John Moran Auctioneers’ bi-annual sale, California & American Art, is set to impress with a wide range of art that highlights people, places and landscapes. Attendees will find around 250 lots featuring paintings, works on paper, prints and sculpture spanning over 150 years.
“The sale will include historic and contemporary examples of California plein air land and seascapes, Northern California maritime and Society of Six, and other regional examples from around the United States,” explains Katherine Halligan, the auction house’s director of fine art. “This is our signature sale focused on the category, where we carefully curate a selection of the best examples that we are being offered by top tier American painters. The sale will include a variety of subjects and periods so collectors of all types of American art, aside from Western, will have great examples to consider.”
William Wendt (1865-1946), Freshening Breezes. Oil on canvas, 24 x 32 in. Estimate: $20/30,000
Halligan notes that the current California and American art market is holding its own. Sale over sale, the auction house is engaging with a significant number of new buyers indicating that the market is growing, and sales are able to reach new collectors. The auction will offer fresh-to-market selections, most from estates or private collections that have not been offered at auction before. The sale will have two privately-owned collections of Armin Hansen and James McNeill Whistler etchings that will appeal to print collectors on both coasts.
One of the top highlights, with an estimate of $20,000 to $30,000, is William Wendt’s Freshening Breezes from the collection of Robert A. Day, a Los Angeles investor, philanthropist and businessman. Painted in 1921, this textured seascape scene, with a cloudy sky, is from a notable period in the artist’s oeuvre.
Frederick Waugh (1861-1940), Smuggler’s Cove. Oil on Masonite, 40 x 50 in. Estimate: $15/25,000
John Marshall Gamble (1863-1957), Bush Lupine, Seaside. Oil on board, 18 x 24 in. Estimate: $12/18,000
“The painting exhibits the blockier, confident brushwork of Wendt’s mature period, particularly evident in the cloud structures and rough surface of the water,” says Halligan.
From the same collection is John Marshall Gamble’s Bush Lupine, Seaside, (est. $12/18,000), “a very strong example of the artist’s work, painted in the typical Santa Barbara/Central Coast environs Gamble preferred,” Halligan notes. Also on offer is Frederick Waugh’s Smuggler’s Cove, with an estimated value of $15,000 to $25,000. This moody, highly realistic painting, likely features the Channel Island of Sark or St. Ives, Cornwall, where Waugh honed his skills in painting coastal seascapes during the 15 years he spent in England.
Jessie Arms Botke (1883-1971), Ducks and sunflowers in a garden. Oil on board, 9½ x 11½ in. Estimate: $8/12,000
“The painting is exquisitely detailed on the craggy coastal rocks and in the handling of the rough sea waves, and has a luminosity in the late afternoon sunlight that contrasts dramatically with the shadowed foreground,” Halligan adds.
In addition, the sale presents wonderful examples by Mary DeNeale Morgan, Jessie Arms Botke, John Frost, Clyde Aspevig, Ben Abril, Edward Berge, Emil Carlsen, Charles Arthur Fries, Thomas Hill, Henry Gasser, William Lees Judson, and many others.
Tune in to the California & American Fine Art live auction at John Moran Auctioneers’ showroom in Monrovia, California, on May 5, starting at 12 p.m. —
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