Art Market Updates

Anna Hyatt Huntington (1876-1973), Red Doe and Fawn. Bronze. Courtesy Brookgreen Gardens.

Anna Hyatt Huntington at Brookgreen Gardens
The Brookgreen Gardens in Murrells Inlet, South Carolina, is holding a special exhibition of works by founder Anna Hyatt Huntington as part of the sculpture garden’s ongoing 90th anniversary celebration. The exhibition will feature more than 70 objects including sculptures, portrait paintings, historic objects and photographic enlargements of outdoor sculptures spanning the scope of her prolific career throughout the 20th century. American Animalier: The Life and Art of Anna Hyatt Huntington will be on view through April 24 in the Brenda and Dick Rosen Galleries.

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Martin Wong (1946-1999), Persuit (El Que Gane Pierde - He Who Wins Looses), 1984. Acrylic on canvas, 48 x 72 in. signed: ‘Martin Wong’; titled and dated lower center; signed and dated upper right; titled upper left. Property from the Rumsey Hall School, Washington Depot, Connecticut. Part of Hindman’s Post War and Contemporary Art sale. Estimate: $500/700,000 SOLD: $1 millionHindman has best year in 39-year history
This past year, 2021, was a phenomenal year for Hindman Auctions, which achieved numerous records. The auction house reported $87 million in total sales for the year, its highest in the company’s 39 years. Thirty individual auction records were set throughout 2021 as well. “Building on the extraordinary legacy of our founders, Leslie Hindman and Wes Cowan, we have redoubled our efforts to be the most client-centric firm possible, and I was thrilled to see our clients respond so enthusiastically this year,” says Hindman CEO Jay Frederick Krehbiel. Hindman’s Digital Bid Room, launched in 2021, brought in $35.6 million in sales, nearly 41 percent of the yearly total.

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Nicholas Panesis (1913-1967), The Farmer, ca. 1937. Lithograph on paper, 12¼ x 8½ in. Gibbes Museum of Art, Gift of WPA. 1943.006.0090.

A New Deal
Running through August 7, the Gibbes Museum of Art in Charleston, South Carolina, hosts A New Deal: Artists at Work. The show explores artwork created during President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s Works Progress Administration (WPA) program in the 1930s that sent millions of unemployed Americans back to work, including more than 5,000 artists. The Federal Art Project, formed under the WPA, afforded opportunities to a diverse group of artists, including women, African Americans and recent immigrants from China, Russia and Germany.

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John James Audubon (1785-1851), Carolina Parrot from The Birds of America (detail), 1827-1838. Drawn from nature. Engraved, printed and colored by R. Havell & Son, London.

Seeing Audubon
The exhibition Seeing Audubon: Robert Havell, Jr. and The Birds of America dives into London-based printer and engraver Robert Havell, Jr.’s monumental task of printing John James Audubon’s iconic The Birds of America. Held at the University of Wisconsin’s Chazen Museum of Art, the exhibition explores Havell’s printmaking techniques and gorgeous copies of Audubon’s famed avian illustrations. The show will remain on view in the museum’s Leslie and Johanna Garfield Galleries through April 3.

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Lennart Anderson (1928-2015), Portrait of Barbara S. (the first one), 1972. Oil on canvas, 217⁄8 x 18 in. Private Collection.

Lennart Anderson retrospective
A retrospective for American painter Lennart Anderson, acclaimed for his mastery of tone, color and composition, is currently on view at the Lyme Academy of Fine Arts’ Chauncey Stillman Gallery through March 18. Lennart Anderson: A Retrospective highlights more than 20 paintings and drawings from both public and private collections, as well as Anderson’s own gallery, Leigh Morse Fine Arts.

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60 for 60
The Orange County Museum of Art has recently launched an ambitious enterprise: adding 60 new works to its 4,500-plus collection in celebration of the museum’s 60th anniversary. Dubbed “60 for 60,” the initiative will also mark the opening of the Orange County Museum of Art’s new 53,000-square-foot building, designed by Pritzker Prize-winning architect Thom Mayne and set to open its doors to the public on October 8.

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O’Keeffe painting restored
While a 1948 painting by Georgia O’Keeffe, Spring, was being housed at the artist’s Abiquiu home, a tarantula had burrowed through the roof, causing a leak that damaged the painting. The piece is considered a significant painting by the artist, featuring two primroses and a pair of antlers. After a long, tedious restoration process, the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum in Santa Fe, New Mexico, has fully restored the important work. The process took more than 1,000 hours of labor and $145,000 in funding. Spring will be on public display at the O’Keeffe Museum through mid-October and will then move on to the San Diego Museum of Art in 2023. —