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June 14, 2011 California & American Fine Art Preview |
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Pasadena, CA – Pasadena, CA –John Moran Auctioneers is pleased to announce that their June 14, 2011 California and American Art Auction at the Pasadena Convention Center in Pasadena, CA will present a selection of more than 200 paintings and other artworks from private estates and collections. Top California Impressionists such as Hanson Puthuff, John Gamble and William Wendt, and leading representatives of other regional schools, will take their place in the spotlight, but the sale will also feature a very good selection of works by artists active in the post-war era, including Lorser Feitelson, Leroy Neiman, Ogden Pleissner and Henry Koerner. The sale is notable for the high number of works valued over $50,000.
Moran’s is particularly privileged to offer Under the Overpass by Henry Koerner (1915 – 1991), a powerful work consigned directly from the family collection of close personal friends of the artist. Koerner’s son Joseph noted in correspondence with the family that the painting is ‘’one of the most important of the group of pictures painted (most likely) in 1948-9’’, just after the artist was given his first one-man show in Berlin and began his association with the ‘magic realist’ painters. Koerner’s work from this period attracted much acclaim, setting the course for a highly successful career that eventually included acquisitions of his work by several major museums including the Metropolitan Museum and the Whitney.
Koerner, who was born in Vienna to a Jewish family, escaped to America in 1938 when Hitler invaded Austria. His parents and brother stayed in Austria and he never saw them again. Returning to Vienna in 1946 after working on assignment for the US government making sketches of the Nuremburg trials, he learned of their death.
Suggesting a possible interpretation of the symbolic elements in Under the Overpass, Joseph Koerner continues: ‘’the big red trolley is a key image in his work. It refers both to the trolley that passed before his childhood home, the Number 5 trolley; and it has a sort of archetypal meaning as the coming and going of people into life and out again, in death, a meaning I believe is compounded by the fact of his parents being deported to the extermination camp by train… I do not know whether he (Joseph Koerner) actually knew this, but they were in fact transported from Vienna, via Minsk, to a death camp called Maly Trostinec, in Belarus…. The actual setting for the painting is, I imagine, a combination of two things: some train somewhere in NYC, perhaps in Brooklyn, where my father lived; and an overpass cutting over the great boulevard of trees called the Hauptallee, in the Prater. Of course the beauty of the painting, and its public significance, far transcends the personal story it contains, however painful and resonant that story itself may be.’’ The unsigned work, which was painted in oil and tempera on board, will be offered with an estimate of $100,000 – 150,000.
Other sale highlights form a comprehensive survey of the California Impressionist School, replete with many desirable works emblematic of their creator’s signature styles. Top lots include an exuberant 1927 pastel-on-fabric beach scene with figures and umbrellas by William Alexander Griffith (1866 – 1940) that continues the theme in the paintings that currently hold the second and third-place price records for the artist. A Laguna Beach coastal by William Wendt (1865 – 1946) is offered with an estimate of $70,000 – 90,000; a glorious coastal landscape by John M. Gamble (1863 – 1957) swathed with his signature drifts of poppies and lupine, is estimated at $70,000 – 90,000; and a large work by Hanson Puthuff (1875 – 1972), Spring’s Tenderness, is an inviting, softly colored canvas that has remained in a private collection since it was given to the owner by the artist himself, and is expected to sell for $120,000 – 180,000.
Fifth Lake, High Sierras is a typically high-quality work depicting mountain grandeur by Edgar Payne (1883 – 1947) (estimate $50,000 – 70,000). A Southern California landscape by Maurice Braun (1877 – 1941) (estimate: $30,000 – 50,000) and an exquisite Peacock with Pink Flamingos by Jessie Arms Botke (1883 – 1971) (estimate: $20,000 – 30,000) are also excellent examples of the artists’ most sought-after styles and subject matter. The careers of Franz Bischoff (1864 – 1929) as both an easel painter and an innovative ceramics decorator are well represented in the sale, with two floral-decorated porcelain vases and two landscapes in oil.
Birger Sandzen (1871 – 1954) was one of the most original interpreters of the Midwestern landscape, known for his fauve-like use of intense color placed in startling juxtapositions and his thick layers of paint and broad brush strokes. Moran’s is offering two sizeable oils by him, both executed in his trademark style but evoking very different moods: a deep blue Poplars in the Moonlight (estimate: $50,000 - 70,000), and a sun-shot landscape with two cottonwood trees dated 1938, titled ‘Summer- Lindsborg, Kansas’, (estimate: $40,000 – 60,000) .
Works on paper appear in a variety of media in the sale. The stunning gelatin silverprint by Ogle Winston Link (1914 – 2001), NW1103, Hot Shot Eastbound at the Laeger Drive-In, West Virginia, is one of the photographer’s most famous images, and is estimated to realize $7000 – 9000. A colored pencil and gouache drawing by Joe Duncan Gleason (1881 – 1959), of Spanish galleons off-loading in a lagoon (estimate: $3000 – 5000); color block prints by Gustave Baumann (1881 – 1971) and Frances Gearhart (1869 – 1958); signed lithographs by Thomas Hart Benton (1889 – 1975) - and Sargent Johnson (1888 – 1967); watercolors of San Francisco’s Chinatown, ferry building and Alcatraz by Jade Fon (1911 – 1983); and a watercolor by Armin C. Hansen (1886 – 1957) of an elephant raising a circus tent ($5000 – 7000) are a few of the top picks.
Additional highlights include:
• A scene of two men fishing by sporting art specialist Ogden Pleissner (1905 – 1983) (estimate: $50,000 – 70,000)
• Ten paintings and drawings by Leroy Neiman (1921 - *) from the late 1950’s to the late 60’s, including nightclub and bar scenes and a portrait of Nat King Cole, offered with estimates ranging from $1500 – 12,000
• Bathers by Lorser Feitelson (1898 – 1978), a large work dated 1920 (estimate: $20,000 – 30,000)
• Blue Madonna by Mabel Alvarez (1891 – 1985), expected to realize $20,000 – 30,000
• Sculptures by Chaim Gross (1904 – 1991) and Karoly Fulop (1893 – 1963)
Moran’s auctions are held at the Pasadena Convention Center in Pasadena, California. Bidding is available from the floor and via telephone, absentee or online at Artfact.com. A full catalogue of the auction with complete descriptions, condition reports and multiple images of every item will be posted at www.johnmoran.com and at artfact.com three weeks prior to the sale.
For more information about this sale or to consign artworks, antiques or jewelry, please call the offices of John Moran Auctioneers at (626) 793-1833 or email
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Visit us at http://www.johnmoran.com for more information. Or call us at: (626) 793-1833 or email us at
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