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SELECTION OF AUCTION HIGHLIGHTS
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Lot 2279
Edward Dufner
American, 1872-1957
Youth and Sunshine, 1916
Signed Edward Dufner (ll); titled, dated and inscribed "Youth and Sunshine"/By Edward Dufner A.N.A./1916/This picture being in a light/key is meant to have a matt/surface and should never/be varnished - E.D. on verso along with a fragment of an exhibition label from National Academy of Design
Oil on canvas
62 1/2 x 72 1/2 inches
Provenance:
Lansdell K. Christie, New York
Thence by descent to the current owner
Exhibited:
New York City, National Academy of Design, Winter Exhibition, December
16 - January 14, 1917
Sold to a buyer from New York for $217,000
Although he had resolved years earlier to abandon the tenebrous palette
that he had adopted in France while a student of James Abbott McNeill
Whistler, it was not until the spring of 1909 that Edward Dufner turned
to a light-infused impressionism. An instructor at the Art Students
League, where he himself had been a student from 1898-1903, he conducted
a special summer session for the League in Caldwell, New Jersey in 1910.
Although he maintained an address in Manhattan, he spent subsequent
summers painting in New Jersey, earning a reputation as the state's
leading American Impressionist painter.
Dufner's early impressionistic efforts were so enthusiastically received
that he continued to produce paintings in a similar idiom for the
remainder of his career. He became well known for compositions such as
Youth and Sunshine - an iconic work created early in his dialogue with
Impressionism - featuring children frolicking at water's edge, the
gently arcing branches of trees contrasting with a brilliant blue sky.
Executed in pastel tones that Dufner cautioned against varnishing, the
painting evokes the idyllic calm of a summer afternoon. Included in the
1916 winter exhibition at the National Academy of Design, Youth and
Sunshine is a masterful work by the artist dubbed the "Painter of
Sunshine."
In 1918, a writer in Town and Country wrote of a painting by Dufner
entitled Youth, possibly the present work: "Mr. Dufner makes a lot out
of this lake. He makes such a point of the perspective and of the
coppery sort of sunlight he throws over it, and over the children, and
through the trees.. The sunlight seems to permeate through every part of
the picture, and that naturally, and without affectation." [Town and
Country 74, May 20, 1918, p. 10].
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Lot 2266
Walter Launt Palmer
American, 1854-1932
The Golden West
Signed W.L. Palmer (ll) and titled on an old label affixed to the stretcher
Oil on canvas
28 x 21 1/8 inches
Sold to a buyer from Michigan for $193,000
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Lot 2254
Louis Henry Charles Moeller
American, 1855-1930
Elegant Woman Looking at a Print, 1885
Signed Louis Moeller and dated 1885 (lr)
Oil on panel
14 1/4 x 11 1/4 inches
Sold to a buyer from Connecticut for $151,000
AN AUCTION RECORD FOR THE ARTIST
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Lot 2292
David Burliuk
Russian/American, 1882-1967
Corner of 4th and the Bowery, 1934
Signed D. Burliuk (lr) and titled on an old label affixed to the stretcher
Oil on canvas laid to canvas, possibly by the artist
39 1/2 x 47 1/8 inches
Literature:
Harry Salpeter, Burliuk: Wild Man of Art, July 1939, ill. p. 65
Katherine S. Dreier, Burliuk, 1944, ill. p. 121
Sold to a buyer from Ukraine for $85,000
After settling in America in the autumn of 1922, David Burliuk resided
in the section of New York City known today as the East Village. His
various studios there served as an important meeting place for many
artists, including Joseph Stella, Arshile Gorky, Raphael Soyer, Moses
Soyer, John D. Graham, Louis Lozowick and Stuart Davis.
Painted four years after Burliuk became an American citizen, the scene
in Corner of 4th and the Bowery, may well have been observed from his
studio window. Here the artist employs the dazzling palette and
energized brushwork that would become his hallmark in America to
describe the hurly-burly vitality of the Lower East Side.
Three other urban views by Burliuk were included in an April 1939
exhibition of his work at Boyer Galleries. In her essay for the
exhibition, Martha Davidson wrote: "...in the street and waterfront
scenes of New York, we have a homely, humorous genre, peopled by
gnome-like figures that are the creatures of Burliuk's world. Face and
hands, the most expressive parts of the human body, are made effectively
eloquent and individualized by their enlarged size and exaggerated
features and gestures. These figures, as the buildings, are solid three
dimensional forms existing in a changing atmosphere and deep space. On
the surface of these canvases Burliuk displays a harmony of vibrant hues
in which the scene is completely immersed. At other times he paints in
patches of dissonant colors, the synchrony of which is at once dynamic
and explosive. Distortions of form, heightened by the use of thick
impasto projecting in parts as relief, frequently lend fantasy to these
pictures that recall Russian folk art." (Burliuk, Boyer Gallery, New
York, 3 to 22 April 1939.) Around 1940 Burliuk moved to Long Island,
making his home in the hamlet of Hampton Bays.
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Lot 2263
Frederic Sackrider Remington
American, 1861-1909
Trotter, circa 1885
Inscribed Dear Milton/I present to you this oil/reminisce of your past cowboy life/I am sure you miss it/Memorable fine days we will/treasure always/Remember?/Frederic R. (lr)
Oil on canvas mounted on canvas
30 x 22 inches
Provenance:
Milton E. Milner
Thence by descent in the family to the present owner
This work is accompanied by a letter of authenticity from the Remington Examination Committee.
Sold to a buyer from Florida for $67,000
Milton E. Milner, the original owner of the present work, was a
shareholder in Buffalo Bill Cody's Wild West Company, incorporated in
1887. A Montana cattle rancher, Milner commissioned Remington in 1889
to paint him and an associate out searching for new cattle ranges in the
Montana Territory. Located near Fort Benton, Montana, the Milner ranch
was incorporated in Montana as the Milner Live Stock Company in 1884,
and was eventually renamed the Milner Cattle Company.
The pose of the horse and rider in Trotter is similar to that of another
pair depicted on the left of the painting commissioned by Milner,
Prospecting for Cattle Range (Collection Buffalo Bill Historical
Center). The Frederic Remington Examination Committee, which has
authenticated the painting, has suggested that there may be a
relationship between the two works.
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Lot 2277
James Carroll Beckwith
American, 1852-1917
The Old Pier Glass, circa 1900
Signed Carroll Beckwith (ur); inscribed Carroll Beckwith/58 W. 57th St./New York/July 1901 and titled on an old label affixed to the reverse
Oil on panel
14 1/4 x 10 3/4 inches
Exhibited:
New York, The Anderson Galleries, February, 1912
Sold to a buyer from New York for $37,000
James Carroll Beckwith is highly regarded for his portraits and genre
paintings. Born in Missouri in 1852, he began his artistic studies in
Chicago, and moved to New York City in 1871 to study painting at the
National Academy of Design. He taught for many years at the Art
Students League, where he was a very popular teacher. In 1873 he went
to Paris to study with Emile Auguste Carolus-Duran, as well as at the
Ecole des Beaux-Arts. While in Paris he formed an enduring friendship
with John Singer Sargent, with whom he shared a studio.
In a review of an upcoming sale at The Anderson Galleries, an
unidentified writer praised The Old Pier Glass as "a fine example. The
nude back of a woman seated before the mirror, with uplifted arms
arranging her hair, is modeled with refinement and strength, showing in
its firm execution and agreeable color the artist's best qualities."
[The New York Times, February 25, 1912, p. 10.]
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