Golden Age illustration has always been a prime category for Heritage Auctions, and its May 7 American Art sale continues that trend with important works from two of the biggest names in the genre—Norman Rockwell and Joseph Christian Leyendecker—coming to market. Rockwell’s Excuse me!, which was painted for the July 1917 cover of Judge Magazine is sure to be a standout, as it is one of his earliest depictions of a solider, while the Leyendecker—Football Hero, the November 14, 1914, cover of The Saturday Evening Post—is also a classic subject for the artist.
Norman Rockwell (1894-1978), Excuse me!, Judge Magazine cover, July 1917. Oil on canvas, 28 x 25 in., signed lower left: ‘Norman Rockwell’. Estimate: $500/700,000
“What’s very special about [the Rockwell], to me, is the narrative is simple and clear,” says Aviva Lehmann, vice president and director of American art at Heritage. “It’s a gorgeous woman on the arm of a handsome young soldier” and she’s getting attention from the other man but continues on with the man in uniform. Lehmann adds, “It reminds me a lot of Rockwell’s later works where he focused, around World War II, on the solider. He had love and admiration for them…some of his best works ever sold tell a story of a solider and America.” This painting, estimated at $500,000 to $700,000, predates those works being from right around World War I, and is, as Lehmann says, “a window into his brain and how he started to think about his interpretation of the soldier.”
Joseph Christian Leyendecker (1874-1951), Football Hero, The Saturday Evening Post cover, November 14, 1914. Oil on canvas, 30 x 21 in., signed lower right: ‘JCLeyendecker’; signed, titled and inscribed verso: ‘P35011 / Cover- Football / Hero / J.C. Leyendecker’. Estimate: $150/250,000
Leyendecker’s Football Hero (est. $150/250,000) features a child in football gear in a fall cover of the Post. “It’s a little boy, looking straight at the viewer, and he’s looking really tough,” Lehmann describes. “Leyendecker’s one of the masters of depicting children in a way no on else can. It’s a Post cover, we’ve seen these before, but the condition of the painting is so unusually good for Leyendecker…it’s on its original stretcher.”
Andrew Wyeth (1917-2009), St. George, watercolor on paper, 217/8 x 29¾ in. (sheet), signed lower left: ‘Andrew Wyeth’. Estimate: $150/250,000
The sale features a number of landscapes or outdoor scenes that are painted in a variety of styles and mediums. Two Andrew Wyeths, Hill Orchard (est. $100/150,000) and St. George (est. $150/250,000), capture the artist’s signature poetic and lonely moods. The pieces come from an important collector who primarily buys postwar design and are very classic examples by the artist. 
Thomas Moran (1837-1926), A Mountain of Loadstone, 1898. Oil on canvas, 20 x 30 in., signed and dated lower left: ‘Thomas Moran 1898’. Estimate: $150/250,000
George Wesley Bellows (1882-1925), Mill Dam, 1924. Oil on canvas, 16½ x 24 in. Estimate: $70/100,000
A small-scale double-sided painting by Thomas Hart Benton, with the recto titled Woodland Stream, Martha’s Vineyard and the verso Chilmark Landscape, is also set to hit the auction block. The work has a strong provenance, having originally been owned by artist Charles Pollock, the eldest brother of Jackson Pollock, both of whom Benton instructed as a teacher at the Art Students League in New York. This piece reflects Benton’s more abstract leanings as well as his signature regionalist style. The painting is estimated at $60,000 to $80,000.
Alfred Thompson Bricher (1837-1908), Newport Beach, 1872. Oil on canvas, 12¼ x 24¼ in., signed and dated lower left: ‘AT Bricher / 72’. Estimate: $30/50,000 Images courtesy Heritage Auctions, ha.com.
There will be several noteworthy items available from a Palm Beach Estate. Among them are three by Birger Sandzén, including Aspens, Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado (est. $100/150,000). Also from the group is Thomas Moran’s A Mountain of Loadstone (est. $150/250,000), which is “one of his purely fantastical seascapes,” says Lehmann. “it has a great primal energy and you can see how influenced he was by Turner. It shows Moran’s mastery of not just Western scenes, but really tackling anything in the natural world.” George Bellows’ Mill Dam (est. $70/100,000) and Eanger Irving Couse’s The Pictographs (est. $70/10,000) are additional highlights.
Birger Sandzén (1871-1954), Aspens, Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado, 1930. Oil on canvas. 40 x 30 in., signed lower right: ‘Birger Sandzén’; signed, dated, titled and inscribed verso: ‘Aspens / Rocky Mountain National Park, Colo / Birger Sandzén, Lindsborg, Kansas 1930’. Estimate: $100/150,000
Other notables in the auction include an 1870s seascape by Alfred Thompson Bricher titled Newport Beach (est. $30/50,000); art by LeRoy Nieman, including Roulette Table at Vegas (est. $80/120,000); and John Singer Sargent’s Santa Maria delle Salute, Venice (est. $80/120,000).
The sale will have a limited in-person audience, as well as online, telephone and absentee bidding. Previews are available by appointment at the headquarters. —
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