The 2025 Jackson Hole Art Auction saw record-breaking numbers that helped push the sale to $13.5 million, a high for the company. The auction house is hoping to follow that success with another major September sale in Jackson Hole, Wyoming.
“We’ve always had successful sales, but last year was a milestone auction, the best in the company’s history. We had high results and active bidding—full interest across the board. It certainly put us in the minds of people who may have not considered us previously. It felt good for us as a company,” says managing director Kevin Doyle. “That has turned into something more exciting for this year’s sale. Good sales beget good consignments, and we’re seeing that this year.”
Walter Ufer (1876-1936), The Bake Oven, 1922. Oil on linen, 25 x 30 in. Estimate: $500/700,000
Doyle says the auction house has already taken in close to 400 lots, with a handful of other keys works still filtering in. One of those later consignments brought in three major works by a trio of important painters from Taos, New Mexico: William Herbert “Buck” Dunton, E. Martin Hennings and Eanger Irving Couse. All three are top-tier works for the September sale.
The Dunton painting is October Aspens, which is estimated at $200,000 to $400,000. “We’re excited about all three, but the Dunton is especially nice. [Dunton scholar] Michael Grauer is writing our Dunton entry in the catalog. That piece is a gem. It comes from a period when he was painting wildlife,” Doyle says. “It’s a herd of deer looking right the viewer. It’s incredibly modern with a background of aspens and evergreens.”
William Herbert “Buck” Dunton (1878-1936), October Aspens. Oil on canvas, 14 x 14 in. Estimate: $200/400,000
The Hennings painting is Watering Their Horses, featuring two Native American riders waiting as their horses drink from a mountain stream. The perspective of the painting is from a higher elevation, looking through trees with autumn leaves. It’s estimated at $200,000 to $400,000. The Hennings, Couse and Dunton lots are all fresh to the market and are likely to bring out top bidders who want these largely unseen works. They are being sold to benefit the Western Heritage Education Campus in La Junta, Colorado.
Another major work from Taos is by Walter Ufer, The Bake Oven from 1922. The painting shows a robed figure using a long stick to stoke or possibly remove something from a round outdoor oven. The painting is estimated at $500,000 to $700,000.
E. Martin Hennings (1886-1956), Watering Their Horses. Oil on canvas, 30 x 30 in. Estimate: $200/400,000
One of the more closely watched pieces is Charles M. Russell’s 1902 watercolor “Buccaroos” from the N - N on the Big Dry, showing two cowboys chasing down a stray. Russell watercolors from this period, and with this cowboy subject, are very popular, and bidders are likely to respond. It’s estimated at $300,000 to $500,000. Another cowboy painting comes from artist-illustrator W.H.D. Koerner, who created Bunch Quitters in 1927. The work shows a single cowboy chasing down horses. The piece is estimated at $50,000 to $75,000.
Charles M. Russell (1864-1926), “Buccaroos” from the N - N on the Big Dry, 1902. Watercolor on paper, 19¾ x 285⁄8 in. Estimate: $300/500,000
The sale will have at least four Bob Kuhn wildlife paintings along with work by wildlife master Carl Rungius, who is represented in the sale with a landscape, Mount Assiniboine (est. $50/75,000). G. Harvey, whose pieces are normally blockbusters in Western sales, will have two major works: Rawhide and Roughnecks (est. $300/500,000) and Morning Glow Through Powder Snow (est. $150/250,000). Finally, the sale will include a silver gelatin print of Ansel Adams’ The Teton Range and Snake River, Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming, 1942. Estimated at $25,000 to $35,000, it is a smaller version of the same photo that sold for $312,000 at the 2024 Jackson Hole Art Auction. —
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