Covers/Pages 2-7 - J. Russell Jinishian Gallery

19th, 20th and 21st Century Marine Art
VOLUME 5 NUMBER 6 - 7
PUBLISHED by J. RUSSELL JINISHIAN
© FALL/WINTER 2005-2006 / $12.00
Special Double Issue
™
What’s Inside:
• Latest News from Today’s
Premier Marine Artists,
Learn What they’re
Working on in their
Studios right now
• Latest
Marine Art
Sales & Prices
• Marine Art
Exhibitions
Across the Country
Michael Keane
J-class Yachts SHAMROCK V and ENDEAVOUR
Wick Ahrens
Dimetrious Athas
John Atwater
Anthony Blake
Robert Blazek
Christopher Blossom
Lou Bonamarte
Peter Bowe
Bernd Braatz
James Buttersworth
Marc Castelli
Scott Chambers
Terry Culpan
Steve Cryan
R.B. Dance
William R. Davis
Don Demers
Louis Dodd
William P. Duffy
Willem Eerland
William Ewen
James Flood
Flick Ford
Paul Garnett
William Gilkerson
James Griffiths
Glen Hacker
James Harrington
Cooper Hart
André Harvey
Geoff Hunt
James Iams
Michael Keane
Loretta Krupinski
Richard Dana Kuchta
Robert LaGasse
Gerry Levey
Patrick Livingstone
Ian Marshall
Victor Mays
Lloyd McCaffery
Joseph McGurl
Oil on Canvas 24” x 40” $135,000
John Mecray
Jerry Melton
Stanley Meltzoff
Leonard Mizerek
William G. Muller
Rob Napier
William Oakley Jr.
Julia O’Malley Keyes
Roberto Osti
Yves Parent
Ed Parker
Charles Peterson
James Prosek
Randy Puckett
Keith Reynolds
Marek Sarba
Arthur Shilstone
Kathy Spalding
Robert Sticker
John Stobart
David Thimgan
Tim Thompson
Kent Ullberg
Peter Vincent
William Walsh
Patricia Warfield
Robert Weiss
Bert Wright
J. Russell Jinishian Gallery, Inc.
1657 POST ROAD, FAIRFIELD, CT 06824
(203) 259-8753
2159 RT. 129 SOUTH BRISTOL, ME
Just up the hill from the Swing Bridge towards Christmas Cove.
Look for the leaping fish. Summer only. 207-644-1102
Specializing in 19th, 20th, and 21st Century Marine and Fishing Art from Europe and America.
Accepting artwork on consignment from collectors throughout the year.
HOURS: Tuesday - Saturday 10-5 p.m. and by appointment.
We invite you to stop by and visit the gallery located just 1 hour from NYC just off I-95 at Exit 21.
Visit our website: www.jrusselljinishiangallery.com
E-mail: rjinishian@optonline.net
• Upcoming
Auctions
• Book
Reviews
News From the Artists
Just Off The Artists’ Easels...Still Wet...
A
s usual, there have been a great many
marine art events, exhibitions and projects
undertaken by individual artists across the
country and around the globe this past quarter. So
let’s get right to the news.
William Duffy
Alierons at Anchor in Nantucket Harbor
Oil on Canvas 16” x 26” $7,000
Let’s begin with the American Society of Marine
Artists, who in October held its annual meeting in
Charleston, S.C. where 35 artist-members
assembled for a chance to break the solitude of
their normal routines and paint together, discuss
aesthetic concerns and generally talk shop. Among
the artists in attendance were David Bareford,
Christine Diehlmann, Peter Egeli, Michael
Karas, Bob Lagasse, John Roach, Bob Semler,
Don Stone, Society Vice President Ian Marshall,
and President Kim Weiland. The featured speaker
for the weekend was not an artist,
rather the former curator at the
Maine Maritime Museum,
Robert Webb, who spoke about
the subject of his brand new
book, the sailor turned painter,
Charles Robert Patterson
(1878-1958), and his remarkable life and career. (See our
book page for more detail) The
Society also reaffirmed its commitment to furthering its educational mission by formalizing
its commitment to the Lyme
Academy in Old Lyme,
Connecticut where it is sponsoring workshops for aspiring
marine artists led by Society
members, the first being held
June 10-11 with instructor Len
Tantillo. They’ve made a similar William R. Davis
arrangement over the next three
years with the Maine College of Art in Portland,
Maine, where workshops will be held on the weekend
of June 9th and 10th with instructor Don Stone,
and October 6th and 7th with instructor Ian
Marshall. To sign up for the workshops, call the
Maine College of Art at 207-775-5157 ext. 232 or
the Lyme Academy at 860-434-5232 ext. 120.
For practical reasons the Society divides itself into
geographic regions so it can put together outreach
exhibitions like the one held recently for the 12th
year at the Coos Art Museum in Coos Bay,
Oregon. Originally the brainchild of West Coast
artists Dutch Mostert, Mary Holbert and Don
McMichael, the show has really taken on a life of
its own. This year the featured artist was Austin
Dwyer, president of the Puget Sound Group
of Northwest Painters, who presented Diana
Smith with the Best in Show award. Although the
exhibition is now closed, you can still view it on
the Web at coosbay.com.
Joseph McGurl
Drifting, Buzzards Bay
Oil on Canvas 18” x 36” $18,000
Information on purchasing the Artwork pictured in the MARINE ART QUARTERLY may be obtained
by contacting the Publisher, J. Russell Jinishian at (203) 259-8753 or rjinishian@optonline.net
Residents and visitors to the Northeast will have
an opportunity to see members of the Society’s
work at an exhibition sponsored by the Cold
Spring Harbor Whaling Museum, and hosted by
the Art League of Long Island at their Dix Hills
facility from April 1 to May 14. More information
on that can be found at cshwhalingmuseum.org.
In addition to these periodic regional exhibitions,
the Society is actively looking to partner on a
regular basis with fine art and maritime museums
across the country to further the opportunities to
experience world class contemporary marine art at
local cultural institutions like the Cape Museum
of Fine Art in Dennis, Massachusetts or the
Vero Beach Museum of Art in Florida, and the
Portland Art Museum in Portland, Oregon. We
applaud these efforts by the artists to carry the
marine art flag as far afield as possible.
If you’re in Galveston, Texas this February you’ll
have the opportunity to share in a great marine
art program to benefit the Galveston Historical
Foundation which currently maintains and operates the tallship Elissa, an active sail training
vessel, and whose future plan includes the recon-
Cutter off Nantucket
Oil on Panel
struction of the adjoining building to become the
new Texas Seaport Museum. It will house a permanent display of terrific paintings relating to the
history of Galveston Bay from 1895 to present by
artists like Boyer Gonzalez, Paul Schumann and
Julius Stockfleth, donated by local benefactors
such as the Mary Moody Northern Foundation.
They are kicking off the events the weekend of
January 28th with Il Concorso di Macchie which
is an Italian term for what they call in the West a
“quick draw” competition. This one is geared to
young artists ages grouped 8-12, 13-20 and 21 and
over, who are given a set period of time (9 a.m. to
2 p.m.) in which to make a painting or drawing
based on the site. And at the end prizewinners will
walk away with prizes worth $500 and $1,000. Who
says art doesn’t pay?
The next weekend the Foundation will sponsor a
black tie marine art exhibition and sale to benefit
the Foundation and Museum hosted by outstanding Houston Astros pitcher and Galveston native
Brandon Backe, featuring a collection of over 50
paintings of Galveston and marine paintings for
sale from the J. Russell Jinishian Gallery,
Fairfield, Connecticut, Marine Arts of Salem,
Salem, Massachusetts and the J. Bangle
Gallery, Galveston. Artists represented will
include Dimetrious Athas, Chris Blossom, Don
Demers, James Flood, Mark Myers, Robert
3
Sticker, A.D. Blake, Tim Thompson and John
Stobart, Antonio Jacobsen, Roy Cross, William
Stubbs and others. On hand will also be artist-inresidence Anthony Blackman and painters
Richard Loud and Ed Parker, who’ll be signing
prints of his new painting of Galveston Bay. The
exhibition was spearheaded by Galveston Foundation
Board of Trustee members Bill and Pat Broussard.
Local supporter George Mitchell has donated
adjacent space to serve as a print gallery for the
museum, making available for purchase prints of a
number of the historic Galveston paintings. For
more information on attending the event or supporting this great regional museum please call 409765-7834 or email foundation@galvestonhistory.org
or visit tsm-elissa.org.
If you are in Minnesota, Winona,
Minnesota to be exact, along the
banks of the Mississippi in June
of this year you will be able to
attend the grand opening of the
brand new Minnesota Marine
Art Museum which, as noted
in our last issue, will feature the
Burrichter-Kierlin Collection
of outstanding marine paintings
which includes those by Thomas
Hoyne, James Buttersworth,
Tim Thompson, John Stobart,
William Muller, Jack Gray,
Keith Reynolds and others,
the 19th and 20th century photographs and maps of the Upper
Mississippi by Henry Bosse,
400 works of art from the Leo
Smith Folk Art Collection,
10” x 16” $9,000 an actual 1937 Army Corps of
Engineer’s river dredge, the
William A. Thompson, and a one thousand volume
reference library. Outstanding! What a great addition to America’s maritime museums. To learn more
visit minnesotamarineart.org. Who knew that the
New Year would feature the opening of two brand
new museums devoted exclusively to marine art!
The Gallery at Mystic Seaport Museum held its
26th International Marine Art Exhibition in the
fall where awards were selected from among the
entries by Reese Palley, author of Wooden Ships
and Iron Men, the Maritime Art of Thomas
Hoyne and Thomas Wilcox, the director of the
Maine Maritime Museum in Bath, Maine.
This year’s recipients included The Rudolph
J. Schaefer Award for Preserving Maritime
History to Geoff Hunt’s painting of “John Paul
Jones’ Ranger.” The Stobart Award for painting
from life to Robert Blazek. Yachting Award to
Neal Hughes. Marine Environmental Wildlife
Award to Jack Garver. Museum Purchase Award
to Douglas Purdon’s “Tugboat Alley.” David
Thimgan Award to Louis Dodd. Five Awards of
Excellence went to Australian Ian Hansen, Jeff
Weaver, H. Gray Park, Canadian Dusan Kadlec
and Austin Dwyer. Thomas M. Hoyne Award for
Gloucester Fishing Art went to Don Demers—his
third Hoyne Award and 12th award overall at Mystic
International Exhibitions.
Continued on page 4
McCaffery models include HMS Bounty, Colonial
Schooner Sultana, Boston, Captain James Cook’s
Endeavour and Coronet. McNarry models feature
Mary Rose, Royal George, HMS Atalanta, Young
America and the Royal Brig Pilgrim. The models
come with an incredible amount of complimentary
printed material, including a leather bound first
edition of Richard Henry Dana’s classic voyage
aboard the Pilgrim Two Years Before the Mast. How
big a gift is this? Well, it will make IYRS the home
of the largest collection of these modelers work
anywhere. In monetary terms, models by these
artists, sell when you can get them, for $40-60,000.
So, you do the math. Bill has really set a new standard for marine art donations. More information
on IYRS and its ongoing projects can be found on
their Web site iyrs.org.
Christopher Blossom
East Wind off Seguin
Oil on Canvas 22” x 44” $35,000
Continued from page 3
Don had a busy year which included guest stints
as an instructor at the Plein Air Painters of
America in Laguna Beach, California, leading a week-long workshop on the west coast
of Ireland and participating in the Plein Air
Masters Program at the Chateau Des Artistes
in the Burgundy region of France. Greenwich
Workshop also released a new large giclée on
canvas of Don’s painting “The Windswept Coast”
(see an image in our Fall/Winter 2004 Quarterly),
which is in an edition of only 50 and measures
28” x 42” and sells for $950. They also released
Christopher Blossom’s first giclée canvas—
his first new print in years, “Afternoon Arrival,
Gloucester,” showing a fishing schooner arriving
under sail in the late afternoon with the city of
Gloucester aglow in the background. It measures
20” x 26”, is another small edition of 75 and sells
for $595. (To order either print call 800-243-4260
or visit greenwichfinearts.com)
Don’s winter projects include a commission painting of John Nicholas Brown’s yacht Bolero currently owned by Ed Kane to be placed in Brown’s
own house, the New York Yacht Club’s Newport
Station Harbour Court, and preparing a new collection of paintings, large and small, of his 7th oneman show at the J. Russell Jinishian Gallery in
May. (See our exhibition pages for details)
Mystic Seaport Museum also has plans for two
exhibitions of special interest to fans of contemporary marine art next year. One is tentatively scheduled to open in the fall of 2006 on the maritime
paintings of the Gloucester fishing fleet by
Thomas Hoyne. The other is set to open in May
2007. It’s a retrospective of the paintings of John
Mecray, spanning his career from the late 1970s
right through to the present. John, as many people
know has a personal passion for the great racing
yachts of yesterday and today, which he has translated into his remarkable paintings. He’s also been
very active in the limited edition print market
since the release of his first two prints in the early
1980s of sloop Providence and fishing schooner
L.A. Dunton. While those prints were released at
$395 and $80 respectively, they are now trading on
the open market for $3,000 and $2,000. Not bad.
John has really embraced the new printing giclée
technology, which is a fancy French word for a
computer-generated print either on canvas or on
paper. John has chosen to follow the canvas route.
And heck, the whole idea of prints from the very
beginning was to make it look as much like the
painting as possible, so that the natural evolution
for many artists is to use canvas. John has been
releasing about one new print a year for the last
few years, corresponding to the completion of his
meticulous paintings. Earlier this year it was the
print of a J-boat Ranger taken from a painting John
had done on commission for a Texas collector. The
beauty of the computer generated print is that
once the image is scanned in and the color is correct, a print can be made into to virtually any size
that the printer can handle. So we’re seeing publishers releasing the same image in a number of
different sizes. In John’s case his Ranger was
made available by his distributor Mystic Seaport
in two sizes: one 17” x 35” on stretch canvas,
which is selling for $1,500 in an edition of 250; and
in a smaller edition of only 25, the exact size of the
original painting 22” x 40” which sold out rapidly
at $2,000 each. As you can see, not only is the
giclée printing method giving a publisher more
freedom in terms of size, it’s also elevated the
initial release price to a whole new bracket.
From the point of view of the collector, the
beauty of the next step is that when the print
needs to be framed, it can be framed just like an
oil painting, no glass or matting and with much
less labor, which cuts down on the final framing
costs. In addition, the inks which have been
developed recently are light-fast inks, which the
same could not always be said of the traditional
lithograph on paper. So if all the research holds
out, you’ve got a fairly stable, permanent art
4
print to decorate your walls as a result.
John is just formulating his next painting (which
will be released next year as a print, as I write). It
is interesting how he’s approached it. He says he’s
not sure what vessel it will be but he woke up at
2:00 a.m. with an idea for particular angle and
view of the vessel, and a particular style of lighting. That’s where is starting point is. Then he’ll
find a vessel he finds visually interesting. The
original paintings will sell for over $100,000.
John is also a long way through preparation for a
book on his work entitled The Art of John Mecray,
which will include 68 paintings from throughout
his career along with a myriad of sketches. Look
for that perhaps towards the end of this year or
early next year. John is doing all the design work
on it, and says, “I’m not going to hurry it.” If you’re
in Essex, Connecticut on February 12 you’ll have a
chance to see a terrific slide presentation by John
Mecray on his painting, philosophy and methods,
to be sponsored by the Connecticut River
Museum. They’re expecting such crowds that
they’ve scheduled the meeting to be held at the
Essex Town Hall. For more information call 860767-8269 or ctrivermuseum.org.
Visitors to the third floor of that Museum will see
a scale train layout of marine artist and tugboat
buff Steve Cryan. He’s ridden tugboats so often in
New York that captains all know him by his first
name. When he is not riding tugs or painting, he
creates elaborate custom train layouts for individuals on commission. Nice work if you can get it.
Readers of the November-December 2005 issue of
Wooden Boat will have seen on page 18 a photograph and write up of master modeler Lloyd
McCaffery’s cut away hull model of yacht America.
This incredible model measuring 46” is framed in
poplar with apple timber and deck fittings and is
based on the lines taken by the British Admiralty in
1851. Lloyd’s interior view shows the intricacies of
its’ unique construction, including the diagonal
iron strapping that most people don’t realize was
used to give the hull its strength. This model of
Lloyd’s most recently sold for $60,000. His latest
project is a 1/8”=1 scale model of the U.S.S.
Constitution measuring 11” long. Look for photographs and articles on Lloyd’s Constitution model in
future issues of Miniature Collector and the Nautical
Research Guild Journal. Lloyd’s been invited to be
keynote speaker at the Nautical Research Guild
annual convention in October of this year, which
will be held at the Maritime Museum of San
Diego. (see our events page for details)
An artist with Lloyd’s skills has a ready list of projects that present unique artistic and aesthetic
challenges for him. He’s just waiting for the right
collector to come along with interest matching his
project list. When I asked him recently what he has
in mind next, he responded with a model of the
clipper ship the Great Republic which at 335 ft. on
deck was the largest clipper ship by far (most clippers measure 200-220 ft.) ever built. She was built
by legendary builder Donald McKay in East
Boston, and towed to New York to be rigged. She
was fitted out, loaded with cargo and on the eve of
what was to be her maiden voyage was set aflame
by a fire in an adjacent bakery and burned beyond
repair right at the dock. A smaller cut-down version of the ship was then built which was itself a
record breaker. But as Lloyd mused, one can only
speculate on what great things the original Great
Republic would have accomplished.
In addition to the poignancy of her history, what
makes this project appealing is that her construction was so well documented and her lines, plans,
construction drawings, builders half model, even
McKay’s notes are all preserved at the Hart
Nautical Collection at M.I.T. so that unlike other
historic re-creations, which often involve speculation, the Great Republic could be brought back to
life in all her glory. Lloyd observed that she was so
large that at even a relatively small scale, say
1/8”=1’, the model would measure 44” long. The
price tag is in the neighborhood of $120,000.
Massachusetts modeler and former editor of the
Nautical Research Guild Journal Rob Napier
reports that he’s working on a 1/64 scale of a
Downeaster and has made his own discoveries
during his research like any good modeler or
painter. Where he assumed that the catheads
aboard her were constructed with two or three
sheaves and a big block to help hoist the anchor, in
fact, he found there were no blocks and no
sheaves. This information he will incorporate into
his 32” model. A model with this kind of detail of
Rob sells for $60,000.
In addition to building models, Rob, like other
professional modelers, is involved in repair and
collection maintenance. In his case for the collections of the Museum of Fine Arts, and the
Continued on page 16
John is one artist who’s artistic passion is carried
over to other areas of his life. He’s one of the
founding members of the Museum of Yachting
in Newport, Rhode Island. He’s also one of the
founders of the International Restoration
School, which is now under the new direction of
Terry Nathan. It is really taking off in the midst
of a large fundraising campaign spearheaded by
John to complete the restoration of the country’s
oldest surviving yacht Coronet. John said they’ve
just completed phase two, getting the boat out of
the water, secured and documented. They are now
turning their attention to a $7 million project to
raise funds to restore the 1831 Aquidnick Mill
Building on their property to begin to use it to its
full potential. The 30,000 sq. ft. building, which is
on the National Register of Historic Buildings, will
be fitted out to expand their workshop and classroom space (their enrollment for their programs
training future traditional shipwrights rose a
whopping 50% last year!), house an auditorium for
lectures and continuing education, and a reference library and display gallery. They’ve just been
awarded a $100,000 grant from the State of Rhode
Island. They’ve also just received a tremendous
donation from collector Bill Combs of 18, count
‘em, 18 scale ship models by the two undisputable
kings of miniature ship model making American
Lloyd McCaffery and Englishman Donald
McNarry. The opportunity to view one or two
models by the masters is rare, so future visitors to
IYRS will really have a unique experience in store.
John Stobart
Detroit, A View of the City in 1838
Oil on Canvas
23” x 40” $250,000
INTERESTING NEWS FROM THE
ART WORLD AT LARGE
A
s always, the world art market is a dynamic
place with all sorts of things going on
throughout the year. Some of these have
direct impact on collectors of marine art, while
some developments just shed light on aspects of
the art market at large. We are often asked for
an assessment of how the market is performing,
and while some of the biggest and most important
sales take place privately and quietly, and are
therefore hard to document, the state of the major
auction houses in the art market is a good way
to gauge the overall health of the market. Based
on sales this year and realignments among the
auction houses, by everyone’s account this is
one of the best years in a long, long time. The
privately held Christies and the public company,
Sotheby’s generally tend to point to their major
sales of impressionist and modern art in the fall
and the spring as a gauge as to where the art
market is at that particular point. Christies had
started the year with six-month sales of $1.7
billion and really ran the table in their fall sales
which brought another $400 million plus. Not bad
for a couple of days work. Sotheby’s one day total
of their contemporary art sale in London this year
was $83.7 million, their second strongest single
auction in the last decade. World records were
set in both houses for a number of modern artists
(see our sales page for some of the actual results),
including a record price for a marine painting
by Rockport artist Anthony Thieme, entitled
“Evening Light on the Swannee River” which sold
at Christies for $144,000, more than quadruple its
highest estimate.
Sotheby’s also announced a realignment of its’
stock ownership structure that its’ Chairman of
the Board, Michael Sovern, said was designed
to make its stock more attractive to investors,
improve the corporate governance and increase
future earnings. It involved Albert Taubman,
who had bought Sotheby’s as a wedding present
for his wife in 1983. He sold 14 million class-B
shares, each share having ten votes, back to
Sotheby’s for $168 million in cash and $7.1 million
class-A shares, which carry only one vote each.
It essentially eliminated the class-B category of
shares, and also eliminated the Taubman control
of the voting stock in the company. This current
move reduces the Taubmann voting shares from
60% of the total to about 12½%. When William
Ruprecht, Sotheby’s Chief Executive, was asked
whether the company would be put up for sale
now, he replied, “The answer is no. But every
company on the New York Stock Exchange can
be acquired.” In order to deal with the huge
settlement fee for the price fixing scandal of 2002,
Sotheby’s had already been forced to sell its’ York
Avenue headquarters building (they now lease
it) and its international realty division, which is
now operated under a license agreement by its’
new owners Cendant. What kind of affect will
this current transaction have on Sotheby’s stock?
Well, shares closed at $17.43 the day prior to the
announcement of this realignment. they spiked to
$18.30 after, and the day after that backed down
to $17.85. The stock had been as high as $45 per
share early in 1999. So who knows?
Not to be outdone, the third major player in the
auction business, which has been coming on
strong in recent years, the newly named Bonhams
1793 (Bonhams was founded in London in 1793,
making it one of the world’s oldest auction houses)
made its own moves. It has aggressively been
increasing its market share through purchasing its
smaller competitors. In the past three years they
have acquired Brooks, Phillips and Butterfield
and Butterfield in San Francisco, and opened a
new New York headquarters. This year they repurchased 49.9% of their stock from Louis Vuitton,
Moet, Hennessey. This investment had carried
them through this consolidation period. They also
announced their merger with Theodore Brewster
of Adelaide, Australia, Australia’s oldest auction
house, dating from 1878, and the establishment
of a working relationship with Sydney auction
house Stanley & Company. Bonhams held its
first auction in New York on November 29 at its
new Fuller building headquarters, 595 Madison
Avenue at 57th Street.
In Europe several of the smaller auction houses
have pledged to work together and pool their
resources to give them a stronger position in the
marketplace. They are Dorotheum in Vienna,
Brokowski in Stockholm, Poro & Company
in Milan, GMAI in Madrid, Gallerie Koller in
Zurich, Kunsthaus Lempertz in Cologne and
Swann Galleries in New York.
But like every other industry in the world all the
auction houses are looking to China as the next
emerging market. While Sotheby’s has already had
an informal partnership with the Chinese auction
house, Forever, on December 11, China has officially opened its doors to foreign auction houses
as part of its membership in the World Trade
Organization. They must still operate under the
country’s cultural protection laws, which for example empower the Minister of Culture to restrict
dealings in works of art, books, etc. dating before
1949, the year of the Communist Revolution. It
remains to be seen how this plays out. But there’s
no question that the auction houses see this is a
huge untapped market.
Of course, the key to success in the art business
is not just where you offer something, and under
what circumstances, but it’s really the quality of
your offerings. And while the art business looks
from the outside like a genteel place that operates
under gentlemen’s agreements and a high level of
civility, you don’t have to peel back the layers very
far to find out that it can be as rough and tumble
as any other free market business. In fact, it’s
amazing the lengths that the auction houses will
go to in order to acquire a major estate to sell—
from literally reading the obituaries and sending
priests to a bereaved household to elaborate wining and dining, travel perks, and the publication
of extravagant catalogues of an owner’s collection.
Spending several hundred thousand dollars to land
a collection that can net tens of millions of dollars
is just good business.
Ah! But there’s more. The latest trend has been
to offer guaranteed monies to prospective consignors, often well into the millions of dollars.
In the first quarter of this year, for example,
Sotheby’s had already awarded $112 million in
guarantees. It’s obviously a risky double-edged
sword. It’s almost the tale of the two gas stations
across the street from each other, lower and raising their prices as they watch their competitor to
make their first move. It’s now become an established and expected part of the business. There
seems to be hardly anything auction houses won’t
do, including employing the children of prospective consignors. Sotheby’s financial services for
example, will even lend collectors money up to
50% of the low estimate of an item based on the
guarantee they (Sotheby’s) would have the right to
auction it in the future.
Fitz Henry (Hugh) Lane
1806-1866
View off Thatchers Island, Gloucester with Bark EASTERN STAR c.1853
Sold at auction for $825,000
6
Oil on Canvas 24” x 36”
By and large marine art is not the central focus of
the kinds of collections that are getting multi-million dollar guarantees. It’s more often the Picassos
and impressionist paintings that are selling in
the tens of millions of dollars apiece. Although a
world record which was set recently for a Canaletto
(1697-1768) painting “The Bucintoro at the Molo
on Ascension Day” for $20,086,024, the big money
tends to be in either contemporary art or old master paintings and artifacts. For example, Sotheby’s
will offer a newly discovered work by Rembrandt
dating from about 1640 to coincide with the 400th
anniversary of the
birth of Rembrandt
in 2006. The painting
ing
will first be exhibited
April 13
February 1
Travel & Natural History
Maritime Art
in the auction houses
Christies
Christies
in
Amsterdam,
Rockefeller Center, NY
South Kensington
i n
London, Boston and
212-636-2000
the
Los Angeles headApril 26
christies.com
quarters before it is
California & Western American
sold in New York on
February 25-26
Paintings, Drawings
Collection of Kathleen & Peter Wick
& Sculpture
January 26. “Portrait
Paintings including
Christies
of an Elderly Woman
Fitz Hugh Lane &
Los Angeles
in a White Bonnet,”
American Furniture
310-385-2600
has been in the priNortheast Auctions
vate collection of the
May 11-12
Manchester, NH
Walsh family of Fort
Civil War & Historic Americana
603-433-8400
Cowanʼs
Worth, Texas. After two
northeastauctions.com
Cincinnati, OH
years of restoration and
February 28
pigment X-rays, and
May 17
Marine Paintings
yes, as we discussed
Marine & Nautical Works of Art
Bonhams
in the last issue,
Sothebyʼs
New Bond St., London
“dendochronology,”
Olympia
44 (0) 20-7468-8211
44-20-72935555
(the science of studybonhams.com
sothebys.com
ing growth rings of
March 3
trees) which revealed
May 19
American & European
that the old panel that
Sporting Art
Paintings & Prints
the painting had been
Christies
Skinners
painted on had been
King Street
Boston
taken from the same
617-350-5400
May 25
tree as three other
skinnerinc.com
Maritime Painting & Models
authentic Rembrandt
Christies
March 7
paintings panels), the
South Kensington
Asian Decorative Export Art
painting was given
Bonhams
June 1
a stamp of approval
New Bond St.
Oceanliner Furnishings & Art
by Ernst von de
Christies
March 30
Wetering,
head
Rockefeller Center, NY
Scientific & Engineering Works
of the Rembrandt
212-636-2000
Christies
Research Project,
christies.com
South Kensington
which was founded
44 (0) 20-7930-6074
in 1968 to determine
July 27
April 6
Maritime Art
the authenticity of
Antique Arms & Armour
Christies
paintings in various
Bonhams
Rockefeller Center, NY
museums and collecKnightsbridge
212-636-2000
tions reported to be
by Rembrandt. What
they basically discovered was that even with all the technology avail- Gallerie Borghese in Rome had long attributed
it to Fra Bartolomeo have said that they have
able determining authenticity is still not a science,
uncovered a finger print imbedded in the layers
but an art. Even the experts can’t agree. Of the
611 supposed Rembrandt paintings listed in the of varnish which they likened to a kind of “digital
signature” and something apparently De Vinci
first catalogue raisonné in 1935, most experts
used in other paintings as well, understanding
believe that about half of them may be forgeries. In
fact, the Rembrandt Project even changes its own that at some point in time the technology would
be there to read it. Wow!
mind on occasion. Of 22 Rembrandt self-portraits
supposed painted between 1625 and 1652, four
Of course, in the contemporary, particularly abstract,
originally thought not to have been by Rembrandt
world determining authenticity can really be a chalhave now been determined to have been by him,
lenge. Recently 32 “drip paintings” by Jackson
and two others supposed by Rembrandt were now
Pollock supposedly were discovered in a storage
rejected. Check in another five or six years and
facility owned by an artist friend of Jackson Pollock.
that could be reversed.
The fury that that has created as to whether these
How do you determine what is real and what is are the real paintings by Pollock or not, has really got
not? Well these days some artists are actually put- the modern art world in a tizzy. What you have here
is one Pollock expert determining that they are actuting a little of their own DNA in the painting in a
ally Pollocks, and the Pollock/Krasner Foundation
specific spot so that way, regardless of whether
the signature remains (often over the years paint- saying that they’re not. We’ll let them sort that one
out. What is at stake is literally hundreds of millions
ings are cut down and signatures removed), the
of dollars. Last year, for example, a small drip paintpainting can be authenticated in the future. This
ing that had been formerly owned by the Museum
DNA thing sounds like the new idea, but leave it
to old Leonardo De Vinci to be way ahead of his of Modern Art sold for $11.65 million at Christies.
time. The art restorers responsible for the restora- Obviously the owners of the paintings are going to
tion of the “Adoration of the Christ Child” hang- “go to the mat” and try to prove their authenticity.
UPCOMIN G AUCTION S
Continued on page 22
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