The American Art Fair 2014

November 16th, 2014

Louis Salerno of Questroyal Fine Art, New York City, asked $975,000 for A Side Canyon, Grand Canyon, Arizona by Thomas Moran (1837-1926). The 14" x 20" oil on board was dated 1905; on the back is inscribed “A Side Canyon/ Grand Canyon, Arizona /T. Moran for G. Moulton.”

Proserpine by Hiram Powers (1805-1873), created in 1848, was $125,000 from Conner • Rosenkranz. Just Off Madison.

Harlem Street Scene by Jacob Lawrence (1917-2000), 1942, gouache on paper, 22¼" x 22¾", signed and dated lower right, was $675,000 from Jonathan Boos, Bloomfield Village, Michigan, and New York City.

Anna Mary Robertson “Grandma” Moses (1860-1961) painted The Brown Mills in 1951 in oil on board, 18" x 23 7/8". Signed “Moses” lower right, the painting was $250,000 from Debra Force.

This 19¾" x 15¾" oil on canvas by Georgia O’Keeffe (1887-1986), The Red Maple, Lake George, circa 1920, is signed on backing board in black ink and has an inscription by O’Keeffe on the stretcher. It was signed and titled on the artist’s Abiquiu studio panel fixed to backing board. It was $2.4 million from James Reinish & Associates, New York City.

New York City

The change in date of American paintings week in New York City to November 16-19, 2014, from the week after Thanksgiving was greeted with applause. Rescheduling was called for because of the conflict with the fair called Art Basel Miami, which over the years has come to include Modernism along with contemporary paintings, and dealers and collectors like to spend the week after Thanksgiving in Miami. Moreover, dealers and auctioneers were especially happy with the change in dates because for the first time in years it gave them a real Thanksgiving holiday. Instead of setting up at the art fair or working a preview on Thanksgiving weekend, it was all behind them a week before turkey day.

Museum directors herded groups of collectors; curators made the rounds; and dealers came from the hinterlands to see what was for sale in the Big Apple. The week was bookended by the well-attended invitation-only preview party for the American Art Fair at Bohemian National Hall, 321 East 73rd Street, on Saturday, November 15 from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m., and by the show called Just Off Madison, an open house for American art by private art dealers on Wednesday evening, November 19, from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. Auction previews and sales filled the days in between. Sotheby’s wrapped up the week with a Thursday morning sale on November 20. During that sale Jimson Weed/White Flower No.1 (1932) by Georgia O’Keeffe sold for $44.4 million, breaking records.

“We opened the art fair on Saturday evening because so many people are in town to preview the auctions that weekend, and it let them see what dealers have to show them as well,” said Thomas Colville, who with dealer Alexander Acevedo came up with the idea for the American Art Fair in 2008 in order to send the message that not all of the top works of art are available at auction; many can be acquired through art dealers. Admission is free; it is not a charity fund-raiser.

Acevedo did not show at the art fair this time. “He is knowledgeable in so many fields that he has been concentrating on Chinese works of art, old masters, and material from the period of the American Revolution, all of which he will show at the Winter Show,” Colville explained. “Alex did not feel he had enough fresh 19th-century American works for the art fair this time.”

Seventeen dealers brought the best they could muster to the Bohemian Hall. Collectors flocked to the fair Sunday through Wednesday in order to stay informed about what is on the market. Much of it was fresh material, some from stock, but much of it consigned to dealers by longtime clients who are downsizing. Also there were works from artists’ estates. The American Art Fair and the experience of gallery hopping on Wednesday evening have replaced the older tradition of multiple trips to visit galleries in Manhattan. Now that life is lived at Internet speed, it is convenient to have a week of concentrated looking, talking, listening to lectures, and squeezing in a museum visit in between. The week before Thanksgiving is a perfect time for it.

Seeing a work of art in reality and close up instead of by clicking on a Web site is a far more memorable experience. The uninitiated can make it a crash course in American art. The auction catalogs and American Fine Art Magazine serve as the textbooks; the dealers are the professors. There are special lectures. For instance, at the American Art Fair, Mark D. Mitchell, associate curator at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, spoke about still life painting, the subject of an exhibition he has put together to show at the museum in summer. Carol Troyen, a scholar from the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, talked about Marsden Hartley’s later works (a Hartley exhibition is in the works at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art recently exhibited Hartley’s Berlin pictures). Christie’s auction gallery traditionally offers a Monday-evening lecture; this time the subject was an exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art from September 2014 to April 19, 2015, Thomas Hart Benton’s “America Today” Mural Rediscovered. The two speakers were Elizabeth M. Kornhauser, curator of American paintings at the Met, and Randall Griffey, associate curator of the Met’s department of modern and contemporary art.

There were sales at the American Art Fair and Just Off Madison and some ongoing negotiations. “Having the right things at the right prices seemed to be the secret of sales,” said Tom Veilleux, who made multiple sales at the art fair and in the weeks following. He said, “It was best show I’ve ever had in 41 years of art dealing.”

The pictures and captions show a fraction of what the 17 galleries had on view at the seventh annual American Art Fair and at the galleries participating in the seventh annual Just Off Madison. The captions note some of what sold.

For more information see the Web sites (www.theamericanartfair.com) and (www.justoffmadison.com).

D.C. Moore Gallery, New York City, offered Hearn’s Department Store (Fourteenth Street Shoppers) by Isabel Bishop (1902-1988). The1927 oil on canvas, 9½" x 11½", was $65,000.

Meredith Ward Fine Art represents the estate of John Marin (1870-1953). This watercolor on paper is from that source. Autumn, New Jersey,1913, 13¾" x 16½", was $75,000.

Tom Veilleux Gallery, Portland, Maine, sold Marsden Hartley’s Blue Hills. The 12½" x 14½" oil on board had been given to sculptor Robert Laurent (1890-1970). It was $550,000. Veilleux also sold a watercolor by Rockwell Kent and a still life by William Glackens from his iPad. Veilleux also offered Robert Laurent’s sculpture Bather, which he sold after the show.

Richard Rossello of Avery Galleries offered Bucks County Nocturne by George William Sotter (1879-1953) for $78,500. It’s an oil on board, 12" x 19", signed lower right.

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