Sotheby’s | December 11, 2020 | New York, NY

Two Sales

Sotheby’s will offer important Western artworks in live and online sales in December.

Western lots will play a big role in both the online and live American art sales at Sotheby’s in New York City on December 11.

The online sale, which opens December 3 and closes on December 11, will feature two important Western pieces from major names. The first is E. William Gollings’ Evening Camp, showing a Native American camp at night. The work depicts a figure and several horses, as well as a brilliant glowing light coming from the main teepee in the composition. Gollings’ 1919 oil is estimated at $40,000 to $60,000.Thomas Hart Benton (1889-1975), Navajo Sand, 1926, tempera, oil and casein on canvas laid down on Masonite by the artist, 18½ x 23¾” Estimate: $400/600,000

Another work in the online sale is Oscar E. Berninghaus’ oil Two Indians On Horseback. The snowy painting, which actually shows three figures, is estimated at $20,000 to $30,000.

One of the most anticipated lots in the two sales is a Thomas Hart Benton work being offered in the December 11 live sale. The 1926 piece, Navajo Sand, shows a horse and rider amid a flock of sheep within a quintessential Benton landscape. The work will be included in the forthcoming catalogue raisonné being prepared by the Thomas Hart Benton Catalogue Raisonné Foundation.

The work, estimated at $400,000 to $600,000, has been in two Missouri collections, including the collection of artist Vincent Campanella, before being acquired by its present owner. E. William Gollings (1878-1932), Evening Camp, 1919, oil on canvas, 10 x 14” Estimate: $40/60,000

“This painting may be his earliest landscape of the Southwest, a subject he returned to in the early 1950s when he made a long road trip through the Southwest with one of his students, Aaron Pyle…What’s wonderful is how Benton captures the feeling of the scene through exaggerated forms and intensified colors. There’s an almost dreamlike quality to the scene,” Henry Adams writes in a letter that accompanies the painting. “During the early 1920s, Benton created a series of landscapes of Martha’s Vineyard, often developed with the help of clay models, with sweeping rhythms. In this painting, Benton applies this sort of simplified rhythmic handling to the landscape of the Southwest. While somewhat different in handling, it’s notable that Benton later included a scene of a sheepherder in the background of his panel Changing West, in his famous mural America Today, 1930, now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art.”

Bidding for Sotheby’s live sale will be done through online, telephone and absentee bidding. Although no in-person bidding will take place in New York, a preview of the show is available by appointment. —

American Art Live and Online Sales
December 11, 2020
Sotheby’s, 1334 York Avenue, New York, NY 10021
(212) 606-7000, www.sothebys.com