On May 19, Sotheby’s will present its seasonal American art sale in New York City featuring important works from categories throughout American art.
One of the highlights comes from the Hudson River School painter Thomas Moran, whose 1913 oil A Miracle of Nature (Grand Canyon of Arizona) (Zoroaster Peak, Grand Cañon) will be available with an estimate of $2 million to $3 million. The piece comes with an extensive provenance and a detailed exhibition history that includes a show in 1913 at the Art Institute of Chicago, American Paintings from the Manoogian Collection in 1989 at the Detroit Institute of Art, and Thomas Moran in 1997 at the National Portrait Gallery.
Thomas Moran (1837-1926), A Miracle of Nature (Grand Canyon of Arizona) (Zoroaster Peak, Grand Cañon), 1913. Oil on canvas, 201/8 x 301/8 in., signed and dated lower left: ‘TMoran. 1913’. Estimate: $2/3 million
The Grand Canyon is one of Moran’s most famous subjects, and works featuring the Arizona landmark are treasured by collectors. He first visited the Grand Canyon with John Wesley Powell’s expedition in 1873. “Four years earlier Powell had captured the nation’s attention when he led a small group of men in custom-crafted boats through the white water of the Colorado River,” Nancy K. Anderson writes in the 1997 museum catalog Thomas Moran. “After listening to Powell describe the landscape through which the river had cut its path, Moran quickly perceived a subject equal in grandeur to that of Yellowstone.” The artist would return to the canyon many times and paint hundreds of works. 
Norman Rockwell (1894-1978), Study for ‘Saying Grace.’ Oil on photograph, 11¼ x 11 in., signed lower right: ‘Norman / Rock’. Estimate: $600/800,000
Nicolai Fechin (1881-1955), Portrait of Anna Mae Wong. Oil on canvas, 20 x 241/8 in., signed lower right: ‘N. Fechin’. Estimate: $200/300,000
Another work in the sale is Norman Rockwell’s Study for ‘Saying Grace.’ The study would go on to inform the 1951 oil Saying Grace, showing a boy and his grandmother praying before a meal at a busy restaurant as two onlookers gaze at them curiously. Like many of Rockwell’s preliminary works, this study shows he was still trying to lock down the composition. In the study, a girl can be seen across from the boy and concealed partially by a stand for salt, pepper and other condiments in the middle of the table. In the final painting, the girl is removed entirely. The study excludes the two men sharing the table, and instead has a separate onlooker standing near the table and turning over his shoulder to glance down at the praying trio. The changes don’t profoundly alter the meaning of the piece, but it does show how Rockwell worked to simplify and even exaggerate emotions. 
Dorothy Brett (1883-1977), Dawn Fiesta, 1946. Oil on Masonite, 36 x 27 in., signed and dated lower right: ‘DEBrett’. Estimate: $30/50,000
Elsewhere in the sale is Nicolai Fechin’s Portrait of Anna Mae Wong (est. $200/300,000), Frederic Remington’s bronze Trooper of the Plains (est. $400/600,000), Georgia O’Keeffe’s Green Oak Leaves (est. $500/700,000), Charles Sheeler’s Farm Buildings, Connecticut (est. $500/700,000) and Marsden Hartley’s Shell (est. $300/500,000). —
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