It’s a completely arbitrary number, and yet it has special qualities that differentiate it from the numbers that are on either side of it. It’s practically immune from short-term inflation—it’s special in 1999 or in 2023. It draws gasps, cheers and rounds of applause from some. Headaches from the ones writing the checks. It has magical properties, and yet it’s essentially meaningless. Just seven digits lined up in a row: 1,000,000. Throw a dollar sign in front of it and it sparkles.
Thomas Moran (1837-1926), Green River of Wyoming, 1878, oil on canvas, 25 x 48”. Sold at Christie’s, 2008. Artist World Auction Record Estimate: $3.5/5 million SOLD: $17,737,000Remember the TV show Who Wants to be a Millionaire? The show would have flopped if it were called Who Wants to Win $750,000? There is power in $1 million. There is a thrill in the simplicity of that number and what it means. If you attend any of the New York sales, you’ll know that $1 million is chump change. Modern and contemporary auctions routinely include 50-plus lots where the lowest price of all the offered pieces is $1 million or more. I once saw a sale of ancient Asian jars and pots where the bids were being increased at $10 million intervals. Each bid was basically the price of a private jet. These were artworks worth fleets of jets. It was wild.
Frederic Remington (1861-1909), Coming Through the Rye, bronze, Cast No. 3, 30¼”. Sold at Christie’s, 2017. Artist World Auction Record Estimate: $7/10 million SOLD: $11,223,500
But in the Western art world, $1 million still means something. It still commands attention. Only 26 Western artists have recorded an auction sale at that price or higher. Using the website AskArt, which has digitized auction data from the bulk of the last two decades, it’s easy to see which artists are achieving these seven-digit milestones, and which are still falling painfully short.
Of course, it must be stated, art is not just a number on a ledger or a cell on an Excel sheet. Art is more than the dollar value we—the collective “we”—assign to it at the gallery, the museum or the auction. Art is paint, bronze, graphite or wood. And before that there is an artist, their supporters, their career, their education…a whole menagerie of influence, skill and motivation. To boil down a piece of art to a single number is reductive and deeply unfair to the artist.
Howard Terpning, Captured Ponies, 1977, oil on canvas, 30 x 48”. Sold at Scottsdale Art Auction, 2012. Artist World Auction Record Estimate: $400/600,000 SOLD: $1,934,000
And yet, these numbers matter because it’s how the art is exchanged through the market. It’s how the artists get paid so they can make new art. It’s how museums get funded so they can preserve the art and hold it for future generations. The numbers also show when and where there is strength. This is important to us because we believe in Western art, and we want to see it passed down to new collectors and new generations. And the best way for that to happen is for Western art to not only retain its value, but also go up in price.
Charles Schreyvogel (1861-1912), Saving Their Lieutenant, 1906, oil on canvas, 24 x 30”. Sold at Scottsdale Art Auction, 2009. Artist World Auction Record Estimate: $1.5/2.5 million SOLD: $1,639,000
Of the 26 artists, the numbers king is the landscape painter Thomas Moran, coming in with a $17.7 million auction record set in 2008 at a Christie’s sale in New York. Moran also has a huge number of works that have sold over $1 million—33 paintings, including iconic works of Green River, Wyoming, and the Grand Canyon. Behind Moran is Frederic Remington, whose third bronze cast of Coming Through the Rye sold for $11.2 million in 2017, again at Christie’s in New York.
William R. Leigh (1866-1955), Home, Sweet Home, 1932, oil on canvas, 40 x 60”. Sold at Heritage Auctions, 2011. Artist World Auction Record Estimate: $400/600,000 SOLD: $1,195,000Coeur d’Alene Art Auction, which sold Remington’s 2013 painting record—the $5.6 million work from 1908, Cutting out Pony Herds (A Stampede)—has many artist world records, including Gerard Curtis Delano, Maynard Dixon and Charles M. Russell’s Piegans, which sold for $5.6 million in 2005. “It just never gets old. Every time you break a record, especially when it’s over $1 million, it’s a big deal. It was a big deal 20 years ago, and it still is today,” says Mike Overby, the managing partner of the Coeur d’Alene Art Auction. “It has to be a special painting to crack that mark, which is why we’ve seen so few artists do it. Sometimes that number separates the good pieces from the truly great museum-quality pieces.”
The old saying among auction watchers is, “It just takes two.” An auction doesn’t need dozens of bidders to take a piece of art up to those huge prices. All they need is two who love the art and are just stubborn enough to not let the other bidder get it.
Joseph Henry Sharp (1859-1953), The Medicine Teepee, 1903, oil on canvas, 22 x 40”. Sold at Christie’s, 2008. Artist World Auction Record Estimate: $500/700,000 SOLD: $1,497,000
“When we broke our first $1 million milestone with Charlie Russell in the early 2000s, it just kept going and going,” Overby says. “At first there was a handful of bidders, but then they all started dropping out until it was just two bidders. The price hit $800,000, then $900,000. You could have heard a pin drop. When it finally crossed over, the room erupted. It was amazing.”
In 2022, Coeur d’Alene Art Auction landed William Herbert “Buck” Dunton his first $1 million sale with Treed, an image of several hunters and their dogs gazing up a tree at their catch. It was Dunton’s first seven-figure auction sale. He was in good company with Nicolai Fechin, Leon Gaspard, E. Martin Hennings, Ernest L. Blumenschein, Oscar E. Berninghaus, Joseph Henry Sharp and Walter Ufer.
Oscar E. Berninghaus (1874-1952), The Pueblos Await the Dancers, oil on canvas, 30 x 40”. Sold by Coeur d’Alene Art Auction, 2008. Artist World Auction Record Estimate: $1/2 million SOLD: $1,471,000In 2011, show owner and art dealer Brian Lebel was instrumental in the sale of the Billy the Kid tintype to the tune of $2.6 million. The sale not only generated interest within the Western community, but outside of it as well. “It was an exciting thing to be a part of because it became part of the history. I remember selling it, but I also remember just moving through it like a fog. It was exciting, and a little stressful, but when it was happening I was so focused that I could barely process what was truly happening until it was over,” Lebel says. “The funny thing is, as my business was growing at the beginning, we had an item come up for $10,000 and my knees buckled and I almost fell to the ground. There is a lot of excitement that comes with watching a sale and seeing how things do. It’s fun.”
Charles M. Russell (1864-1926), Piegans, 1918, oil on canvas, 24 x 36”. Sold at Coeur d’Alene Art Auction, 2005. Artist World Auction Record Estimate: $3/5 million SOLD: $5,600,000.Many of the auction houses have Western sales that surpassed $1 million, including Jackson Hole Art Auction, Sotheby’s, Santa Fe Art Auction, Hindman, Heritage, The Russell and many others. One auction house that has several key records is the Scottsdale Art Auction, which has the $1.6 million record for Charles Schreyvogel and three of the top four records for Howard Terpning, including his 2012 high of $1.9 million. (Terpning is the only living artist with an auction record over $1 million.)
“The Western art world is a small segment of the overall art market, and it’s one of the newer segments as it really started to grow only in the last 60 years. So I do believe we will continue to see some growth, including with some of these $1 million sales,” says Brad Richardson, partner at the Scottsdale Art Auction. “As to why we’re seeing certain pieces do so well, it all goes back to scarcity, it goes back to notoriety, and it goes, ultimately, back to quality. Remington and Russell are two of the most iconic names. They’re noted because they put out some quality work, a high percentage of which is in museums and not in private hands. So when a good one comes up for sale, there will be bidders who step up and drive those prices high. And that’s when you start to see those big numbers.”
Ernest L. Blumenschein (1874-1960), White Blanket and Blue Spruce, 1919, oil on linen, 34 x 28”. Sold at Sotheby’s, 2011. Artist World Auction Record Estimate: $700/900,000 SOLD: $1,538,500While Russell, Remington and Terpning have no trouble selling a work for seven figures, there are some noteworthy artists who are on the very edge of those prices. They are so close that it’s fair to estimate they could cross over soon. John Clymer has had a number of close calls, even as his record sits at $879,000. Victor Higgins is in the same boat at $833,000. Philip R. Goodwin, James Earle Fraser, Eanger Irving Couse and Carl Rungius are incredibly near with auction records all above $900,000 but below $1 million. Goodwin sits perilously close at $968,000. Other artists, such as Edgar Payne ($553,000), Bob Kuhn ($657,000), William Gollings ($643,000) and Birger Sandzén ($670,000) are further away, but all it takes is one major work and two bidders.
It’s worth repeating: $1 million is an arbitrary number. It means nothing in the grand scheme of things. But sitting in an auction, watching as those numbers roll over to $1,000,000, it’s a thrilling experience and one I recommend having at an auction this year. It’s a rush! —
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