As American art ebbs and flows within the market, one genre is doing more flowing than ebbing—Western art. It returns to Reno, Nevada, on July 25 as part of the annual Coeur d’Alene Art Auction.
The sale will also drop in what will likely be the single most successful year ever recorded for Western art as a genre. Sales earlier in the year have already set the stage for huge numbers, and the Coeur d’Alene Auction plans to continue the hot streak, says auction partner Mike Overby. “I’m really bullish on [the market] right now. And that’s not just me saying that…[Sales] over the last 12 months, ours included from last year, they just went through the roof. And it’s kind of at all levels, too. Everything from low-end to middle market to the highest of the high end has just really been off the charts for the last year,” Overby says. “It’s been building for the last three or four years, but it really has taken off over the last two rounds of auction season. And so I’m pretty optimistic about the offerings we have this year for July. I think it’s going to continue that way.”
Charles Schreyvogel (1861-1912), The Couriers, 1905, oil on canvas, 16 x 20 in. Estimate: $250/350,000
Overby notes that he’s seen a continuous uptick in newer, younger bidders who are entering the market. “It’s just unbelievable and it’s great because that’s what we want,” he says. “We’re not only seeing younger buyers, but also some of the Bay Area tech buyers…a lot of new faces at each auction.”
The auction, which is held in one marathon session, takes place at the Grand Sierra Resort & Casino in Reno. Overby expects about 340 lots at this year’s sale. One lot that is already generating a lot of buzz is Frederic Remington’s bronze of The Broncho Buster. About 350 official casts of the piece were made across two foundries, but this cast is exceptionally rare and important because it is the second cast from the Henry-Bonnard Bronze Co., which produced 64 sand-cast bronzes before Roman Bronze Works made a larger batch of lost-wax bronzes of The Broncho Buster from 1902 until well after Remington’s death in 1909. A No. 2 cast, almost certainly overseen personally by the artist, is expected to soar, with estimates from $600,000 to $900,000.
John George Brown (1831-1913), Watching the Train, 1881. Oil on canvas, 28 x 44 in. Estimate: $200/300,000
Frank Tenney Johnson (1874-1939), Midnight in the Canyon, 1930. Oil on canvas, 46 x 30 in. Estimate: $400/600,000
Other highlights include Frank Tenney Johnson’s Midnight in the Canyon (est. $400/600,000), John Clymer’s The Trader (est. $250/350,000), Eanger Irving Couse’s The Duck Hunter (est. $200/300,000), Philip R. Goodwin’s bear painting The Law of the Wilderness (est. $200/300,000), Edgar Payne’s Canyon de Chelly painting Riders Overlooking Canyon (est. $150/250,000), Carl Rungius moose work Headed to High Country (est. $100/150,000) and Charles Schreyvogel’s action painting The Couriers (est. $250/350,000).
Philip R. Goodwin (1881-1935), The Law of the Wilderness. Oil on canvas, 24 x 36 in. Estimate: $200/300,000
Finally, a beloved Charles M. Russell watercolor, Pablo-Allard Buffalo Drive, is available and is already getting serious bidders interested. The work is well known among Russell collectors. It is estimated at $250,000 to $350,000.
Other artists in the sale are Walter Ufer, Oscar E. Berninghaus, Armin Hansen, John George Brown, Rockwell Kent, William Herbert “Buck” Dunton and modernist Native American painter Oscar Howe, whose works have soared at the Reno sale. —
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