DOYLE NEW YORK'S DECEMBER 1 AUCTION OF AMERICAN ART SETS NEW AUCTION RECORDS FOR ALEXANDER STIRLING CALDER AND JEAN MACLANE 

Doyle New York's auction of American Art on December 1, 2004 set new auction records for artists Alexander Stirling Carter and Jean MacLane. With a crowded salesroom competing against numerous bidders on the telephones and on the Internet, the auction also achieved strong prices for works by Charles Henry Demuth and Walter Elmer Schofield, among many others.

Highlighting the auction was a beautifully rendered shipping scene by American Luminist Fitz Hugh Lane that sold for a strong $265,100. Also of note was a significant late watercolor floral still life by Charles Demuth painted during a surge in his productivity one year prior to his death, which sold for $209,100. 

One of the most sought-after lots in the sale was a bronze sculpture, Leda and the Swan, by Alexander Stirling Calder. Created in 1921 by the father of the Contemporary artist, Alexander Calder, the sculpture was the object of spirited bidding that pushed the price well beyond the pre-sale estimate of $15,000-25,000 to reach $77,675, a new auction record for the artist.

Jean MacLane's Tennis Days, painted in 1932, was a wonderful portrayal of the artist's children at rest after a strenuous mid-afternoon tennis match. The work attracted the attention of a number of collectors and dealers, and after much competitive bidding, the painting sold for $62,373. This price was well over the pre-sale estimate of $15,000-20,000, and it set a new auction record for the artist.

Another of the sale's highlights was a view of a harbor in Cornwall by New Hope artist Walter Elmer Schofield that sold for $71,700, far exceeding the pre-sale estimate of $20,000-30,000. High prices were also fetched for works by Marsden Hartley, John Leslie Breck, John Marin, Arthur Fitzwilliam Tait, Ernest Lawson, and Philip Campbell Curtis, whose Parasols by the Shore sold for $38,240, a new auction record for the artist.

Doyle New York's next auction of American Paintings is scheduled for May 2005. For information on consignments, please contact Alan Fausel at (212) 427-4141, ext. 238, or email paintings@DoyleNewYork.com.

	Alan Fausel

AUCTION
Wednesday, December 1 2004

NEXT AUCTION
May 2005

INFORMATION
Alan Fausel, 212-427-4141, ext. 238, paintings@DoyleNewYork.com

CATALOGUE
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Images and interviews are available upon request.

A SELECTION OF AUCTION HIGHLIGHTS

 

	Lot 191 Fitz Hugh Lane 1804-1865 SHIPS PASSING IN ROUGH SEAS  Signed F.H. Lane and dated 1856 (lr) Oil on canvas 24 1/2 x 36 3/8 inches Provenance: Private Collection, purchased circa 1900 from a New England gallery, thence by decent to the present owner The clipper ship, long admired by Lane for its quiet beauty, is bathed in the light which has broken through the storm clouds as she sails in turbulent waters towards its successor, the steamship, seen in the distance powering through the mist towards the brightening skies of the future. Perhaps it was Lane's intention for this painting to express, in metaphor, his personal reaction to the coming of the Industrial Revolution. A lack of significant contemporary critical analysis of the work of Fitz Hugh Lane impedes modern interpretation. We are left to speculate as to the personal significance of his work, as Lane preferred to paint for commissions and for friends and rarely submitted his paintings for exhibition, and thus exempt from ensuing analysis. What little we do know about the artist's intentions and inspirations can be gleaned from various letters the artist wrote to friends, as well as empirically from the artwork Sold for $265,100
	Lot 269 Charles Henry Demuth 1883-1935 GARDEN FLOWERS  Signed and dated C. Demuth '33 (lr) Watercolor and pencil on paper 13 7/8 x 10 inches Provenance: Private Collection, Manasquan, New Jersey, purportedly purchased in 1930s from mother of the artist in Lancaster, Pennsylvania Private Collection, gift from the above From the mid-teens through 1933 Demuth executed a series of still life paintings in watercolor depicting flowers, fruits and vegetables. These props were easily obtained from the local farmers'market or from the Amish and Mennonite farmers who parked their buggies along the street in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. A clear departure from his signature cubist works, Demuth felt his flowers were not suitable subjects for the rhetoric of Cubism. Painted during Demuth's last creative surge before he succumbed to diabetes in 1935, this remarkable rendering of freshly picked flowers is one of only a handful of works produced by the artist that year. His productivity was determined by his strength in the last decade of his life. When Demuth was able to paint, he would often work in watercolor, as oils demanded too much of his energies. He would begin with a pencil sketch, and then paint over this in watercolor, leaving much of the page untouched and also leaving pencil lines visible. Through his use of shunts in the flowing watercolor he was able to achieve his characteristically crisp lines. We would like to thank Betsy Fahlman, Professor of Art History at Arizona State University, for her kind assistance in preparing this catalogue entry. Sold for $209,100
	Lot 276 Marsden Hartley 1877-1943 THE FAENZA JAR, circa 1912  Signed Marsden Hartley (ll) Oil on canvas 20 x 16 inches Provenance: John Quinn, New York, sale, American Art Association, New York, Feb. 9-12, 1927, no. 482 Exhibited: Atlanta, Georgia, The High Museum of Art, Advent of Modernism, March 4 - May 11, 1986, cat. no.41 New York, Berry-Hill Galleries, Inc., The Heart of the Matter: The Still Lifes of Marsden Hartley, May 6 - June 27, 2003 Sold for $209,100
	Lot 240 Alexander Stirling Calder 1870-1945 LEDA AND THE SWAN  Signed Stirling Calder and dated 1921, inscribed Kunst Foundry N.Y. Bronze with green patina Height 60 1/4 inches Sold for $77,675 A WORLD AUCTION RECORD FOR THE ARTIST
	Lot 236 Walter Elmer Schofield 1867-1944 NEWLYN HARBOR, CORNWALL  Signed Schofield (ll) Oil on canvas 20 1/8 x 23 7/8 inches Sold for $71,700
	Lot 255 Jean MacLane 1878-1964 TENNIS DAYS  Signed Jean MacLane and dated 1932 (ll) Oil on canvas 35 x 35 inches Exhibited: New York, National Academy of Design, 110th Annual Exhibition, 1935, awarded the First Altman Prize for Figurative Painting ($1,000) In addition to numerous accolades received for this painting, the artist was courted by the Fine Art Gallery at the San Diego Museum of Art in 1935 for a loan for inclusion in an exhibition in connection with the reopening of the San Diego's Esposition in 1936. The artist used her children and their friends as the models for this painting. Sold for $62,737 A WORLD AUCTION RECORD FOR THE ARTIST
	Lot 229 John Leslie Breck 1860-1899 VENETIAN LAGOON  Signed John L. Breck (ll), inscribed indistinctly on the stretcher Oil on canvas 10 3/4 x 14 1/8 inches Sold for $53,775
	Lot 248 John Marin 1870-1953 BACK OF THE WATERS, LANDSCAPE NO. III, 1942  Signed Marin and dated '42 (lr) Charcoal and watercolor on paper laid down on board 15 3/8 x 20 1/4 inches Provenance: Kennedy Galleries, Inc., New York, purchased by the present owner in 1987 We would like to thank Norma Marin for her assistance with authenticating this lot. Sold for $47,800
	Lot 199 Arthur Fitzwilliam Tait 1819-1905 BUCK AND DOE  Signed A.F. Tait and dated N.Y. 1878 (lr) Oil on canvas 29 1/8 x 22 1/4 inches Provenance: John Snedecor, New York Mrs. Francis P. Garvan, Roslyn New York (Sale: Parke-Bernet Galleries, New York, December 10, 1970, lot 48) Mr. and Mrs. George Arden, New York Private Collection, Cincinnati Collection of the Physicians Planning Service Corp., Hartford, Connecticut Exhibited: Roslyn Harbor, New York, Nassau County Museum of Art, The World of Theodore Roosevelt, November 17, 2002 - February 16, 2003, ill. p.8 Literature: Warder H. Cadbury, Arthur Fitzwilliam Tait: Artist in the Adirondacks, Newark, 1986, p.242, no.78.11 The artist's register reads: B. Deer, Buck & Doe Lake Scene 22 x 29 for Jon Snedecor to pay for Frames $150.00 he sent it [to] Schencks Sale Jan'y 10th Sold for $41,825
	Lot 295 Philip Campbell Curtis 1907-2000 PARASOLS BY THE SHORE  Signed Philip C. Curtis (ul) Oil on board Sight 19 3/4 x 37 1/2 inches Sold for $38,240 A WORLD AUCTION RECORD FOR THE ARTIST
	Lot 245 Ernest Lawson 1873-1939 MANGROVE TREES, THE FLORIDA EVERGLADES  Signed E. Lawson (lr) Oil on canvas 15 7/8 x 20 1/4 inches Sold for $35,850