By Carter B. Horsley

The fall auction painting season got off to a strong start with this modest sale of American Paintings and Sculpture at Christie’s East.

Usually a mixed bag of several hundred works, this auction had only 221 lots and 181 sold, many at quite high prices.

The catalogue cover illustration, shown above, Lot 115, for example, a pleasant 1914 oil on canvas, 60 1/4 by 43 inches, by William Henry Kemble Yarrow (1891-1941), sold for $145,500. It had had a high estimate of only $30,000. Warmly and well painted, this is a very nice "lady in a white dress" work that was a bit unusual for the very bold striped pattern of the umbrella and the fact that the composition cut off part of her feet, the chair, the umbrella and a book on a table. Yarrow is not a well-known artist and while the quality of this painting is quite high this genre, whose most famous popularizers are Edward Tarbell, Robert Benson and Robert Reid, whose best work still is not as poetic as Thomas Dewing, who predates them a bit, nor as original in palette and brushwork as Louis Rittman and Richard Miller, who are a bit later. None of them are as good, of course, as Monet whose lady in a white dress with a parasol remains the shining example of these paens to proper, romantic feminity around the turn of the 20th Century.

Another work that fared very well apparently also only for the popularity of the genre was Lot 73, "Jonathan and a Client - The Lady with the Green Pocket-Book," an oil en grisaille on cardboard, 18 1/2 by 14 inches, by Howard Pyle (1853-1911). This sold for $27,600 and had had a high estimate of $12,000. Pyle is one of several late 19th and early 20th Century illustrators whose work was rarely artistic but widely disseminated in popular magazines and has achieved disportionately high value in the marketplace in recent years. Whereas the Yarrow was a fine painting of its genre, this work has little discernible quality. It illustrated a story written by the artist that appeared in Harper’s New Monthly Magazine in 1890.

A few of the other top prices were more predictable.

Lot 7, a 12-by-20 1/8-inch oil and pencil on canvas by Jasper Francis Cropsey (1823-1900), "Sunset on a River Inlet," fetched $77,300 and had had a high estimate of only $20,000. The 1870 painting was very lovely and rather atypical for this famous painter of autumnal landscapes. It had a very dramatic and luminous sky and was one of his bolder compositions as the clouds and foreground were off-center to the left. The estimate was generally correct for this size, and the good realized price perhaps indicates that the Hudson River School painters will once again begin to get their proper due in the marketplace after several "off" years. Cropsey, of course, ranks only behind Thomas Cole and Frederic Church in quality and consistency.

David Johnson (1827-1908) is a meticulous and excellent Hudson River School painter and his "Waterfall at Norwich, Connecticut," Lot 2, a 9 3/4-by-13 3/4-inch oil on canvas, is a good example. It sold for $16,100, more than double its high estimate of $7,000.

Further evidence of rebounding market strength for these landscapes was Lot 40, "Cattle Watering," a 16 1/2-by-13 1/2-inch oil on canvas by William M. Hart (1823-1895), a very pleasant but formulaic small work of which there are many examples. It had a high estimate of $3,500 and sold for $8,050.

A 12-by-16-inch oil on canvas by Edward Henry Potthast (1857-1927) almost doubled its high estimate and sold for $57,500. This sketchy but colorful beach scene with canoes and sailboats was a pleasant change from his formulaic and very popular beach scenes with children.

One of the nicest paintings in the auction was Lot 65, "Couple by a Waterfall in the Catskills," by George Henry Hall (1825-1913), shown above. This 33-by-24-inch oil on canvas that was dated 1899 was not only romantic but also very impressive for its angled perspective and the monumentality of the small cliffs by the waterfall. It sold just under its high estimate for $14,950, a respectable amount for this little known artist and such a late landscape.

Another excellent work was Lot 217, "Poster Patterns," by Robet Vickrey (b. 1926), a 17 1/2-by-22-inch gouache and pencil on board. It sold for $2,990 just short of its low estimate despite the fact that it was a very, very strong work by this always consistent and interesting artist who tends to like the hats of nuns.

One of the best paintings in the auction was Lot 107, "Smuggler’s Landing," a 36-by-38-inch oil on canvas by Frederick Judd Waugh (1861-1940), shown above. Unlike his many shore scenes of breaking waves, this very powerful and almost abstract work depicted a small inlet between two beaches with steep rocks under a pink and gray sky. A superb painting that would intimidate many of John F. Kensett’s beach scenes and probably fascinate and challenge Mark Rothko, this painting sold for $16,100, just above its $15,000 high estimate.

Another jewel in this auction was "Airplane Factory," Lot 211, by George L. K. Morris (1905-1975), a work, shown below, somewhat similar to a fine Morris painting that was in "The American Century Part I" exhibition this year at the Whitney Museum of American Art (see illustration in The City Review article on that exhibition). This 24-by-16-inch oil on canvas had a high estimate of $12,000 and sold for $27,600, a signal that perhaps he is beginning to get the recognition he deserves as a major mid-century figure.

Other works that did well were Lot 136, "Crossing the Bar," by Max Bohm (1868-1923) that sold for $14,960 and had had a seemingly appropriate high estimate of only $6,000, Lot 137, "View of Northeast Harbor," by Charles Morris Young (1869-1964) that sold for $28,750 and had had a high estimate of only $6,000, Lot 138, "A Corner of Gloucester Harbor" by Paul Cornoyer (1864-1923), that sold for $11,500 and had a high estimate of $6,000. Yet another unimpressive urban snow scene by Guy CarletonWiggins (1883-1962) exceeded its high estimate and sold for $27,600.

The auction also included several nice examples of tonalist works by Robert Bruce Crane (1857-1937) and John Francis Murphy (1853-1921) and some good genre works by Louis Moeller (1855-1930) that all sold within or slightly above their estimates.

Albert Bierstadt (1830-1902) is best known as the grandiose and spectacular painter of the West, but he lived in New York and along the Hudson River. Lot 25, "Passaic River," a 14-by-20-inch oil on canvas, is one of his blander and more quiet bucolic compositions but without the drama and surety of stroke of his great works. It sold at almost twice its high estimate for $59,700.

A small, pleasant Labrador coastal scene by William Bradford (1823-1892), Lot 38, sold for $20,700, nicely over its $15,000 high estimate, reflecting its strong composition and lovely sky by this major artist of the Artic.

Still lifes continued to be a strong market sector. A very nice "Peaches, Grapes and Melon" by George Forster (active 1850-1890), Lot 52, sold for $12,650 and had had a high estimate of $7,000. It was a 8 3/4-by-11 1/2-inch oil on canvas.

Among the few passes was Lot 14, "Desert Scene," by Joseph Rusling Meeker (1827-1889), a painter best known for his bayou scenes. This 15 3/4-by-35-inch oil on canvas that depicts a blinding sunset with camels and large birds is signed and dated 1856 and is very unusual for the artist and the period and very dramatic and would have been a bargain at its high estimate of $7,000.