In our most recent blog we covered the 2016 Scottsdale Art Auction, and concluded the blog promising to post the auction results. The results are in!
You can go to the results page on the Scottsdale Art Auction website to every one of the 386 lots offered.
A few highlights:
The Walter Ufer, "Trailing Homewards" Oil on canvas, 20 x 25" sold for $613,000 with premium. - the sales price landing smack in the middle of the $500,000-$700,000 estimate.
Not many works by Ufer, the Taos Founder and American Master, come to auction; certainly not many of this quality. Great to see this piece do well.
"The Red Door" by Victor Higgins sold for $304,200 with premium, just surpassing the $200,000-$300,000 estimate.
This 20 x 24" oil in canvas is a unique display of Higgins embracing the modernism that influenced the Western Art genre after 1900; note the creeping shadows and long, thin rectangular clouds, the bent over and hooded figure walking by.
Kyle Polzin (b. 1974) has been in high demand in the Western Art market for awhile. His pieces have routinely sold at auction above their estimates.
The four Polzin lots in this year's Scottsdale sale did not disappoint, each selling above their estimates. The majority of the 42 year old artist's work are his dark and quiet still life pieces. The artist cannot produce the works quickly, because he is so meticulous in his detail and in research of his subjects.
A couple disappointments:
The C.M. Russell watercolor and gouache on paper, "The Scout" did not sell. This 14 x 11" original from 1900 was estimated to sell at $75,000-$100,000.
This is a wonderful watercolor by an American Master, and the only Russell in the auction. I thought it would sell quickly, but that is the risk and reward of auctions; you never know how the bidders will bid or how the hammer will fall.
Fortunate for collectors who were unable to bid during the auction, all unsold pieces can be purchased post auction on the Scottsdale website.
"Advancing Scouts" didn't sell! I was out of the room when this piece by Oscar Berninghaus came up for bid, so I didn't get to see how the room responded, but what a disappointment. This large action scene with two Indians has Berninghaus written all over it. A bright blue sky with puffy clouds surround the scouts as they approach the threat ahead of them. They trek slowly across the beautiful desert terrain, exposed; just them, their horses and the tension in the moment.
It is a fantastic scene I was excited to see in person. Too bad this 40 x 30" oil on canvas did not meet its $250,000-$350,000 estimate.
As mentioned in the previous blog, they did it again. With a sale-through rate of 82% and brining over $8.7 million, the 2016 Scottsdale Art Auction was a huge success. The auction house is already looking forward, now seeking consignments for their April 8th sale in 2017.
On a separate, but exciting, note, the Dallas Art Fair kicks off this week! The Signet Art team will be visiting the show and, as we do every year, we will cover it here on the blog. Stay tuned!
-M.P. Callender
