Lambertville, NJ – On Saturday, September 13, 2008 at 12 pm, the Rago Arts and Auction Center will host a sale of works by American and European artists, including a first-rate selection of American sculpture.
“This is a sale of fine works acquired at a range of price points, almost entirely from private sellers. The Sotter night scene has never been to market.” says Meredith Hilferty, Director of Fine Arts at Rago’s, “It is absolutely a sale to see for anyone seeking a great American bronze.”
The first session of the auction features works by both American and European artists. Notable among these is an untitled oil by Orrin Augustine White (pre-sale estimate $6,000-9,000); a wonderful scene of Broadway near Union Square in oil on Masonite by Laurence A. Campbell (pre-sale estimate $10,000-15,000); a woodcut in colors by William Henry Johnson (pre-sale estimate $2,000-3,000); an oil by 4006 George Loftus Noyes (pre-sale estimate $6,000-8,000); and a large oil on wood panel by Everett Lloyd Bryant (pre-sale estimate $3,000-4,000). Also featured in this session, paintings by artists John Fery, Howard Russell Butler, William Chadwick, Marguerite Stuber Pearson, James Carroll Beckwith, Johann Berthelsen, Walt Kuhn, Franklin Benjamin DeHaven, Birge Harrison, Lowell Blair Nesbitt, Moses Soyer, Charles Arthur Fries, Ralston Crawford, Arthur Vidal Diehl and John R. Grabach; a gouache by Kenneth L. Callahan; a mixed media work by David Davidovich Burliuk and a watercolor by Henry Martin Gasser.
American sculpture has been an essential component of Rago’s fine art sales since its landmark auction of the Reingold Collection. An increasingly strong selection of bronzes has found their way to the auction house. September’s sale features Bessie Onahotema Potter Vonnoh’s Dancing Girl, cast in 1899 by the Henry-Bonnard Bronze Company (pre-sale estimate $30,000 – 50,000); Alexander Phimister Proctor’s Buckaroo (pre-sale estimate $30,000-50,000); Anna Vaughn Hyatt Huntington’s bronze bookends Charging Mountain Goats (pre-sale estimate $7,000 -9,000); an untitled cast terra cotta by Maurice Glickman (pre-sale estimate $1,000-2,000); an untitled marble sculpture (with base) by William Couper (pre-sale estimate $4,000-6,000), as well as sculpture by Paul Howard Manship, Boris Lovet-Lorski, Victor David Brenner, Elizabeth Norton, William Zorach, Jose De Creeft, Eugene Gauss, Emil Fuchs, Enrico Glicenstein and Robert Henry Rockwell.
The sale’s second session is devoted to Pennsylvania area artists. The highlight: an exceptional night scene by George William Sotter (pictured above). Commissioned by a neighbor of Sotter, held privately since its creation, the oil on Masonite measures 22″ x 26″ and is signed and dated 1946 (pre-sale estimate $100,000-150,000). Other important works include two oils by Fern Isabel Kuns Coppedge, Harbor Afternoon (pre-sale estimate $25,000-35,000) and an untitled oil (pre-sale estimate $5,000-7,000); Charles Rosen’s Brick Yard (pre-sale estimate $3,000-5,000); William Langson Lathrop’s North Shore, Long Island (pre-sale estimate $7,000-9,000); an untitled oil by John Fulton Folinsbee (pre-sale estimate $4,000-6,000); Walter Emerson Baum’s Autumn Forest Scene (pre-sale estimate $4,000-6,000) and three etchings by Daniel Garber.
Those in search of the Pennsylvania Modernists will find works by Joseph Meierhans, Lloyd Ney and Josef Zenk. And Rago’s continues its support of some of the finest artists working in and around Bucks County today, among them artists Joseph Barrett, Judy Henn and Jeff Gola.
Auction info www.ragoarts.com
