In Wood Smoke Tales, John Clymer’s 1976 painting of trappers enjoying the warmth of a campfire, one of the subjects wears a tail in his belt and raises his hands to his head to represent horns. He almost certainly mimes a buffalo as he regales his smiling audience. The theme seems to be simple: stories have power.
John Clymer (1907-1989), Wood Smoke Tales, 1976, oil on canvas, 30 x 40” Estimate: $250/450,000
Stories of all varieties will be represented at the Scottsdale Art Auction on April 14 and 15 in Scottsdale, Arizona. The two-session sale will feature more than 400 works of art from all around the West and beyond. Session II, on April 15, will feature many of the sale’s top lots, including Clymer’s Wood Smoke Tales. Not only will the sale feature artwork from many entry points, from $5,000 lots to $500,000 lots, but also works from a variety of periods of Western art, from the 1800s to the present-day.
Charlie Dye (1906-1972), Morning in Cow Camp, oil on board, 30 x 48” Estimate: $50/75,000
“The sale has both contemporary and historic, and it’s split down the middle at about 50-50 for both. The historic material is especially exciting because we have a nice variety of artists,” says auction partner Brad Richardson. “Both sides are united in quality. That’s one of the things we’ve always been excited about with these sales is the high quality of the material we get. We are hopeful that when our clients see these pieces, they are compelled to go after them because they are pieces that are not likely to come available again soon.”
Oscar E. Berninghaus (1874-1952), The Hunters, Taos, oil on canvas, 35 x 40” Estimate: $750/1,250,000
Highlights in the sale include two major Oscar E. Berninghaus paintings: The Hunters, Taos, estimated at $750,000 to $1.25 million, and Home Seekers in Indian Country, estimated at $100,000 to $150,000. Major Berninghaus pieces are rare to the market, but when they do come up, interest runs high. In addition to the Berninghaus pieces, other members from the Taos Society of Artists represented include Eanger Irving Couse, Joseph Henry Sharp and E. Martin Hennings.
The Couse works, Indian Boy and Brave Looking at a Blanket (est. $400/600,000) and Taos Love Call (est. $300/500,000), should generate quite a bit of interest. Sharp will have two pieces in the sale: Houses Where the Penitentes Live (est. $100/150,000) and Adobe Village (est. $40/60,000). Hennings will also have two works available: Mountain Aspens Taos (est. $75/125,000) and Bow Hunter (est. $60/90,000).
E. Martin Hennings (1886-1956), Bow Hunter, oil on canvas, 14 x 14” Estimate: $60/90,000
Frederic Remington (1861-1909), I Was Geet Up Un Was Looking at de Leetle Man, gouache and ink wash on paper, 21½ x 29” Estimate: $70/100,000
Clymer will be represented in the sale by Wood Smoke Tales (est. $250/450,000) and Welcoming the Trade Boat (est. $300/500,000). Both works were featured in the exhibition The West of John Clymer at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City in 1991, the year after the artist died. Wood Smoke Tales has a striking scene and composition that draws comparisons to another Clymer masterwork, Alouette. The 1974 painting also has figures smiling and dancing around a campfire, and it’s not hard to imagine it’s the same figures from 1976’s Wood Smoke Talesjust later in the hunting season.
Tom Browning, Fast and Loose, oil on board, 32 x 30” Estimate: $16/24,000
Jeremy Winborg, I am the Storm, oil on board, 36 x 36” Estimate: $18/24,000
The auction frequently has several Frederic Remington and Charles M. Russell works in the sale, and this year is no exception, with a Remington illustration piece from an 1898 issue of Harper’s Monthly. The gouache and ink work features the character Sun-Down Leflare and has a colorful title—I Was Geet Up Un Was Looking at de Leetle Man. It’s estimated at $70,000 to $100,000. The Russell is The Last of the Buffalo,a pen-and-ink drawing from 1899 and estimated at $50,000 to $75,000.
G. Harvey (1933-2017), Snowflakes, oil on canvas, 24 x 36” Estimate: $75/100,000
The sale will feature three exceptional Charlie Dye paintings, including Morning in Cow Camp at 30 by 48 inches, the largest size Dye worked in. The other two are Driftin’ Music (est. $25/35,000) and Cautious Crossing (est. $20/30,000), which shows a wagon perilously crossing a river with an assortment of Western figures wading through the water with it.
The sale always highlights great works in bronze, and one highlight this year is John Quincy Adams Ward’s The Indian Hunter, estimated at $50,000 to $75,000. The work was part of the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s influential 2013 exhibition The American West in Bronze,1850-1925. A monument-sized version of the piece stands, since 1869, in Central Park not far from the museum.
Howard Terpning, Buffalo Runners, 1983, mixed media, 29 x 46” Estimate: $125/175,000
John Quincy Adams Ward (1830-1910), The Indian Hunter, 1860, bronze, 16” Estimate: $50/75,000
Other historic artists represented in the sale include Leon Gaspard, Frank Tenney Johnson, Gerard Curtis Delano, Wilhelm Kuhnert, William R. Leigh, Robert McCall, Edgar S. Paxson, Kenneth Riley, Olaf Wieghorst and three landcape works by Edgar Payne, the California impressionist whose work is closely tied to Canyon de Chelly in Northern Arizona.
Contemporary and living artists in the sale include Howard Terpning, whose 1983 mixed media work Buffalo Runners will be available with estimates of $125,000 to $175,000, and Tom Browning, who will be showing Fast and Loose, a cowboy scene estimated at $16,000 to $24,000. Martin Grelle will have a major new work that is still untitled, but estimated at $150,000 to $250,000.
William R. Leigh (1866-1955), Parting Pals, oil on canvas, 30 x 25” Estimate: $125/175,000
A new Jeremy Winborg will be offered, I am the Storm,estimated at $18,000 to $24,000. “Last year I was driving through the desert during monsoon season and it was amazing to drive into these heavy sheets of rain. Just as quickly as they started, they’d be over as we continued toward our destination,” Winborg says. “Human nature can be like the weather, sometimes a human can bring a bright, sunny day with blue skies. Sometimes we can bring a ravaging monsoon. I like to think the woman portrayed in my painting is calm and hard-working, keeping a steady watch over her family and way of life. But, if one were to mess with her or her family or her way of life, she could become that ferocious storm.”
Eanger Irving Couse (1866-1936), Indian Boy and Brave Looking at a Blanket, oil on canvas, 50 x 59” Estimate: $400/600,000
Other living artists in the sale are Robert Griffing, Don Oelze, Glenn Dean, Jerry Jordan, Z.S. Liang, C. Michael Dudash, Phil Epp, William Haskell, Mark Maggiori, Logan Maxwell Hagege, Colt Idol and Tim Solliday. —
Scottsdale Art Auction, Session II
April 15, 2023, 11 a.m.
7178 E. Main Street, Scottsdale, AZ 85251
(480) 945-0225, www.scottsdaleartauction.com
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