples? This was a particularly good one. It had been incredibly restored, and there had been a carefully documented restoration of it. There’s a relatively small number of buyers for these today. The best buyers for us for these have been museums.

What is the Nocturne radio like in person? It’s impressive. I think the reason it’s collected today is it’s a visually iconic symbol of industrial design and American Art Deco. To your point, it still looks very modern today and very pared down and pure in its expression. And it’s big, physically big. It was meant to be a real show-stopper. There was a tabletop version. I think it was called a Bluebird. There are many more of those, but it doesn’t at all have the presence of the Nocturne. This is bigger, and you can see yourself in it. It’s a pretty interesting experience to stand in front of it.

What does it sound like? I did hear it on. I didn’t play with it, didn’t tune it to different bands. It’s hard to gauge the sound quality. We’re pretty spoiled now [as far as expectations of sound quality]. It has a pretty big sound, but a mono speaker.

What drove the price of this Nocturne radio so high? There were five active bidders, which is significant at that level. I think it was a fantastic example, historically documented, we did a good job telling its story, and it had the nice element that part of the proceeds went to charity. If you were waiting to buy one, this was the one to buy, and people recognized that.

How did you arrive at the estimate of $70,000 to $90,000? It was based on comparables that existed. We’d handled Nocturnes before, and we knew this was a great one. The estimate was fairly aggressive. We did sell one in 2003 to the Dallas Museum of Art for over $100,000 on an estimate of $50,000 to $70,000. The consigner was the widow of the radio enthusiast, but she had a good sense of the market. She also played a part [in the estimate]. She wanted to honor her husband’s legacy and wanted a significant price, for sure.

What was your role in the auction? I was the auctioneer. I don’t remember much. Auctioneering is very much a flow activity. You’re very concentrated. You try to respond with energy and try not to make a mistake and then you go to the next lot.

When did you know you had a record? Records are nice, but it wasn’t first and foremost in my mind. I didn’t go into it hoping to break a record, but I know the benchmarks. I handled the consignment myself.  It was her husband’s legacy, his favorite radio. I felt proud that I had told the story of the radio, put it online, linked to her husband’s blog, and got a great result. That’s the best of my work. I helped myself, I helped somebody, and I preserved history. I feel super-proud of that. And I want it [the lot listing] to be out there as a resource for people who find it.

What else is out there by Walter Dorwin Teague that could challenge this record? Teague designed a wide range of things. Nothing else would touch it in his oeuvre. It’d be another Nocturne. That’s the only thing that would get back up there.

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Wright is on Twitter and Instagram.

The Nocturne’s previous owner, the late Roger E. Dillon, created a website about the exquisite radio and how he restored it.

Image is courtesy of Wright.

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RECORD! A Harold Dunbar Cape Cod Scene Sold for $78,000

 
A Young Woman and a Captain on an Evening Stroll, Likely Chatham, Massachusetts, an undated but probably circa 1920s oil on board by Harold Dunbar. Eldred's sold it in August 2017 for $78,000 against an estimate of $3,000 to $5,000--stomping the artist's previous auction record several times over.

What you see: A Young Woman and a Captain on an Evening Stroll, Likely Chatham, Massachusetts, an undated but probably circa 1920s oil on board by Harold Dunbar. Eldred’s sold it in August 2017 for $78,000 against an estimate of $3,000 to $5,000–stomping the artist’s previous auction record several times over.

The expert: Joshua Eldred, president of Eldred’s and head of its fine arts department.

First, let’s talk about the artist who made this work, Harold Dunbar. What can you tell me about him? There are two distinct parts of his career. When he was younger he lived in Canton, Massachusetts. He was a gifted Impressionist painter, and if he stayed that course, he might be better regarded than he is today. In the 1910s, he moved to Chatham, Massachusetts, and he started to work for the tourist trade. He could paint local scenes of Chatham fairly quickly, and he sold them to tourists and locals for a tidy sum. Lore says he had quite the alcohol issue. We see a real variety of quality in his later era–some paintings where he didn’t give his all, and others that are much better.

Did this work have a name when it came to you? No, it did not have a name. We applied the name.

This has been described as Harold Dunbar’s best work. What makes it so? Obviously it’s a very subjective thing to say. In my opinion it’s in the top five. It’s certainly the best we’ve ever handled. The thing that really grabs people is the woman. She’s looking right at you and she’s almost talking to you, like she’s trying to draw you into the painting. Her pose, the way her head is cocked, the way she’s looking toward the viewer, it’s really dramatic.

How do we know the landscape shows the Cape Cod town of Chatham? There’s a bit of debate about that now. Some feel it might be Truro instead. We can’t say it’s an exact point in Chatham. There’s a bit of a debate about exactly where it is on the Cape, but we’re fairly sure it’s Truro now.

Do we know if Harold Dunbar used models for this, and if so, do we know who the models were? I don’t know. I suspect he did. He didn’t do an awful lot of figurative work.

What makes this painting stand out among Harold Dunbar’s works? The prominent figures, the work is a fairly large size for him, and the quality is outstanding. He obviously puts a lot of time and effort into it. On the quality scale of his Cape Cod works, it’s a 10.

How many Dunbars have you handled? How have you seen his market change over time? We’ve handled probably 500 Dunbars. The market for him has been pretty steady. There’s always been pretty solid demand, particularly on the cape. They’re bright, cheerful, and fairly easy and popular sells.

How did the Harold Dunbar painting find its way to you? It came in to an art dealer in a shop in Denver, Colorado last summer. The dealer called us to refer the consigner, and shipped the painting out. It was not where you expect to find a Dunbar. My suspicion is someone who was probably here originally left the area. We didn’t see a public record of it being sold. None of the local dealers and collectors recalled seeing it on the market before.

Did that prompt a concern that it might be fake? Are fakes a problem with Dunbar’s work? That didn’t concern us at all. There actually have been a few fakes out there, but they’re pretty easy to spot. A lot of the “fakes” that we see are not intentionally faked, but people thinking, “If I put a signature on it, I can make a couple hundred bucks.”

© Robert C. Eldred Co., Inc.

What was it like to see the Harold Dunbar painting show up? It was exciting. We looked at it and said, “Wow, this is the best Dunbar we’ve ever seen.” It was a nice moment to unpack it. I put it on the cover of the catalog not thinking it would bring that kind of money, but because I thought it was a powerful image.

How did you arrive at the estimate of $3,000 to $5,000 for the Harold Dunbar painting? Estimates are always a tricky thing. As an auctioneer, you want the estimate to be fair but conservative. In this case, the Dunbar auction record up to that point was $5,000. It was a very nice harbor painting that we sold about 10 years before. Only about five percent of his works had broken the $3,000 barrier. Conservative estimates are better, but a lot of people get caught up in the moment and bid what they want to bid. I thought if they got caught up, on a great day, the Dunbar might sell for $10,000 to $15,000.

When did you get a notion that the Harold Dunbar painting might do better than $5,000? We had a preview two weeks before the sale, and it was very, very well-received. Dunbar collectors loved it. Even those who didn’t care about Dunbar loved it.

What was your role in the auction? I am one of the principal auctioneers, but I did not auction the Dunbar. I was a bystander.

What do you remember of the sale? I think it started around $5,000. There were two very active people in the room, and it quickly got around $15,000. After $15,000, there was one bidder on the phone and one in the room who bid it up to the final price. The person who bought it was in the room, and the underbidder was on the phone.

What was your reaction when you saw the Harold Dunbar painting glide past $15,000? I would have been pleased with $15,000. Once it got to $20,000, I was shocked. It was a surprise to everybody. Two people desperately had to have it, and it became a battle.

© Robert C. Eldred Co., Inc.

Why do you think they fought so hard for it? I think the painting just spoke to them. This is just my analysis of it–I haven’t spoken to either of them. This is a wonderful Cape Cod painting. Everyone was taken in by the female figure. It’s a pleasing painting, a relaxing painting. You can picture yourself walking on a Cape Cod evening and passing her. It was one of those moments. And there’s mystery around the painting, too. The man is much older. Is it her father? Her husband? People had fun figuring out what the story was. At one point, I thought it might be a commissioned work or an illustration for a story, but there’s no proof. That’s complete conjecture on my part.

How long do you think this record will stand? Could any other Harold Dunbar painting challenge it? I know of nothing out there that would be available for sale at any point that could challenge it. I know of some Dunbars in private hands, but they wouldn’t achieve close to this level. In my opinion, it will stand for a long time, potentially our lifetimes. It was lightning in a bottle.

Well, this painting pretty much appeared out of nowhere. Maybe lightning will strike twice? It certainly can. I’m not a gambler, and I wouldn’t bet on it, but part of the fun of what we do is we never know. Last summer, we sold a scrimshaw tooth that shattered the record, and it was bought at a gun show. There’s always that next wonderful thing out there. That’s part of what keeps us going.

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Eldred’s is also on Twitter and Instagram.

Image is courtesy of Eldred’s.

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An Alma Thomas Painting Sells for Almost $400,000 (Update November 2019)

 
Spring Flowers in Washington, D.C., a 1969 oil on canvas by Alma Thomas.

Update: During the November 2019 Postwar and Contemporary Art Evening Sale at Christie’s New York, Alma Thomas’s 1970 canvas A Fantastic Sunset sold for $2.6 million against an estimate of $2.2 million to $2.8 million, setting a new world auction record for the artist.

Update: Thomas’s Spring Flowers in Washington, D.C. sold for $387,500 at Los Angeles Modern Auctions on Sunday, March 5, 2017–well above its $125,000 to $175,000 estimate. It also represents a world record at auction for the artist.

What you see: Spring Flowers in Washington, D.C., a 1969 oil on canvas by Alma Thomas.

Who was Alma Thomas? She was a member of the Washington Color School, a mid-20th century abstract art movement based in Washington, D.C. that also included Gene Davis and Kenneth Noland. Thomas was under-appreciated during her lifetime, but she was not unknown; in 1972, she became the first African-American woman to receive a solo show at the Whitney Museum of American Art. Thomas died in 1978, at the age of 86. Her art gained fresh attention when President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama displayed her works in the White House. Resurrection, a 1966 Thomas canvas that the Obamas chose for the White House family dining room, shares a mandala-like motif in common with Spring Flowers in Washington, D.C.

Why is the Alma Thomas painting so compelling? “It has an intimacy that you only get when you contemplate a solitary blossom,” says Peter Loughrey, director of modern design and fine art at Los Angeles Modern Auctions (LAMA). “There’s something Zen and eastern about it. The progression of color draws you in to the center of the work. It really lends itself to a one-on-one, personal interaction.”

How does the Alma Thomas painting call to mind Washington, D.C.? “It’s extremely abstracted, but it does reference the cherry blossoms that bloom every spring,” says Loughrey, who grew up in the nation’s capital. “It’s inescapable, that pinkish color in the background. It’s what you remember and walk away with.”

Why is the Alma Thomas painting estimated at $125,000 to $175,000? Thomas wasn’t as prolific as other Washington Color School artists, and today’s collectors are keen to own her works. Spring Flowers in Washington, D.C. has never gone to auction before; the consigner’s father bought it directly from the artist in 1969. He was a medical student at the time, and he paid her in installments. The lot includes a handwritten letter from Thomas to the proud young owner, telling him,”I hope you will love the painting. So many of my friends wanted to buy it.”

How to bid: Spring Flowers in Washington, D.C. is lot 323 in the Modern Art & Design Auction that takes place on March 5, 2017 at LAMA in Van Nuys, Calif.

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Image is courtesy of Los Angeles Modern Auctions.

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RECORD: Jesse Owens’s Olympic Gold Medal Sells for $1.46 Million at SCP Auctions

A 1936 Olympic gold medal, one of four earned by Jesse Owens during the Berlin games. SCP Auctions sold it in 2013 for $1.46 million, a world auction record for any piece of Olympic memorabilia.

Editor’s note: With the arrival of the holidays, The Hot Bid shifts its focus to world auction records. 

What you see: A 1936 Olympic gold medal, one of four earned by Jesse Owens during the Berlin games. SCP Auctions sold it in 2013 for $1.46 million, a world auction record for any piece of Olympic memorabilia.

Who was Jesse Owens? He was an African-American athlete who put the lie to Adolf Hitler’s racist Nazi policies when he won four gold medals at the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin in track and field events: the 100 meters, the 200 meters, the long jump, and the 4 x 100 relay. Sadly, his glory was cut short by American sports officials, who took away his amateur status and killed his career after he accepted endorsement deals. He struggled thereafter, resorting more than once to running against racehorses (and beating them). He died of lung cancer in 1980 at the age of 66.

How did you come up with an estimate for Jesse Owens’s Olympic gold medal? “Estimates are always educated guesses,” says Dan Imler, vice president of SCP Auctions. “Nothing is directly comparable to Jesse Owens’s medal. We had the estimate at half a million and up, and we far exceeded our estimate.”

Do we know when Jesse Owens gave the medal to his friend, Bill “Bojangles” Robinson? “We can’t pinpoint the moment when Owens gave it to him, but their relationship is well-documented,” he says.

What was your role in the auction of Jesse Owens’s Olympic gold medal? “The bidding was all done online,” he says, noting that he dealt with prospective bidders and promoted the lot. “To be honest with you, when we’re in the final stage of bidding, most of our work is done. There’s a tremendous amount of research and marketing leading up to that point.”

When did the online bidding enter crunch time? “On the final day, at 5 pm PST, we went into extended bidding. The hours between 5 pm and 8 pm PST are when people make their moves and really competitive bidding, bidding wars, occur,” he says. “We entered extended bidding on the Owens medal at $447,000. It rose to $1.4 million over a period of three hours. I can’t say exactly how many people were bidding, for privacy reasons, but there were definitely more than two.”

When did you know you had a world auction record? “We weren’t really focused on setting a record,” he says. “We were more focused on getting a result that was worthy of the item. We were very pleased to see it pass the seven-figure mark, but we were not surprised.”

What do you remember most about the auction of the Jesse Owens Olympic gold medal? “The exciting part for us was having the validation of people recognizing the historic significance and value of the item. It was nice to see it go for a figure commensurate with its importance,” he says. “We’ve sold items for more than this sold for, but I’m not sure we’ve sold anything more important from a cultural standpoint. It goes so far beyond the realm of sports memorabilia. Given what it represents, it’s very difficult to put a price on it. In my opinion, it’s worth more today than it was in 2013. If it sold again today, it would bring a higher price.”

Why do you think the Jesse Owens Olympic gold medal would sell for more than $1.4 million if it was consigned again today? “There are several factors,” he says. “The high-end collectible sports memorabilia market has advanced significantly in the last four years. Also, in that time, a major motion picture about Jesse Owens, Race, further raised his profile and raised awareness of what he accomplished. The National Museum of African American History and Culture at the Smithsonian recently opened an African-American sports exhibit. It wasn’t in place at the time the medal sold, but I can’t imagine a greater centerpiece for it. I think the medal’s magnitude has grown for all those reasons.”

Jesse Owens won three other gold medals at the 1936 Olympics, but they appear to be missing. If any of them turned up, along with ironclad documentation that proves they belonged to Owens, how might they do at auction? “If another two or three could be verified, none would be worth less than what we sold ours for, and they could sell for substantially more,” he says.

What was it like to hold Jesse Owens’s Olympic gold medal? “We’re in the business of handling historic artifacts on a daily basis. You can get numb to it. We really felt we were in a privileged position to be handling this,” Imler says. “After 20 years in the business, you don’t get goose bumps that often. This raises goose bumps. It’s very special.”

Why will the Jesse Owens Olympic gold medal stick in your memory? “It’s the ultimate symbol of triumph, and not just in the athletic realm,” he says. “It’s symbolic of civil rights, athletic greatness, courage, fortitude–it’s so far beyond sports, so far beyond anything we’ve handled in our company history. It will stand the test of time and provide inspiration for many generations to come.”

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SCP Auctions is on Twitter and Instagram as well.

SCP Auctions will offer the Jesse Owens Estate Collection in its 2018 Spring Auction, which takes place between March 7 and March 24, 2018. Lots will include the Presidential Medal of Freedom given to Owens by President Gerald Ford in 1976 (estimated at $250,000-plus); the Congressional Gold Medal posthumously awarded to Owens by President George H.W. Bush in 1990 (estimated at $150,000-plus); and two of the four First Place Olympic Winner Diplomas he received for his performances in the Long Jump and the 200 Meter race at the 1936 Berlin games (estimate pending).

Jesse Owens has an official web site.

Image is courtesy of SCP Auctions.

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RECORD: An Ed Ruscha Print Sold for More Than $200,000 in 2014

Double Standard, a 1969 screenprint by Ed Ruscha. Los Angeles Modern Auctions (LAMA) set a record for a print by the artist in October 2014 when it sold for $206,250 against an estimate of $50,000 to $70,000.

Editor’s note: With the arrival of the holidays, The Hot Bid shifts its focus to world auction records. 

What you see: Double Standard, a 1969 screenprint by Ed Ruscha. Los Angeles Modern Auctions (LAMA) set a record for a print by the artist in October 2014 when it sold for $206,250 against an estimate of $50,000 to $70,000.

Who is Ed Ruscha? Edward Joseph Ruscha IV is an Oklahoma-born artist who embraced California and became part of the Pop Art movement. He works in several media–printmaking is just one of them. He might be most famous for his paintings that showcase single words or phrases. He is 79.

Where does Double Standard fit in the pantheon of Ed Ruscha images? “The Standard series is one of his most iconic. Double Standard is a little tongue-in-cheek, as is a lot of his work,” says Peter Loughrey, founder of LAMA. “He infuses humor and irony into a lot of his work, along with pop art sensibilities.”

Is this a depiction of a real Standard gas station, or is it an invention of Ruscha? “I don’t think this is an actual representation. I think it’s a combination of things,” he says. “In 1961, Dennis Hopper took a picture of a station with two Standard signs, like this [print has]. Ruscha would certainly have been aware of that. It’s very similar to Ruscha’s imagery. I can only assume Ed used that as part of his process as well as the stations he saw on his Kerouac-like travels from Oklahoma to get to Los Angeles.”

The print is signed by Ed Ruscha and also Mason Williams. Who is Williams, and what was his contribution to Double Standard? Williams is a musician, writer, and comedian who worked on the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour and Saturday Night Live. He’s a friend of Ruscha’s, who goes back to his Oklahoma days. “A lot of the humor and wry snarky sensibility had to do with Mason,” he says. “Mason’s ability to satirize a subject is fairly important to this. It was more conceptual. It was more about bringing to Ed’s attention that Standard was too serious, and Double Standard took some air out of it.”

What sort of condition is this Double Standard print in? “It’s in pristine condition, which is why it sold for so much,” he says. “I met an original owner who said they paid $180 for it. When you pay $180 for a print, you don’t go to dramatic lengths to frame it and preserve it and prevent archival issues in the future. The fact that these were not that expensive when new led a lot to be ultimately mishandled in ways that we can identify. It’s clear that this example was treated as a work of art from the beginning. The rarity of a survivor in this condition drove a lot of the interest.”

Double Standard was printed in an edition of 40. How often does it come up at auction? “Mine was the last one, in 2014. About 18 months before that, another sold for $182,500. Before that, one sold in 2008,” he says.

Why did this Double Standard do so well? Was it purely its exceptional condition? “The condition drove a lot of the aggression, but there are a lot of external factors that you can never really quantify,” Loughrey says. “Dennis Hopper came to one of my auctions and bought a piece on his birthday. He paid four or five times what was expected. I said, ‘I can’t believe you paid so much for it.’ Hopper said, ‘It doesn’t matter. It’s my birthday, and I want it.”

What was your role in the sale of the Ed Ruscha print? “I was the auctioneer. It was very exciting,” he says. “The room was aware and burst into applause. They knew the record for his [print] work could be broken. The gasps and sighs of relief are expected and fun in the moment. The [winning] bidder was in the room. You could see determination from the bidder–‘This opportunity is not going to get away from me.’

How long did the auction of the Ed Ruscha print last? “When you start at $50,000 and end at $206,000, it does take a while,” he says. “I don’t remember how long it took. I remember the person on the phone [the eventual underbidder] took time. I saw the anxiety on the face of the person in the room–‘Sell it already!’ It did take a while, but it was probably less than five minutes. That is an extremely long time on an auction block. I usually sell a lot every 45 seconds. Five minutes is an eternity when you’re up there.”

How long do you think this record for an Ed Ruscha print will last? “If someone came along with another [Double Standard print] that’s as good, or a Standard print that’s as good–a Standard print with a bright red sky–it’s ready to fall. I have people who are interested [in both]. I wouldn’t be surprised if it goes over $250,000,” he says, adding, “Consider the perspective of the seller. He agreed to let me sell it for as little as $50,000. If the universe didn’t align, it could have sold as low as $50,000. He was a bit nervous, but he took a leap of faith. He knew the venue [LAMA] attracted Ed Ruscha people more than any other venue. This is an artist we focus on and specialize in.”

Do you think another print will come to market soon? “Believe me, I’m on it,” he says. “I’m conversing with original owners who’ve had it [a Double Standard print] since 1970. I’ve tried to cajole them, but they’re not interested in selling.”

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Los Angeles Modern Auctions (LAMA) is on Twitter and Instagram.

Image is courtesy of Los Angeles Modern Auctions.

Ed Ruscha maintains an online catalogue raisonné.

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RECORD! A Faith Ringgold Story Quilt Commissioned by Oprah Winfrey for Dr. Maya Angelou Sold for $461,000 at Swann

 
Maya's Quilt of Life, a 1989 narrative quilt by artist Faith Ringgold, who Oprah Winfrey commissioned to make it as a birthday gift for Dr. Maya Angelou. At Swann Auction Galleries in 2015, it sold for $461,000--a record for a narrative quilt by the artist.

Editor’s note: With the approach of the holidays, The Hot Bid shifts its focus to world auction records. 

What you see: Maya’s Quilt of Life, a 1989 narrative quilt by artist Faith Ringgold, who Oprah Winfrey commissioned to make it as a birthday gift for Dr. Maya Angelou. At Swann Auction Galleries in 2015, it sold for $461,000–a record for a narrative quilt by the artist.

Who is Faith Ringgold? Born Faith Willi Jones, she is an African-American artist who has worked in several media but is best known for her paintings and textile works of art. She grew up in Harlem during the Harlem Renaissance and is an activist who fights sexism and racism. She began creating narrative quilts in 1980, in part because she had trouble interesting publishers in her autobiography. To date, she has created almost 100 narrative quilts. Ringgold is 87.

What makes Maya’s Quilt of Life a strong example of Ringgold’s work? “It has all the elements she incorporates in her story quilts. They’re called story quilts because they tell a story–they have a narrative,” says Nigel Freeman, director of Swann’s African-American fine art department. “This scene has text taken from Maya Angelou’s writings. It’s an unusual work, but it’s instantly recognizable as Faith Ringgold’s work. It’s a special piece for a special occasion.”

It looks like Ringgold used the Angelou texts like columns that frame the painting. Is that typical of her work? “That’s not the only way she does it. They could be at the top, or the sides. Sometimes they wrap around,” he says. “The important thing is it’s Angelou’s writing. It’s not just the visual creativity of the artist, it’s the voice of the artist and the women involved.”

It strikes me that with Maya’s Quilt of Life, we have an extraordinary black woman, Oprah Winfrey, commissioning a second extraordinary black woman, Faith Ringgold, to commemorate a third extraordinary black woman, Dr. Maya Angelou. Are you aware of any other artwork that’s quite like this? “I thought that was pretty cool,” he says. “It’s a great testament to the fiercely independent spirit of Maya Angelou, and a testament to what she inspires in people, and in artists like Faith Ringgold and cultural figures like Oprah Winfrey. It was an affinity between all three women, a great coming-together. It was a birthday present [for Angelou], and it was the prize piece in her art collection.”

This was the first Faith Ringgold story quilt to come to auction. Why was it consigned? “Because Dr. Angelou died [in 2014], it was consigned as part of a single-owner sale. It came from Dr. Angelou’s estate,” he says. “This is the way the family wanted to distribute a large part of her estate.”

How did you arrive at the estimate of $150,000 to $250,000 for the Faith Ringgold story quilt? “Ringgold narrative quilts are very precious, and owners don’t give them up easily. They’re certainly prized objects,” he says. “Many artists we handle don’t have auction records. We looked at gallery prices and what would be a fair market value. Of course we had to know how to factor in the specialness of the piece, but enough was out there to be able to make a reasonable estimate. Like a lot of contemporary artists, Ringgold’s market is just developing. We had to start somewhere. We were just fortunate to start with a really fantastic one that sets the bar high.”

Were you in the sale room for the auction? “It was a packed room. It was almost the perfect auction. Only one piece didn’t sell,” he says. “It was a moment to savor. I was in the back of the room. People applauded when things went high. And Faith Ringgold was there! She and I posed in front of the quilt. It was quite an event. Everyone left happy.”

Were you surprised that the Faith Ringgold story quilt sold for $461,000? “Yes, because it was uncharted territory,” Freeman says. “We knew we had something really wonderful. She’s an important American artist. Her work is in a lot of museums already. But you never know on a given day how the market will respond. We knew it would do well. We didn’t know how well.”

Do we know who bought Maya’s Quilt of Life? “It ended up going to the Crystal Bridges Museum of Art in Arkansas,” he says. “They made it public shortly after the sale. Faith Ringgold gave a talk there subsequently. That’s always a terrific outcome. It was a win-win-win.”

How long do you think the auction record for a Faith Ringgold story quilt will stand? “It’ll stand for a good while. It was a really great piece, and Faith Ringgold is a great artist,” he says. “If one of her early large canvases–a significant part of her work [came to auction]–that could give this record a run for the money. But you don’t see many at auction. I’m going to enjoy it while it’s a record. It’s a wonderful piece, and the story behind it is great.”

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Swann Auction Galleries is on Instagram and Twitter.

Nigel Freeman is on Twitter. Faith Ringgold has her own website.

Soul of a Nation: Art in the Age of Black Power, an exhibit that originated at the Tate Modern in London, features the work of 60 black artists, including Ringgold. It will appear at Crystal Bridges from February 3 to April 23, 2018.

Image is courtesy of Swann Auction Galleries.

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RECORD! A Gus Wilson Duck Decoy Sold for $330,000

 
A red-breasted merganser drake duck decoy, carved circa 1900 by Augustus "Gus" Wilson. It had been described as the finest Wilson decoy ever offered at auction. Copley Fine Art Auctions sold it in July 2014 for $330,000, achieving an auction record for the artist.

The Hot Bid is on Thanksgiving vacation today. I haven’t got anything turkey-related, so I’m celebrating by reposting a story on a record-breaking duck decoy. 

What you see: A red-breasted merganser drake duck decoy, carved circa 1900 by Augustus “Gus” Wilson. It had been described as the finest Wilson decoy ever offered at auction. Copley Fine Art Auctions sold it in July 2014 for $330,000, achieving an auction record for the artist.

Who was Gus Wilson? He was a Maine native, boat builder, lighthouse keeper, and carver. He took up carving in his teens, probably learning the art from family members, and he remained active for most of his life. He died in 1950 at the age of 85 or 86.

How often do you see a Gus Wilson duck decoy carved with an open bill, as this one is? “It’s very infrequent,” says Stephen B. O’Brien Jr., owner of Copley Fine Art Auctions in Boston, Mass. “There’s less than a handful, and many of those [beaks] are broken off and replaced. The fact that this one is intact makes it a real survivor.”

What makes this Gus Wilson duck decoy exceptional? “It’s a big, bold carving. Wilson regularly produced larger, almost oversize carvings,” he says, alluding to the decoy’s generous measurements: seven inches wide, seven inches high, and more than 16 inches long. “It’s got a wonderful sense of sculpture. Combine that with the open bill, which is almost never seen, and it makes it a pinnacle work.

This is described as a “hunted” or “hunt-used” decoy, which means that a hunter actually put it out on the water to lure ducks. Are most Wilson decoys hunt-used? And do collectors prefer hunt-used decoys? “The vast majority of Gus Wilsons found were actually hunted,” O’Brien says. As for hunt-used versus pristine, he says, “It’s a very personal choice. It almost comes down to, in the art world, how some people are attracted to the real world and some people are attached to abstraction. I’m a hunter. I come at it from that perspective. I love a utility decoy that’s been hunted over, that has some wear that shows it was put to its intended use. But you don’t want it to have too much. With replaced heads, tail chips, and shot scars, it starts to take on some negatives. But you can miss out if all you want is pristine birds. They’re pretty hard to find.”

The decoy was carved around 1900. Where was Wilson in his career then? “It places him at about age 35. What’s nice about this merganser is the artist is at the height of his craft. There are subtleties that take more time to create,” he says, explaining that decoy carvers sometimes go through a period when they feel free to indulge in artistic flourishes that transcend the standard shape of the duck decoy–open beaks, fan tails, slightly extended wings–and abruptly stop when they see how their hand-carved treasures suffer nicks and breaks in the field.

How long do you think this auction record for a Gus Wilson duck decoy will stand? “It’s hard to say. As with any market, if the right piece came up and two people wanted it, the record could easily fall,” O’Brien says. “The decoy market has held up strong over the last 10 years relative to other [categories] in the antiques market. It wouldn’t shock me if it fell. Looking at it from the standpoint of being a great Gus Wilson, it’s probably a bargain price for what it went for.”

Are there any other Gus Wilson duck decoys that rival this one? “For me, I haven’t really seen it,” he says. “That’s why we put a heavy estimate on it. [The presale estimate was $350,000 to $450,000]. “He’s a pretty colorful, proud, bright bird. He had all the bells and whistles that collectors look for–the open bill, the cocked-back head, nice original paint, the paddle tail, and the original rigging [the weight on the bottom that lets the decoy float upright]. I can’t think of a better Gus Wilson decoy. If you asked me to own one Gus Wilson decoy, this would be it.”

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Copley Fine Art Auctions will hold its 2017 Sporting Sale on July 27 and 28 in Plymouth, Massachusetts.

Image is courtesy of Copley Fine Art Auctions.

Quack!

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SOLD! The First Published Account of a Successful Wright Brothers Flight Commands $5,000 at Swann

The cover of the January 1, 1905 issue of Gleanings in Bee Culture, from an early 20th-century group of 14 issues of the specialist magazine.

What you see: The cover of the January 1, 1905 issue of Gleanings in Bee Culture, from an early 20th-century group of 14 issues of the specialist magazine. Swann estimates the group at $1,500 to $2,500.

What is Gleanings in Bee Culture, and why is it important? It is a specialist magazine, founded in 1869 by Amos Ives Root, a god of the beekeeping world. It published the first eyewitness account of a successful airplane flight by the Wright brothers. Root died in 1923, but his magazine still publishes under the name Bee Culture.

Wait, back up. The first published account of a successful Wright Brothers flight was in a beekeeping journal? Yes. Yes, it was.

How did that happen? Root was a fan of technology, and the Wright brothers’ experiments in aviation represented the cutting edge of technology at the turn of the 20th century. Root befriended the brothers, who were fellow Ohioans, and he witnessed a successful flight in September, 1904 at Huffman Prairie in Ohio (he was not present for the first successful flight, which happened on December 17, 1903). Protective of their invention and stung by a badly garbled press account of a previous test, the brothers did not invite any reporters to watch them work. But they were comfortable with Root writing about the first flight for Our Homes, a column he included in Gleanings in Bee Culture. “They probably recognized Root as a kindred spirit, and felt he wouldn’t leak anything they didn’t want leaked,” says Rick Stattler, director of printed and manuscript Americana for Swann.

How skilled an observer was Root? “He was an extremely curious and interested amateur. He did his best to understand the mechanism and asked a bunch of questions,” says Stattler, who adds that Root was 65 at the time of the September 1904 flight. “He understood about five percent of what they said. My impression is he probably understood it better than I’d have been able to.”

How many times did Root write about the flight that he saw? Twice. The first article ran more than three pages and had no illustrations. The second, which appeared two weeks later, was shorter and included a photograph of a Wright plane without its engine. “I suspect they didn’t want him publishing a picture of the full machine,” Stattler says. “I don’t get the impression that his account was instantly recognized as important around the world. Gleanings in Bee Culture had a very small, specialized readership. I get the impression that it was not taken especially seriously.”

How often do these issues of Gleanings in Bee Culture, which contain the first published account of a successful Wright Brothers flight, come up at auction? This offering at Swann is the first. Stattler reports that Sotheby’s offered a group of issues in 1968, but it did not include the columns that describe the flight.

Why offer 14 issues? Why not offer just the ones with the columns that talk about the flight? Stattler explains that the issues come from a home that had several years’ worth of Gleanings in Bee Culture squirreled away.  “I thought it would be interesting to have a few issues from before the columns and after, as context,” he says. Stattler describes the Our Homes column as being an Andy Rooney-style celebration of the quirks of the world, but Root definitely realized he’d seen something world-changing. “He strongly emphasized it. He realized he was privileged to witness an extremely important event, and he recognized that his platform was not the typical for disseminating that information.”

Do you have any favorite passages from the columns? Stattler cited this paragraph from the January 1, 1905 entry:  ‘Imagine a locomotive that has left its track, and is climbing up in the air right toward you—a locomotive without any wheels, we will say, but with white wings instead, we will further say—a locomotive made of aluminum. Well, now, imagine this white locomotive, with wings that spread 20 feet each way, coming right toward you with a tremendous flap of its propellers, and you will have something like what I saw. The younger brother bade me move to one side for fear it might come down suddenly; but I tell you, friends, the sensation that one feels in such a crisis is something hard to describe.’

These issues have never come to auction before, so they’re guaranteed to set a record when they sell. What do you think will happen? “I’ve got interest from clients already,” he says. “It’s such a quirky publication. It will probably go beyond its estimate, but how far beyond, I don’t know.”

How to bid: The group of issues of Gleanings in Bee Culture is lot 42 in the Printed & Manuscript Americana sale at Swann Auction Galleries on September 28, 2017.

How to subscribe to The Hot Bid: Click the trio of dots at the upper right of this page. You can also follow The Hot Bid on Instagram and follow the author on Twitter.

You can follow Swann Auction Galleries on Twitter and Instagram. Bee Culture is on Twitter and Instagram as well. Root Candles, another entity founded by Root that survives to this day, devotes a page on its website to Ames Root and the Wright Brothers. And you can read the full text of all of Root’s writings on the Wright brothers’ flight courtesy of the website for the PBS program NOVA.

Image is courtesy of Swann Auction Galleries.

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RECORD: A Roberto Clemente Silver Bat Award Sells for $420,000

A National League Championship Silver Bat award, given to Roberto Clemente in 1967. Hunt Auctions sold it in July 2017, during the All-Star festivities in Miami, for $420,000--a record for a silver bat award at auction.

What you see: A National League Championship Silver Bat award, given to Roberto Clemente in 1967. Hunt Auctions sold it in July 2017, during the All-Star festivities in Miami, for $420,000–a record for a silver bat award at auction.

Who was Roberto Clemente? He was a Puerto Rican right fielder for the Pittsburgh Pirates from 1955 to 1972. He won the Gold Glove every year from 1961 through 1972, won the National League batting title four times, and played in two World Series. When Clemente died in a plane crash on the last day of 1972, the stewards of the Baseball Hall of Fame changed the rules to allow any player who has been dead for at least six months to gain eligibility to enter. Clemente was chosen for the hall within months of the change, becoming the first player with Latin and Caribbean heritage to earn the honor. He was 38 when he died.

How often do these silver bat awards come to auction? “It’s extremely rare for one to come to auction, especially one from someone of Clemente’s stature,” says Dave Hunt of Hunt Auctions, who notes that he’s handled about 10 of the awards over the last 25 years. “They’re inherently scarce.”

This is a full-size bat? And it’s made from solid sterling silver? Yes and yes. The 1967 Clemente silver bat weighs 55.6 Troy ounces, which equates to 3.8 pounds–more than twice as much as a standard wooden Louisville Slugger, which weighs 1.6 pounds. “It’s heavy,” Hunt says, laughing. “It’s a very, very significant presentational piece, which it should be. It was given to some of the greatest athletes in the world. You don’t want to hand them something that’s any less than the quality level you’d expect.”

Clemente earned four silver bats during his career, in 1961, 1964, 1965, and 1967. Where are the other three? The 1964 bat was sold alongside the 1967 bat in the July 2017 auction. They were subsequent lots–569 and 570. The Clemente family has the third silver bat, and the fourth, which Clemente gave to Pirates manager Joe Brown, was later sold and is now in private hands.

So the 1964 and the 1967 Roberto Clemente silver bats both came to market for the first time in the July 2017 Hunt Auctions sale? Yes. Both came directly from the Clemente family, both in the same good condition, both had the same estimate ($100,000 to $200,000). The only difference between the bats was the dates.

The 1964 Roberto Clemente silver bat fetched $260,000, and the 1967 Roberto Clemente silver bat sold for $420,000. Why did the 1967 bat do so much better? “1967, statistically, is Roberto Clemente’s finest year as a hitter,” Hunt says. “That’s why this is considered the best one, and why it brought the most money.”

This Roberto Clemente silver bat set a record for any silver bat award at auction. What makes this achievement such a big deal? “To give you a sense of the significance, Mickey Mantle is one of the benchmarks, he’s on the Mount Rushmore of baseball, and it wasn’t even close. The Clemente bat sold for at least $100,000 more,” Hunt says. (Mantle’s 1956 silver bat sold for $270,000 in 2003.)

When did you know you had a record? How long do you think it will stand? “When the hammer came down, I was confident it was a record, but I had to check to make sure,” he says. “The number of players on the level of Ted Williams, Clemente, and Mantle, who won silver bats and can eclipse the Clemente bat… it’s tiny. There’s a handful [of comparable silver bats] out there, and I mean a scant handful, less than [the fingers on]one hand, that might have a chance.”

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Image is courtesy of Hunt Auctions.

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RECORD! An Edward Burdett Scrimshaw Sells for $456,000

A scrimshaw whale's tooth by Edward Burdett, made in the early 1830s and inscribed, in block letters, "Engraved by Edward Burdett of Nantucket Onboard the Ship William Tell." It shows a scene of the William Tell capturing a whale while another ship, the George and Susan, floats nearby. On the back, it shows another whaleship, the William Thomson, sailing near a coastline.

What you see: A scrimshaw whale’s tooth by Edward Burdett, made in the early 1830s and inscribed, in block letters, “Engraved by Edward Burdett of Nantucket Onboard the Ship William Tell.” It shows a scene of the William Tell capturing a whale while another ship, the George and Susan, floats nearby. On the back, it shows another whaleship, the William Thomson, sailing near a coastline. Eldred’s sold it in July 2017 for $456,000, an auction record for any piece of scrimshaw.

Who was Edward Burdett? He was a Nantucket native and whaleman who was among the earliest to take up scrimshaw–carving or engraving images into the teeth or jawbones of whales. He ranks among the best scrimshanders to practice the art. He’s believed to have made between 20 and 30 pieces, and signed about six. He died while serving as a first officer aboard the Nantucket whale ship Montano. While his team chased a harpooned whale, Burdett became tangled in the line and was pulled overboard. His body was never found. He was 27 years old.

How many pieces of scrimshaw have sold for six figures at auction? “About 11, all in the 21st century. But if there’s 10 over six figures, there’s another 10 that are unreported,” says Bill Bourne, vice president and head of the marine art department at Eldred’s. “Some auction houses just don’t report scrimshaw sales to sites.”

This piece is fresh to market–never auctioned before. Fakes have been an issue with scrimshaw, as they have been in every collecting field. How do you know this is by Burdett? “As far as scrimshaw goes, I have a really good background in it,” Bourne says, noting that his father founded the maritime collectibles field in 1963 and he literally grew up in it. In addition, the consigner drove to New Bedford in May 2012, where a scrimshaw symposium was being held, and had the leading experts look it over. “The tooth itself, and the work done on the tooth is unmistakably his hand,” he says.

You described the Edward Burdett scrimshaw as “a masterpiece.” What makes it a masterpiece? “The tooth just has everything,” he says. “He uses the whole surface of the tooth, and it has the smallest of details. The William Tell has a wonderful blowing flag. On the obverse side, in the central mast of the William Thomson, there’s a watch–a man up there. And there’s a shoreline with a lighthouse with a rooster weathervane. Not many teeth have everything, like this. They might have a whaleship with a flag, but just the ship–no land, no whaling scene.”

How did the auction go, and what was it like as you approached the old auction record for scrimshaw? “I was the auctioneer. I started at $100,000 and five or six hands went up instantly and drove it to $210,000 to $220,000. It came down to two people,” Bourne says. “I focused on the two bidders at that point. I kept it at $10,000 raises. Both bidders were pretty firm in going after it. Until it hit $380,000, there wasn’t any hesitation at all. When you’ve got two bidders like that, you don’t look at anyone else. You focus on those two bidders. The underbidder dropped out, I looked around the room, bang, and a round of applause. It was over in four minutes. It was a lot of fun. It was wonderful to see active bidding throughout the whole auction and on this tooth. It was like being back in 1985.”

How long do you think the record will last? “It’s so hard to tell. I’m not aware of something that could come up and challenge it,” he says. “All it takes is another piece coming out of a blanket box in Connecticut, or a few 45 to 50-year-old collectors coming in with unlimited funds.”

What else makes this Edward Burdett scrimshaw special? “I’ve seen spectacular pieces at my dad’s, and here, and at other auction houses. If you google ‘antique scrimshaw,’ put in ‘Edward Burdett’ and you look at what’s there, you’ll realize this is something special compared to the others,” Bourne says. “Novice collectors can see this is something special compared to the others. When you look at this tooth, you can see that it’s a cut above.”

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Eldred’s is also on Twitter and Instagram.

Image is courtesy of Eldred’s.

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RECORD! A Babe Ruth Game-Worn Jersey Sold for $4.4 Million in 2012

  
A road gray, game-worn New York Yankees jersey that was worn by Babe Ruth. SCP Auctions sold it for $4.4 million in May 2012, setting a then-record for any item of sports memorabilia at auction.

What you see: A road gray, game-worn New York Yankees jersey that was worn by Babe Ruth. SCP Auctions sold it for $4.4 million in May 2012, setting a record for any item of sports memorabilia at auction.

How rare are game-worn Babe Ruth baseball uniforms? “If you count them all, it’s ten. If you’re talking Yankees, it’s less than half a dozen,” says SCP Vice President Dan Imler, adding that SCP has handled five of the ten.

Ruth was recognized as a superstar in his time. Why weren’t more Babe Ruth game-worn jerseys saved, even as mementoes? “In his era, even the Yankees were fairly frugal,” he says. “It was typical to issue only two home uniforms and two road uniforms for the entire season, and they were considered to be disposable. [Once the season was over,] they would send them to the minor leagues as a cost-saving measure. That’s how a lot of [pre-1970 game-worn baseball uniforms] come to market–a player in the minors is issued a major-league jersey and doesn’t go on to a career, but he keeps his jersey.”

I understand that SCP Auctions uncovered some information that made the Babe Ruth game-worn jersey even more valuable? “There was an undiscovered element to the jersey,” Imler says. “Before it came to us, we knew it was a Babe Ruth Yankees road uniform in all-original condition, but it was not dated until it reached us. We were able to date it to 1920, which elevated it quite a bit.”

How did you pinpoint the Babe Ruth game-worn jersey’s date to 1920? “Through photo-matching. Also, it has cut sleeves [shorter sleeves than standard issue]. We were able to find images of Ruth with cut sleeves from that period,” he says.

Your colleague, SCP President David Kohler, called the Ruth road jersey “The finest sports artifact we’ve handled in our 30-year history.” Do you agree? “I absolutely agree with that. It’s arguably the finest piece of baseball memorabilia to surface anywhere,” Imler says. “You have to start with Ruth. Ruth is on a level all his own. When it comes to baseball memorabilia, he is the king. There’s nothing more coveted than a jersey or a uniform he work on his back in the most critical period of baseball history. Any Ruth uniform would be paramount, but he wore it in the earliest part of his career, when he transformed and resurrected the game. It checks all the boxes. It has everything you could ask for.”

Well, maybe not everything. Would it have sold for even more if it was a home jersey–if it had the famous Yankees pinstripes? “I don’t think so. I don’t think anyone looked at it as if it was lacking anything,” he says. “I don’t think anyone was wanting more from it.”

SCP estimated the Babe Ruth game-worn jersey at $2 million and up. Was it difficult to arrive at that estimate?  “Any sports object in seven figures is very uncommon. Multiple seven figures is very rare territory,” he says. “It was a lofty estimate at the time, but the market spoke and it sold for more than double that estimate. It validated the quality we believed it possessed.”

What factors drove the record price for the Babe Ruth game-worn jersey? “It was the best of the best in every category,” Imler says. “It was Babe Ruth. The quality was off the charts. It was completely original. It was from the most pivotal point in his career. And the fact that so few Ruth-worn jerseys come up–it was a huge call to action for high-end clients. When an item like this presents itself, you never know when you’re going to get another shot.”

How long do you think the record will stand? “Certainly this same jersey, if it was ever offered again, would surpass the previous sale price. I could see the record being topped in the next five years if something comparable surfaced,” Imler says, adding that he is not aware of another item, aside from the jersey itself, that could beat the auction record.

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Image is courtesy of SCP Auctions.

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RECORD! John Lennon’s Gibson Guitar Commands $2.4 Million at Julien’s (Update June 20, 2020)

A 1962 Gibson acoustic guitar, owned and used by John Lennon. Julien's Auctions sold it in November 2015 for $2.4 million--a record for any guitar at auction.

Update, June 20, 2020: Julien’s reset the world auction record for any guitar at auction with the 1959 Martin D-18E guitar that Kurt Cobain played during the 1993 Nirvana episode of MTV Unplugged. The instrument also set a record for any Martin guitar and any item of Nirvana memorabilia.

Update: In June 2019, David Gilmour’s legendary “Black Strat”, an electric Fender guitar, sold for $3.975 million at Christie’s. The Lennon instrument likely retains the record for the most expensive acoustic guitar at auction.

What you see: A 1962 Gibson acoustic guitar, owned and used by John Lennon. Julien’s Auctions sold it in November 2015 for $2.4 million–a record for any guitar at auction.

How rare are John Lennon-owned and -played guitars? “They’re very rare, and it’s especially rare for them to come to market. Yoko would have most of them, and he gave very few away,” says Martin Nolan, executive director of Julien’s Auctions, who notes that the house has handled four Lennon guitars in the last 15 years. “This particular guitar was a lost guitar. There was intrigue about it. He and George Harrison bought two together in 1961. It cost $165 for each, and it took Lennon a whole year to pay his off.”

Your colleague, Darren Julien, describes this as a “Holy Grail Beatles instrument.” What makes it a Holy Grail Beatles instrument? “Because it came to John at a very important time, at an early stage of the Beatles,” Nolan says. “Paul and John were going to each others’ homes to write songs. Such important songs were written on it. Then it disappeared at a show and no one knew where it ended up. Lennon never saw it again.”

How did John Lennon’s Gibson guitar go missing? “What probably happened was–this was during some Christmas concerts in 1963 in the U.K. The Beatles were one of the acts performing. It was Christmas, and there was alcohol and other drugs involved. It could have been a completely innocent mistake, picked up by another band,” he says, adding that Lennon filed a police report when he realized his guitar was gone.

How do we know that Lennon used this instrument to write All My Loving, I Want to Hold Your Hand, Please, Please Me, and other Beatles hits? “We know when those songs were written, and we know John had this particular guitar,” he says. “He was a young guy. He didn’t have a massive amount of guitars [then]. He didn’t have endorsements from Fender and Gibson. And we have [period] photos from the living room of Paul.”

How did the consigner, John McCaw, end up with John Lennon’s Gibson guitar? Somehow it found its way to San Diego, where McCaw bought it in 1967 for $220. “He got 47 years of absolute enjoyment from it,” Nolan says. “He taught his kids to play guitar on it. He had no idea what it was. To see him standing in that massively crowded auction room, and to see the guitar go higher and higher–it was a life-changing event for him. He retired soon after, and he’s enjoying life.”

What was it like to be in that sale room when the John Lennon Gibson guitar reached the block? “We hoped it would be the guitar to break one million. That was our goal. When it broke two million, we were on the floor,” he says. “There was a frenzy of bidding. It was a moving moment, emotional for us and for John McCaw, to set the world record. I wish we could have those every day.”

How long do you think the record is going to stand? “I think it’s going to be a long time. It’s hard to think of a guitar that could smash that record,” he says. “The Bob Dylan guitar was a very historically important guitar, and it sold for $965,000. The John Lennon guitar sold for $2.4 million. It’ll be a long time before the record breaks.”

How does John Lennon’s Gibson guitar play? “It plays really well,” he says. “John McCaw himself played it at the exhibition [before the sale]. It’s a really nice guitar, in excellent condition.”

How to subscribe to The Hot Bid: Click the trio of dots at the upper right of this page. You can also follow The Hot Bid on Instagram and follow the author on Twitter.

Julien’s Auctions is on Twitter and Instagram. You can also watch the YouTube video recap of the December 2015 Julien’s auction. The segment on the Lennon guitar begins around 2:50 and ends around 5:12.

Image is courtesy of Julien’s Auctions.

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RECORD! R. Crumb’s Original Cover Art for Fritz the Cat Commands $717,000

 
R. Crumb's original cover art for the best-selling 1969 book Fritz the Cat. Heritage Auctions sold it in May 2017 for $717,000--a record for Crumb, and a record for any original piece of American comic art.

What you see: R. Crumb’s original cover art for the best-selling 1969 book Fritz the Cat. Heritage Auctions sold it in May 2017 for $717,000–a record for Crumb, and a record for any original piece of American comic art.

Who is R. Crumb? He is an American artist who led the underground comix movement. He co-founded Zap Comix and created one of the counterculture’s most enduring images with his Keep On Truckin’ single-page comic, which appeared in the first issue of Zap. Much of Crumb’s output is proudly NSFW, so Google at your own risk. In 2009, he published a graphic novel based on the Biblical Book of Genesis. He will turn 74 on August 30.

How rare are original pieces of Crumb comic art at auction? “We sell a lot of it. There’s been kind of a boom lately,” says Ed Jaster, senior vice president at Heritage Auctions. “Crumb has always been a staple of what we offer in our Comic and Comic Art sales, but we’ve never had the wealth and breadth up and down the line with what we’ve had in the last year and a half.”

This R. Crumb original cover art is the most valuable original comic art ever sold at auction, beating a 1990 cover from the Amazing Spider-Man #328 and a 1974 page from an Incredible Hulk comic that shows the debut of Wolverine. What’s the significance of that? “Put it this way. If you want to buy a Picasso pen-and-ink drawing, $717,000 will get you a really good pen-and-ink drawing,” he says. “You certainly could buy a more expensive Picasso drawing, but this is right there.”

Why has Crumb bested the more traditional superhero comic book artists? “What’s special about Crumb is he’s transcendental. He’s transcended his given media,” Jaster says. “There’s no comic book artist I can think of who’s had as many museum shows and international shows as he has. Crumb has been relevant ever since the hippie days and he’s never gone out of style.”

How long do you think these records will stand? “The original comic book art one, maybe not too long. Comic book art is incredibly popular,” he says. “Those two $657,000 sales were as pleasant a surprise as the Crumb art was. There are scores of things more desirable than them out there. It’s just a matter of them coming to the market. There’s probably an amazing thing out there that will get five or ten million, if it exists. As far as breaking the record for Crumb, I know the cover art for the Cheap Thrills record album is out there. The first Keep on Truckin’ or the cover of Zap Comics #1, a very small distribution comic, are the things that could sell for more.”

What else makes this piece of R. Crumb original comic book art special? “There’s some irony here in that Crumb is known for pushing the envelope with his subject matter and political views, but Fritz and his girlfriend are quite demure. It’s PG-13 for Crumb, who is known for adult material. It’s kind of a sweet thing,” he says. “And the book, Fritz the Cat, moved Crumb up in importance to be maybe the most famous cartoonist of his generation. It catapulted him from the guy who does sleazy, objectionable stuff to a guy who was really important, and this was the piece that did that.”

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Heritage Auctions is on Twitter and Instagram as well.

Text is copyright Sheila Gibson Stoodley. Image is courtesy of Heritage Auctions.

Graham Nash’s collection of original Crumb comic artworks is up for bid in Heritage Auction’s Comics & Comic Art Signature Auction in Dallas from August 10 to 12, 2018.

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RECORD! A Houdini Poster is the Most Expensive Magic Poster Ever Sold

 
A 1912 poster touting Harry Houdini performing his famous water torture cell escape. It was printed in London one year after Houdini invented the trick, and it has a B+ condition rating. Potter & Potter sold it in February 2017 for $114,000--an auction record for any magic poster.

What you see: A 1912 poster touting Harry Houdini performing his famous water torture cell escape. It was printed in London one year after Houdini invented the trick, and it has a B+ condition rating. Potter & Potter sold it in February 2017 for $114,000–an auction record for any magic poster.

How rare is this Houdini poster? “There are three we know of,” says Gabe Fajuri, president of Potter & Potter, noting he has examined two of them.

How rare are Houdini posters, generally? “Rare is relative. Houdini had a lot of posters,” he says. “Some exist in only one copy. Some in 20 to 30.”

Is this the first time that Houdini’s water torture cell escape was depicted on a poster? “It’s possible,” Fajuri says, explaining that there is another 1912 poster that shows a closeup of Houdini’s face, upside down and under water, and it’s not clear which poster appeared first.

What was the bidding like for the Houdini poster? “We started at $25,000. There was active bidding in the room and on the phone from at least five phone bidders, including a few who were new to us,” he says. “There was active participation to $80,000 [around the sum of the previous magic poster record]. It was going to beat the record without a doubt, but I didn’t think it would go as high as it did. A few guys really wanted it. It sold to a phone bidder.”

Why did the Houdini poster do so well? Is it because it’s just one of three that exist? “That’s part of it, but it’s also from the Norm Nielsen collection, a very well-established if not legendary collection of posters. Everybody knows him and everybody knows his collection,” he says, adding that Potter & Potter will soon publish The Golden Age of Magic Posters, a limited-edition book based on the auction catalogue. “It’s Houdini. It’s one of his most famous, if not his most famous trick. It’s got all the elements that lead to success.”

How long do you think this auction record will stand? “This is the most expensive magic item sold with the exception of the water torture cell itself,” Fajuri says. “I would think it would stand for a while, but anything could happen. Hopefully, we’ll be the ones to break it.”

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Image is courtesy of Potter & Potter.

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Norman Rockwell’s Study for Triple Self Portrait Sells for $1.3 Million

 
Study for Triple Self Portrait, a 1960 oil on photographic paper laid on panel by Norman Rockwell. The final version graced the cover of the February 13, 1960 edition of The Saturday Evening Post.

Update: Heritage sold Norman Rockwell’s Study for Triple Self Portrait for $1.3 million–a record for a Rockwell study at auction.

What you see: Study for Triple Self Portrait, a 1960 oil on photographic paper laid on panel by Norman Rockwell. The final version graced the cover of the February 13, 1960 edition of The Saturday Evening Post. Heritage Auctions estimates the study at $150,000 to $250,000.

Who was Norman Rockwell? He was the best-known and most-loved American illustrator of the 20th century. He created 321 covers for The Saturday Evening Post as well as many works for Look magazine, calendar companies, and the Boy Scouts of America. He died in 1978 at the age of 84.

How many studies did Rockwell make for Triple Self Portrait, and how many have come to auction? It’s unclear, but according to Ed Jaster, senior vice president at Heritage Auctions, Rockwell typically made between five and 10 studies or preliminary works for a Post cover. “To the best of my knowledge, this is the only study for Triple Self Portrait that exists in private hands,” Jaster says. The finished Triple Self Portrait cover art belongs to the Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge, Mass.

Where was Rockwell in his career in 1960? Jaster points to the language that appeared on that February 1960 Post cover, which dubbed Rockwell “America’s Best Loved Artist,” and adds, “In the eyes of museum curators and critics, not so much. Rockwell, in his lifetime, never got true recognition as a painter, and never as a fine art painter. He didn’t ascend to major museums until well after his death.”

How close is this Norman Rockwell Study for Triple Self Portrait to the final version? “It’s a nice, tight color study with a fair amount of work put into it,” says Jaster, noting that the differences between the two are few–the final places pipes in all three Rockwell mouths, adds sketches of Rockwell’s head to the left of the easel and changes the Picasso clipped to the right of the easel. Rockwell’s signature also appears on the lower right of the canvas-in-progress, but that’s about it. “This is close to the final composition, and it works as a painting.”

Who is Henry Strawn, the person to whom Rockwell inscribed the study? We don’t know, and we don’t know when he would have received it from Rockwell. We do know that the artist freely bestowed his originals on models, friends, neighbors, and acquaintances. “He was a generous guy who didn’t take himself seriously,” says Jaster. “We see a lot of [Rockwells] come out from the families of sitters. One consigner [not Strawn–ed.] was a truck driver who traded him cider and cheese from Vermont.”

What makes Norman Rockwell’s Study for Triple Self Portrait special? “Rockwell is almost certainly the most famous illustrator and maybe the greatest illustrator who ever lived,” says Jaster. “Triple Self Portrait is a top 10 painting. It’s a tight study, it doesn’t have a long auction history, and it’s fresh to market. That all makes it wonderful. I hope you can hear the smile in my voice.”

How to bid: Norman Rockwell’s Study for Triple Self Portrait is lot #68139 in Heritage Auctions’s American Art Signature Auction on May 3, 2017 in Dallas.

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Image is courtesy of  Heritage Auctions, HA.com.

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Untitled (Negro Mother) by Sargent Johnson Sells for $100,000

 
Sargent Johnson's Untitled (Negro Mother), a copper repoussé mask created circa 1935-36. It measures about 12 inches long and is estimated at $80,000 to $120,000.

Update: Sargent Johnson’s Untitled (Negro Mother) sold for $100,000–a record for the artist at auction.

What you see: Sargent Johnson’s Untitled (Negro Mother), a copper repoussé mask created circa 1935-36. It measures about 12 inches long and is estimated at $80,000 to $120,000.

Who is Sargent Johnson? He was a 20th century African-American artist who spent most of his career in San Francisco, and worked in a wide range of artistic media. He earned a national profile with his compelling, sensitive images of African-American subjects. “He worked to convey a more positive view of African-American femininity and womanhood in a time when the images were racist stereotypes,” says Nigel Freeman, director of the African-American fine art department at Swann Galleries. Johnson died in 1967.

What makes Untitled (Negro Mother) so intriguing? It’s one of perhaps ten copper repoussé masks that Johnson made, and most of those are in museum collections. Untitled (Negro Mother) is only the second Johnson mask to come to auction. Swann Galleries sold the first, a 1933 work simply called Mask, for $67,200 against an estimate of $30,000 to $50,000 in 2010. The consigner owned it for 50-odd years, having bought it as an unattributed mask and learning later who created it: “Somebody just sold it as a mask, and the owner discovered the signature on the back and discovered who Sargent Johnson was,” says Freeman.

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What else makes Untitled (Negro Mother) a powerful work of art? “It has the character, stature, and dignity that all Johnson’s figures have,” says Freeman. “It’s beautifully proportioned, and you get a sense of the artist being very careful to have everything perfectly balanced. At the same time, you have a strong human presence. That’s what makes his work stand out.”

How to bid: Untitled (Negro Mother) is lot 13 in Swann Auction Galleries’s African-American Fine Art auction on April 6, 2017.

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Image is courtesy of Swann Auction Galleries.

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