Scenes of the Frontier

John Moran Auctioneers presents its seasonal Art of the American West sale in Monrovia, California.

On November 16, John Moran Auctioneers will host the Art of the American West sale, featuring artwork across many categories all throughout Western art. The sale will be held in Monrovia, California.Logan Maxwell Hagege, Dry Air, 2021, oil on linen on artist board, 13 x 8” Estimate: $4/6,000

Highlights from the sale include Logan Maxwell Hagege’s 2021 oil on linen Dry Air, showing a Native American figure standing in brilliant sunlight wearing a traditional weaving. The small work, measuring just 13 by 8 inches, is estimated at $4,000 to $6,000. Hagege lives and paints in California, as does Mian Situ, who will be represented in the sale with Night Watch, an oil showing two riders in a moonlit scene. That work is also estimated at $4,000 to $6,000.

Doug Hall’s oil The Geographers, depicting three Native American men drawing on the ground, possibly as they plot a course to hunt, will be available with the estimates of $5,000 to $7,000. Gary Schildt’s 1984 bronze Moose, measuring 29 inches high, will be offered with estimates of $2,000 to $3,000.Mian Situ, Night Watch, oil on canvas mounted to artist board, 12 x 16” Estimate: $4/6,000

Another noteworthy highlight is John Sloan’s Cowboys Rustling Herd in Rain, from around 1920. “Inspired by summer trips to Santa Fe during 1916-1917, John Sloan returned fully invigorated to paint the Southwest during the summer of 1919,” the auction house notes. “Leaving Gloucester, Massachusetts, with the responsibilities of formal teaching behind him, Sloan was no doubt filled with the excitement and sense of adventure Old Santa Fe offered. Indeed, Sloan’s biographer Rowland Elzea recalls, ‘The majority of his paintings of the summer of 1919 show his response to the life of the people there: Indian, Hispanic, and Anglo.’ This oil on canvas projects the experience Sloan and many of his fellow colleagues were looking for in New Mexico: Cowboys and charros whooping on horseback with dogs, all herding hundreds of stampeding cattle in a driving rainstorm. The cast of unknown characters depicted in this painting all come together in this one frenzied instant—to create a perfect Western backdrop for the urbanist painter from Philadelphia.”Doug Hall, The Geographers, oil on canvas, 30 x 40” Estimate: $5/7,000

The sale will also include property from the Estate of John Wayne, now owned by his daughter, Melinda Wayne Munoz, as well as work from Sam Hyde Harris, Christopher Blossom, Jim Wilcox, Nicholas S. Firfires, W.H.D. Koerner and Edward Borein, including his iconic cowboy hat and spurs. John Moran Auctioneers is also offering Navajo weavings, saddle blankets, wool tapestries and Navajo rugs, including a stunning Navajo Teec Nos Pos rug, as well as several pieces of Thomas Molesworth furniture.Gary Schildt, Moose, bronze, 1984, 27 x 29 x 15” Estimate: $2/3,000

Prior to the Art of the American West sale, John Moran Auctioneers will present its California and American Fine Art sale on November 15. It will feature several additional works, including Edgar Payne’s Ediza Lake, Near Mammoth, Eastern Sierras. The work is estimated at $30,000 to $50,000. —

Art of the American West
November 16, 2022, noon
John Moran Auctioneers, 145 E. Walnut Avenue, Monrovia, CA 91016
(626) 793-1833, www.johnmoran.com