Maine Antique Digest, April 2017

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Maine Antique Digest, April 2017 33-A
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33-A
Sandusky Street
Antiques
Open 7 days a week
in historic downtown Delaware, Ohio
30 N. Sandusky Street
740 363-1405
This ceramic sculpture, Rhinelephant , by Canadian artist Jordan Maclachlan
(b. 1959) was available from Marion Harris, New York City. Part of the artist’s
“Zoo Living” series, it was priced at $2500. Maclachlan’s work “reflects her
ongoing keen interest in animal husbandry and zookeeping techniques. The often
hyper-realistic portrayals of animals and people can be insightful to the point of
voyeurism,” wrote Harris.
This untitled carved limestone sculpture of
a seated girl by William Edmondson (1874-
1951), circa 1940, was available at the booth
of Fleisher/Ollman Gallery. Christie’s sold an
Edmondson sculpture of a lion at its Outsider
art auction on Friday, January 20, for
$511,500 (est. $200,000/400,000) to collector
Jerry Lauren, and it was the top lot of the sale.
This hinged iron dragon, made by a
blacksmith in Chester, Pennsylvania,
circa 1900, possibly as a bellows, was
priced at $3200 by American Primitive
Gallery, New York City.
The women of Gee’s Bend, Alabama, whose inhabitants are mostly descendants of slaves,
have created hundreds of quilts dating from the early 20th century to the present. Made
from recycled work clothes and dresses, feed sacks, and fabric remnants, the quilts
have been exhibited in museums and cultural institutions across the United States.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art will hold a show this summer displaying the quilts
it acquired as a gift from the Souls Grown Deep Foundation, Alabama. A booth at the
Outsider Art Fair featured many other examples, and a portion of the sales went to God’s
Love We Deliver, a New York City metropolitan area provider of meals and nutrition
counseling for people living with HIV/AIDS and numerous other diagnoses.
Carl Hammer Gallery, Chicago, one of the exhibitors at the first Outsider Art Fair,
showed works by Frank Jones among others. Born in Texas in 1900, Jones didn’t
attend school and never learned to read or write. His mother told him he was born
with a veil over his left eye, which allowed him to see into the spirit world, an African
American folk belief. He was a troubled man, drank heavily, and went to prison more
than once, the last time for a life sentence. His colored pencil drawings on paper were
discovered by a Dallas gallerist during a prison art show. “He’s the real McCoy,” said
Hammer. “Powerful and authentic.” Hammer Gallery will have a show of Jones’s
work entitled Demons within Me from May 5 to June 30. Seen here is Jap House, 54,
26" x 40", drawn a few years before his death in 1969. Priced at $15,000, it sold. Many
of Jones’s drawings are signed with his prison number 114591.