Date: Fri 29-May-1998

Publication: Ant

Author: SHIRLE

Quick Words:

Westart

Full Text:

American Western Art Fetches $25,036,000 At Sotheby's

(W/1 CUT) - LB

NEW YORK CITY -- Sotheby's sale of the Eulich collection of western art on May

20 brought $25,036,000, four million dollars above the high estimate. Of the

44 works offered, all sold, and 33 lots or 75 percent sold over the high

estimate.

Records were set for major American artists whose works chronicled the

settlement of the American West. Among the artists whose records were

rewritten in the sale were John Mix Stanley, George Catlin, William T. Ranney,

Seth Eastman, Joseph Henry Sharp, Henry F. Farny and Charles Schreyvogel. In

the Taos School, an E. Martin Hennings set a record and a Thomas Moran set a

record for a watercolor.

Altogether 26 records were set for artists represented in the Eulich

collection. The grand total for the entire day reached $42,564,275, the second

highest total for a Sotheby's American paintings sale.

"We are thrilled with [the] landmark sale of American Western art," commented

Peter Rathbone, co-head of Sotheby's American paintings department. "The

Eulich collection of western art reached the highest total for any

single-owner American paintings sale ever, eclipsing the IBM sale in 1995,

which brought in $19 million."

Sotheby's record was short lived, however. The following day Christie's

surpassed it with its $25,347,150 auction of paintings from the collection of

Thomas Mellon Evans.

The collection was assembled by Texas businessman John Eulich over a period of

20 years, and American private buyers from all over the country responded to

the comprehensive scope and rare quality of individual works with enthusiastic

bidding on virtually every lot in the sale. The top lot was Frederic

Remington's "The Trooper" (est $2/3 million), which sold over the phone to an

anonymous bidder for $2,532,500. "The Trooper" celebrates one of the artist's

ideals of the invincible hero of the American frontier -- the US Army

cavalryman. The second highest price was also for a work by Remington, "The

Apaches" (est $1.5/2 million), which sold for $2,422,500.

Two mid-Nineteenth Century artists, John Mix Stanley and William Ranney, whose

works celebrated the more romantic characters of the West, fetched strong

prices in the sale. Stanley's "Blackfeet Card Players" (est $900,000/1.2

million), regarded as one of the artist's finest late works, sold for

$1,652,500, and Ranney's "Kit Carson" (est $800,000/1.2 million), dating to

1854, depicting one of the mythical heroes of the frontier, fetched

$1,212,500. Both set records for the artists at auction.

George Catlin's "Sioux War Council," a brilliant account of the dynamics of

Sioux political life, sold for $937,500, a record for the artists at auction.

Albert Bierstadt's "Indian Encampment" (est $1/1.5 million), of a quiet

domestic scene of the Shoshone Indians' camp, fetched $1,432,500.

Records were also set for artists Thomas Moran with "Big Springs in

Yellowstone Park;" for Alfred Jacob Miller with "Sioux Camp;" for Charles

Schreyvogel with "The Silenced War Whoop;" for William Koemer with "Indians

Attacking Stagecoach;" and for Julian Scott with "At a Moqui Navajo Horse

Race."