Date: Fri 29-Jan-1999

Publication: Ant

Author: DONNAM

Quick Words:

Butterfield-McCloskey

Full Text:

Butterfield And Butterfield Set Records For California And American Paintings

LOS ANGELES, CALIF. -- Nearly four million dollars was paid with multiple

world record prices set for California and American paintings and sculpture

offered by Butterfield & Butterfield December 8 and 10 in a sale simulcast

between the auctioneer's San Francisco and Los Angeles galleries and the

Butterfield & Dunning gallery in Elgin, Ill.

The top lot in December's sale was an oil on canvas "Wrapped Oranges" by

William Joseph McCloskey. The artist, who died at the age of 82, completed

most of his wrapped orange still lifes in his 30s and 40s. This painting, 11

by 24 inches, is a very fine example of one of McCloskey's favorite subject

matters and brought $206,000, well surpassing the pre-sale estimate of

$75/125,000. Butterfield set a world record for a McCloskey painting in 1994

selling "Oranges and Wrappers" for $464,500.

"A Happy Group," an oil on board signed and inscribed by Edward Henry

Potthast, brought a very strong price for a picture of its size selling for

$167,500 while Dennis Miller Bunker's "Two Beached Sailboats and a Dory,"

1880, an oil on canvas, sold for more than twice the estimate fetching

$107,000. The same price was paid by the successful bidder for a Guy Rose oil

on panel entitled "Southern France." Butterfield and Butterfield holds the

record for Guy Rose paintings sold at auction, having successfully sold "On

Point Lobos" for $508,500 in June of 1998.

Additional world record prices were achieved for Marion Kavanaugh Wachtel's

oil on canvas "Laguna Canyon" which sold for $48,875 and for Helen Mary

Turner's "The Bird Cage," 1918, which brought $46,000. A world record price of

$46,000 was paid for William Penhallow Henderson's oil on board "Figures and

Adobes," 1918, and competitive bidding pushed the price for Mary DeNeale

Morgan's oil on board "Carmel Mission" to $13,800, a world record for the

artist. Tying a world record price for a Dale Nichols' work is the $24,150

paid for "Show Scene (Sunday Visitors)," 1944, an oil on canvas.

The start of the December 8 sale was delayed by a day-long electrical blackout

affecting most of the San Francisco Bay Area and causing the postponement of

the sale's first and second sessions. Many bidders arriving at the San

Francisco gallery waited for several hours, hopeful that the city's power

would be restored in time to start the auction. Nevertheless, buyers returned

on December 10 to place their bids. Significant prices were also realized for

Maynard Dixon's "Summer Clouds, New Mexico," an oil on canvas completed in

1931 which brought $57,500. Another beautiful landscape, "Mount Hood, Oregon,

From White River Canyon," 1881, an oil on canvas by Raymond Dabb Yelland, sold

for $51,750.