On November 11, the Coeur d’Alene Art Auction presented its mid-season online sale featuring a selection of Western works from many respectable artists, both living and deceased. As bidding concluded, the sale had generated $600,000 with a 96 percent sell-through rate.
The sale closed out a phenomenal 2023, bringing the auction house’s total for the year to more than $24 million, of which the lion’s share was realized at the annual Coeur d’Alene Art Auctionevent in July in Reno, Nevada.
Charlie Dye (1906-1972), The Medicine Cloud, 1958, oil on board, 26 x 36” Estimate: $30/50,000 SOLD: $36,300The November sale’s top lot was William Herbert “Buck” Dunton’s 1906 oil J-D Outfit, a vertical composition showing a single cowboy watching over a herd of cattle. The 30-inch-tall work had a high estimate of $100,000, surpassed by the skin of its teeth when it sold for $102,850. The auction house has shown serious strength with Dunton since 2022 when it sold Treed for $1.4 million, a world record for the artist.
John Clymer (1907-1989), Farmer Sifting Soil, oil on canvas, 27 x 40” Estimate: $20/30,000 SOLD: $90,750
Elsewhere in the sale was John Clymer’s Farmer Sifting Soil, which sold for $90,750, more than three times its $30,000 high estimate. Clymer, known for his more sweeping action scenes in large panoramic compositions, gets closer to his subject in Farmer Sifting Soil. Clymer was a member of the Cowboy Artists of America, an organization co-founded by Charlie Dye, who was represented in the sale by the 1958 oil The Medicine Cloud (est. $30/50,000), which sold for $36,300. The brightly lit painting shows a group of Native American riders on a small ridge that faces the setting sun. Two other Dye paintings also performed well.
Peter Hurd (1904-1984), Anderson Ranch, San Patricio, NM, watercolor and gouache on paper, 22½ x 28½” Estimate: $10/15,000 SOLD: $20,570
William Herbert “Buck” Dunton (1878-1936), J-D Outfit, ca. 1906, oil on canvas, 30 x 20” Estimate: $70/100,000 SOLD: $102,850
Peter Hurd’s Anderson Ranch, San Patricio, NM, a watercolor and gouache on paper, sold for $20,570 over its estimate of $15,000. Another work that exceeded expectations was Birger Sandzen’s Evening Light Over Lake, which sold for nearly $17,000, more than 11 times over its high estimate of $1,500.
Other artists with works in the sale include Edgar S. Paxson, Frank Tenney Johnson, Albert Bierstadt, Harvey Dunn, Carl Rungius and many others.
Mark Maggiori, The Horse Whisperer, 2014, oil on board, 8 x 10” Estimate: $15/25,000 SOLD: $33,275
In addition to historic artists, contemporary artists were also represented in the sale, including pieces by Ed Kucera, Mikel Donahue, C. Michael Dudash, Dan Mieduch, Francois Koch and Mark Maggiori, whose 2014 painting The Horse Whisperer sold for $33,000, clearing its $25,000 high estimate with room to spare.
The auction house now prepares for its big summer sale, which will be held in Reno on July 27. —
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