Maine Antique Digest March 2015

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Maine Antique Digest, March 2015 25-D
- AUCTION -
Freeman’s, Philadelphia
American Art and Pennsylvania Impressionism
by Lita Solis-Cohen
Photos courtesy Freeman’s
Alasdair Nichol, vice chair-
man of Freeman’s in Phil-
adelphia, Pennsylvania,
and head of fine art at the auc-
tion house, decided a year and a
half ago to hold separate sales
of American art with a section
of Pennsylvania Impressionists,
instead of offering American and
European art including old mas-
ters in one big catalog as had
been the tradition at Freeman’s
for some time. (Freeman’s sale of
modern and contemporary things
has long stood alone.)
“Freeman’s has had great suc-
cess selling Pennsylvania Impres-
sionists from the time these artists
were alive, painting and teaching
at the Pennsylvania Academy of
the Fine Arts,” said Nichol as he
stepped down from the podium
on Sunday, December 7, 2014.
He had sold American art to a full
house. He sold two paintings by
Daniel Garber, The River Road
for $327,750 and Up Jericho for
$207,750, both to private clients.
“Both paintings were in their orig-
inal frames, ready to go on the
wall,” he said.
The Hill Road in Winter by
William Sotter, which sold for
$147, 750 (est. $100,000/150,000),
may be the largest of Sotter’s
snowy nocturnes; it measures 36"
x 40". A small (13 3/8" x 16")
Sotter nocturne, Barn on a Win-
ter Night, sold for $111,750 (est.
$40,000/60,000). It sparkles with
a starry sky.
“Pennsylvania Impressionism
had lost some speed when some
major collectors pulled out of
the market a few years ago, but a
new group has come in, and they
are enjoying it,” Nichol observed.
He said he took some of the pic-
tures in the sale to Scotland last
summer, when the Terra Founda-
tion for American Art (Chicago)
sponsored an exhibition of Ameri-
can Impressionism at the Scottish
National Gallery of Modern Art
(Edinburgh) from July 19 to Octo-
ber 19, 2014. Nichol gave a talk
about Pennsylvania Impression-
ism to Lyon & Turnbull clients.
He said the talk was well received,
but it did not attract bidders from
Scotland. Lyon & Turnbull has
a business relationship with
Freeman’s.
There was a real buzz in the
salesroom, which was filled with
collectors and a few members of
the trade. Everyone stayed until
the very end of the sale to see how
the last 50 lots of Pennsylvania
Impressionists performed. They
did well. Only six minor Penn-
sylvania Impressionist pictures
failed to sale. Nichol is known
for reasonable estimates. In all,
145 of the 164 lots of American
art offered at Freeman’s sold; that
is an 88% sold rate, the best sell-
through rate of any of the autumn
American art sales in New York
City. The sale totaled $3,354,668,
which was the highest for a Free-
man’s various-owners American
art sale to date; it is topped only
by the $4.3 million white glove
63-lot auction of the George D.
Horst collection in March 2014.
The December 7 total was
swelled by the sale of two N.C.
Wyeth illustrations for Daniel
Defoe’s novel Robinson Cru-
soe, consigned by the Wilming-
ton Library. The illustration for
“I stood like one thunderstruck,
or as I had seen an apparition,”
which pictures Crusoe with his
umbrella on the beach looking at
a footprint, sold on the phone for
$435,750 (est. $150,000/250,000).
Another painting illustrating
“And no sooner had he the arms
in his hands but, as if they had
put new vigor into him, he
flew upon his murderers like
fury” sold for $267,750 (est.
$120,000/180,000).
As reported in M.A.D. in
February 2010 (pp. 32-33-C),
both these illustrations had been
offered at Christie’s in Decem-
ber 2009 and failed to sell. To
make repairs on their building, the
Wilmington Library had hoped to
raise at least $5 million by selling
all 14 of its N.C. Wyeth illustra-
tions, which capture the dramatic
narrative of Robinson Crusoe.
N.C. Wyeth had sold the paintings
to the library in the early 1920s for
$2300, and they had hung in the
reading room until they were sent
to Christie’s. Before sending them
off, the library had digital prints
made and put into the original
frames. At Christie’s in Decem-
ber 2009, just five of the paintings
sold. A sixth was sold privately
after the sale. It was a disappoint-
ment for the library to receive less
than $2 million.
After five years the library
decided it was a good time to try
to sell some more and sent two to
Freeman’s. Unframed, these pow-
erful images, 40½" x 30", domi-
nated the salesroom. They brought
close to what similar paintings
brought at Christie’s when they
were fresh to market. Narrative art
is in demand, and N.C. Wyeth was
a master storyteller and expres-
sive painter. Freeman’s said the
library was thrilled with the sale.
H. Rodney Scott, president of the
library’s board of managers, said
the proceeds will be providing
expanded programs and services.
When asked how many Robin-
son Crusoe illustrations remain to
be sold, Larry Manuel, director of
the library, said there are four, all
stored at the Brandywine River
Museum in Chadds Ford, Penn-
sylvania. “Christie’s sold five at
the sale and one more after the
sale, and the library sold one to
someone who approached us. We
are enjoying the success of the
Freeman’s sale. We are not sure
yet what we will do with the other
four.”
There were other treasures in
the sale that fit smaller pocket-
books and were bought by pri-
vate collectors, museums, and by
the trade. The first lot, a classic
1942 lithograph by Thomas Hart
Benton, The Race (Homeward
Bound), with a horse and a train
racing across the landscape, sold
on the phone for $15,000 (est.
$5000/8000) and got the sale off
to a good start.
An impressive Portrait of Lyn-
ford Lardner painted in 1749
by John Hesselius (1728-1778)
shows Lardner wearing a white
waistcoat with plenty of gold
braid. It seemed like a bargain
“A new group has
come in, and they
are enjoying it.”
Six phone bidders competed for The River Road
by Daniel Garber (1880-1958). The 30" x 28" circa
1940 oil on canvas was signed “Daniel Garber”
on the bottom left. In a Bernard Badura frame,
the painting sold to a collector on the phone for
$327,750 (est. $150,000/250,000).
Daniel Garber (1880-1958), Up Jericho, oil on can-
vas, 22" x 18", signed “Daniel Garber” on bottom
right, inscribed on the stretcher bar on the back
“Up Jericho by Daniel Garber” and also inscribed
“Over at the Farm by Daniel Garber” and “For
Milch” on a vertical stretcher bar. It sold to a phone
bidder for $207,750 (est. $150,000/250,000). Painted
in December 1930, it is in a Harer frame, inscribed
“Harer.” It was shown in a Daniel Garber retro-
spective at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine
Arts in 1945.
Newell Convers Wyeth (1882-1945), illustration
painting for “I stood like one thunderstruck, or as
I had seen an apparition,” signed “N.C. Wyeth”
bottom right, oil on canvas, unframed, 40½" x 30".
It sold for $435,750 (est. $150,000/250,000). This
illustration for Robinson Crusoe had been one of
a series of 14 images consigned by the Wilmington
Library, Wilmington, Delaware, to Christie’s New
York on December 2, 2009, when it failed to sell.
With a more inviting estimate, there was plenty of
competition on eight phones for a first-rate pic-
ture, and it sold well over expectations.
Newell Convers Wyeth, illustration for Daniel
Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe for “And no sooner had
he the arms in his hands but, as if they had put new
vigor into him, he flew upon his murderers like a
fury,” signed “N.C. Wyeth” on lower left, oil on
canvas, unframed, 40½" x 30", consigned by the
Wilmington [Delaware] Library, sold to a phone
bidder for $267,750 (est. $120,000/180,000).
Thomas Birch, Ship in Dis-
tress, oil on canvas, 20"
x 30", signed and dated
“T. Birch 1826” bottom
left. It sold for $3750 (est.
$5000/8000) to William
Valerio, director and CEO
of Woodmere Art Museum,
Chestnut Hill, Pennsylva-
nia. It seemed like a bargain.
☞