John Moran Auctioneers hosts sales in many genres, but one of the specialties of the family-owned house is American fine art, with a focus on California art in particular. In this spirit, John Moran hosts biannual auctions featuring California and American fine art each year, with the next edition taking place November 12 at noon PST at their Monrovia, California, showroom.
Edgar Alwin Payne (1883-1947), Brittany Boats. Oil on canvas, 25 x 30 in. Estimate: $30/50,000
This sale is comprised of 200 lots by significant American and California artists sourced from private collections throughout California, the Southwest, and beyond. Among the artists represented are Edgar Payne, Granville Redmond, William Bradford, Paul De Longpre, Sydney Laurence, Marion Wachtel, Joseph Leyendecker, Maurice Braun, Millard Sheets, Streeter Blair, and many more.
Marion Kavanagh Wachtel (1870-1954), Santa Anita Creek. Oil on canvas, 26 x 36 in. Estimate: $15/20,000
“For every painting we consign, we have seen and passed over 10 to 15 that were offered for consideration,” says auction house president Jeffrey Moran. “So we try to pick works that are currently desirable, fresh to market, are good or interesting examples by the artist and lastly, present in good condition.”
Among the lots selected for this sale is Payne’s Brittany Boats, an example of the artist’s impressionistic European water scenes, the golden hour light casting a warm, rich glow on the heavy sails in the harbor. Although Payne made California his home base in 1918, he transcended a reputation as a regionalist to become one of the most renowned painters of the American West. The piece is expected to fetch at least $30,000. Other highlights in the sale include Wachtel’s Santa Anita Creek, a landscape depicting what was a wide-open natural space in the 1920s and 30s. “Both Marion and her husband Elmer came here to paint often, and this work by her really captures the view well,” says Moran. “My wife and I live a stone’s throw from here, so this painting is particularly enchanting to see how it was nearly a century ago!”
Joesph Christian Leyendecker (1874-1951), Lucky Bag Girl, ca. 1910. Oil on canvas, 20½ x 18 in. Estimate: $15/$20,000
Also of note is Lucky Bag Girl by Leyendecker, one of the country’s foremost illustrators. A prolific cover artist for the Saturday Evening Post, this particular piece was commissioned for the U.S. Navy and the yearbook for the United States Naval Academy, dedicated to the graduating classes at Annapolis, 1910. The oil is has been given a high estimate of $20,000.
Millard Owen Sheets (1907-1989), Mendocino, 1983. Watercolor on paper, 30 x 40 in. Estimate: $8/12,000Finally, we have a piece by great California scene painter Sheets, who helped define the movement from its nascency in the 1920s. “His work can be divided between pre-World War II and post, where he began to painting watercolors in a more fluid style,” says Moran. “Mendocino was painted near his home in Gualala, California, in 1983, and epitomizes the artist’s ability to capture the raw coastal beauty, and freedom that came with the land.”
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