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Nadeau's Auction Gallery, Windsor, Connecticut

Eclectic Art Collection Creates "Mixed Bag" Auction

by Ed Pfeiffer

David P. Usher, who died in 1997, had extremely diverse interests and tastes. They were clearly reflected in his art collecting and in the artistic works offered by The Greenwich Workshop, the Connecticut fine art prints marketing firm he founded in 1972. As a result, when Nadeau's Auction Gallery in Windsor, Connecticut, brought his estate and collection up for auction on October 11, 2003, it was an unusually eclectic sale.

The 210 lots of paintings and sculpture included subjects ranging from racing cars to pets, especially cats, and from Western cowboys to Chinese folk art. That diversity made for an interesting auction, but it also created a challenge for Ed Nadeau. In an interview a few days before the sale, he said that he felt the potential buyers would be most interested only in certain specialized subjects, creating a fragmented and hard-to-reach audience. He also thought that they were likely to be retail collectors rather than dealers or other trade buyers. As a result, Nadeau had made extra efforts to address that situation.

The 84-page catalog, created by The Greenwich Workshop, was the first one the gallery had published with all of the lots in color. Nadeau mailed 150 of them to names on his client list. In addition to his usual schedule of advertising in antiques and art media, he placed an ad in the New York Times a few days before the event and ran two others in the Hartford Courant.

Those efforts generated an audience of about 50 people in the room when the auction began plus about a dozen absentee bidders and about the same number making offers by telephone. Although the would-be buyers bid actively throughout the sale, the final price results were soft. Only four lots exceeded the high end of their estimates, and about ten others topped out within their predicted levels. Some 34 lots, or about 16%, were passed. Prices for the rest of the works were generally about a third of the low-end figure in their catalog estimates. Ed Nadeau told the audience that he considered the estimates "conservative."

During the auction, especially for the sculpture lots where substantially the same objects had been sold elsewhere, Nadeau repeatedly cited past price results above those shown in the catalog estimates.

The catalog had organized the lots into nine categories, reflecting David Usher's personal preferences. Three of them were focused primarily on Chinese art: contemporary realism, folk art/traditional, and miscellaneous Oriental art. Others were adventure, Western and Native American, nature and naturalists, humor, pets, and the eclectic collector. The auction's price results indicated that Western and Native American subjects attracted the strongest reaction from bidders.

No Easy Way Out, a 42 inches x 26 inches x 16 inches bronze of a cowboy on a bucking bronco by Fred Fellows (b. 1934), took the sale's top price. It sold to a buyer on the phone for $12,650 (includes buyer's premium). It was estimated at $15,000/20,000. In second place on the price list at $9487.50 (est. $12,500/ 20,000) was Buffalo Hunt, a two-part bronze of a Native American on horseback in hot pursuit of two buffalo. It was the work of Allan Houser, originally Allan Haozous, a member of the Chiricahua Apaches. Another Western subject, War Deeds, a bronze by Dave McGary, sold for $5462.50 (est. $6500/10,000). Measuring 41 inches x 21 inches x 14 inches, it portrayed a Native American warrior.

Three works in the contemporary realism group commanded the top prices among the Chinese art lots. Curiously, the best result went to an American for a painting he had done in China. Xian in Winter, a 14 1/8<146> x 29 3/4<146> oil signed by Western artist and illustrator James E. Bama (b. 1926), sold for $4887.50 (est. $15,000/22,000).

A 29 3/8<146> x 27 3/8<146> oil signed by Mian Situ (b. 1953), Feeding Little Brother, made $3565 (est. $2000/3000). Waiting, a 49 inches x 22 inches oil by Zhang Wen Xin (b. 1926), went to an absentee bidder at $2300 (est. $7500/10,000). An interesting collection of nine oil paintings by Qin Da Hu (b. 1938), based on the Chinese tradition of naming calendar years for animals or birds, also came to the block. One of them, Year of the Dog, 35 inches x 45 1/2<146>, topped out at $862.50 (est. $3000/5000). A bidder on the phone bought Year of the Horse, 24 1/2<146> x 32 1/2<146>, for $805 (est. $2500/4000). Three others sold at prices from $345 to $747.50, and four were passed.

The run of nature and naturalists lots also seemed to stir the bidders to action. Bringing the best price results in that section were Rain Forest Rendezvous, a 17 inches x 38 inches oil signed by Rod Frederick (b. 1956) that sold for $5290 (est. $6000/9000); Grizzlies in the Falls, a signed 24 inches x 48 inches acrylic by Canadian artist Ron Parker, $5175 (est. $5000/8000); and Outfoxed, a 27 inches x 29 inches x 13 inches bronze by Robert Ball, $3162.50 (est. $4500/ 6000).

When the final lot was hammered down, the auction had produced total sales of $154,416.25 including the buyers' premiums. In a conversation before the auction, The Greenwich Workshop's chairman Michael Meskill explained the firm's reasons for wanting to sell the extensive collection of art. He said that it had been in storage for some time and was not currently serving any real purpose, in part because The Greenwich Workshop has reverted to its original print subject, decorative fine arts.

After the sale Meskill summed up the results as a "mixed bag." The workshop had realized that the decision to go to auction was a "wild card" step, he noted. Some of the results had surprised him, with certain lots doing better than he had expected and others a disappointment. There had been fewer than 20 lots with reserves, and about six or eight of those had come back to the workshop. Meskill said that they would be sold "through other channels."

For more information, contact Nadeau's Auction Gallery at (860) 246-2444 or see the Web site (www.nadeausauction.com).