Wide Variety

A varied selection of work marks the return of Heritage Auctions’ seasonal American art sale

November 4

Heritage Auctions
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1518 Slocum Street
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On November 4 Heritage Auctions will present major example of American art to bidders at the seasonal American Art Signature Auction in Dallas. Artwork will span many genres, styles, movements and categories, once again offering something for everyone within the American art market.

Mark Rothko (1903-1970), A Last Supper, 1941. Oil on canvas, 221/8 x 26¼ in., signed lower right: ‘Rothko’. Estimate: $1.5/2.5 million

“The diversity and quality of work in this auction is stellar,” says Aviva Lehmann, senior vice president of American art at Heritage. “It encompasses works that rarely if ever have been sold, as well as works that best exemplify particular artists’ output.”

What is likely to be the top lot is Mark Rothko’s 1941 oil A Last Supper. The work has five figurative subjects, which are sharp contrasts to Rothko’s abstract color field paintings. The figurative paintings came to be after the upheaval of World War II.

Mary Cassatt (1844-1926), Lady with a Fan (Anne Charlotte Gaillard), ca. 1880-81. Oil on canvas, 32 x 25½ in. Estimate: $400/600,000

“A key work in Rothko’s evolution as one of America’s foremost abstract expressionists is his A Last Supper from 1941, which in a modern painting vernacular depicts five men seated at a table. The most prominent artists of the era—especially those of European descent—grappled with the atrocities of the two world wars via radical new forms and languages, and Rothko was no exception,” the auction house notes. “At the time, the still-young Rothko’s paintings reflected his concerns about both the spiritual vacuum faced by humanity and the genocidal atrocities taking place in Europe, and he leaned into European expressionism, cubism and surrealism in his effort to communicate something urgent in the midst of turmoil.” The work is estimated to sell for $1.5 million to $2.5 million.

Thomas Moran (1837-1926), Entrance to the Grand Canal, Venice, 1906. Oil on canvas, 14 x 20¼ in. Estimate: $70/100,000

Two Mary Cassatt paintings will be offered: the oil Lady with a Fan (Anne Charlotte Gaillard) (est. $400/600,000) and a work on paper, Gathering Fruit (est. $60/80,000). Additionally, two strong Maynard Dixon desert paintings will be presented to bidders. They are the 1935 painting Lonesome Ranch, Los Banos, California, estimated at $70,000 to $100,000, and the 1944 work Bright Morning, Utah, estimated at $100,000 to $150,000. Both works show Dixon’s love of form and scale within the Southwest.

Maynard Dixon (1875-1946), Lonesome Ranch, Los Banos, California, July 1935. Oil on canvas laid on board laid on canvas, 22¾ x 26 in. Estimate: $70/100,000

Also in the landscape category is Albert Bierstadt’s Niagara Falls, American Side, estimated at $60,000 to $80,000, and two works by Thomas Moran, Entrance to the Grand Canal, Venice (est. $70/100,000) and Venetian Scene (est. $60/80,000). Both Moran works are oil on canvas and were completed in 1906.