This autumn, Sotheby’s Hong Kong presents powerful masterpieces by artists who shaped Modern Indonesian Art. Tuak Manis (Sweet Wine) by Hendra Gunawan is equal parts artistic achievement, emotional resonance and intellectual triumph and is undoubtedly a rare example of the artist’s best works. Also featured in the auction is a tour-de-force self portrait by Gunawan’s fellow modern master, Affandi, and works by artistic leaders S. Sudjojono and Theo Meier, as well as by contemporary tastemakers such as I Nyoman Masriadi and Ronald Ventura.

The September 22nd Contemporary Auction offers carefully selected works by artists from the Post-War period through the present day. The sale covers a range of works from movements including Abstract Expressionism, Pop, Minimalism, Conceptualism, Contemporary Photography and Contemporary Chinese along with many of today’s most exciting young artists.

Victor Higgins (Taos school, 1884-1949), oil on canvas, circa 1929, 27 x 30 in., scene of woman in front of adobe building, held in same family for 80+ years. Est. $200,000-$400,000. Mapes Auctioneers image.

Purchased prior to Wall Street Crash of 1929, artwork remained in family for 80+ years

VESTAL, N.Y. – An exciting fine-art discovery – a fresh-to-the-market late-1920s oil-on-canvas painting by Taos Art Colony luminary Victor Higgins (1884-1949) – will headline Mapes Auctioneers’ Sept. 30 auction.

An old family piece, the 27- by 30-inch artwork depicts a Native American woman in front of an adobe building with a vine-covered column in the foreground. It was purchased directly from the artist approximately 80 years ago and passed through descent to the consignor, who is the original owner’s great-nephew. The painting has never before appeared at auction or been offered for sale.

“The Higgins came from a retired gentleman who lives less than a mile from our gallery,” said David Mapes, owner of Mapes Auctioneers. “He walked into my office one day and said he and his wife were moving to Colorado and had two paintings they wanted to sell. The other painting was nice, but when I saw the Higgins, I couldn’t believe my eyes. It was similar to a smaller painting by the artist that sold at Christie’s a few years ago for over $400,000.”

Closeup of central figure in Higgins painting

Mapes recalls that he told the consignor, “That’s a very good painting,” to which the consignor replied, “How good?” Mapes then delivered the news that, in his opinion, it was worth more than $100,000, adding that the auction record for a Victor Higgins painting is $769,000. “The consignor was stunned,” Mapes said.

Several identifications are written on the artwork’s stretcher – the name “Ruth” and the notation “Victor Higgins $600.” Mapes said it is likely that the original owner made the purchase prior to the Wall Street Crash of 1929.

“From what the consignor tells me, his great-uncle was an art aficionado who once served as director of the Municipal Art League of Chicago. He was also an attorney who lost a great deal of money when the stock market crashed. It’s unlikely that he would have been buying art after incurring major financial losses, so we think the painting may have been purchased in 1928 or 1929,” Mapes said.

According to Mapes, Higgins was a visionary in search of “the real America” and moved to New Mexico around 1915, when Taos was still an isolated village with dirt roads. “He was fascinated by the native people of Taos and became both a permanent resident and a member of the Taos Society of Artists, in 1917.”

Higgins’ signature from lower left of painting

The Higgins painting has been examined by a major art restorer who works with museums, Mapes said, and it was determined that the painting has never been cleaned or restored. “It is in original condition and in a nice period frame that may be the original,” Mapes said. The painting will be offered with a $200,000-$400,000 estimate.”

The other painting coming from the Higgins’ consignor is a 24- by 26-inch

Carl Hoerman (Taos school, 1885-1955), Arizona Desert, oil on canvas, 24 x 26 in., signed and dated ‘1929.’ Est. $1,000-$2,000. Mapes Auctioneers image.

Southwestern mountain landscape by Taos school artist Carl Hoerman (German/American, 1885-1955), titled Arizona Desert. Signed and dated “1929” on the front, the framed oil-on-canvas artwork is executed in soft desert hues with depictions of cacti and numerous other indigenous flora. On auction day it is expected to make $1,000-$2,000.

The 300-lot sale also includes a collection of 60 pieces of 19th-century New York state stoneware from an estate in Trumansburg, N.Y. Most of the vessels are ovoid jugs and jars, although there are also some 3-sided examples and later molded pieces from White’s Utica. Most have a floral motif, although one features a bird. Individual estimates range from $100 to $1,000.

American blue opaline glass fluid lamp, possibly Sandwich, Flame Bull’s-Eye pattern, 13 inches. Est. 750-$1,500. Mapes Auctioneers image.

A beautiful American blue opaline glass fluid lamp that may be by Sandwich measures 13 inches high and was crafted in the Flame Bull’s-Eye pattern. In excellent condition, it could bring $750-$1,500. Another glass highlight is the Steuben verre de soie perfume bottle with blue stopper, estimated at $200-$400.

The nicely mixed selection of antiques and fine art also includes a 35-inch-tall Theodore Coinchon (French, 1814-1881) garden bronze of Pan playing his flute, est. $2,000-$4,000; a Chief Big Moon cast-iron mechanical bank in original condition with 90% paint, est. $2,000-$4,000; and a 19th-century coin-silver teapot on stand by Bailey of Philadelphia, est. $1,000-$2,000.

Also, a 5-piece array of Deldare ware will be offered. The grouping includes vases and two trays, which aren’t commonly found. The smaller tray measures 9 by 12 inches and is titled “Dancing Ye Minuet,” while the 10- by 13-inch tray is titled “Heirlooms.” Both are in excellent condition, and each carries a presale estimate of $200-$400.

Mapes’ Sept. 30 Antiques & Fine Art Auction will commence at 5 p.m. Eastern time, with a preview the same day from 1-5 p.m. Their gallery is located at 1729 Vestal Parkway West, Vestal, NY 13850. All forms of bidding will be available, including live via the Internet through LiveAuctioneers.com.

For condition reports on the art or any other item in the auction, call 607-754-9193 or

e-mail info@mapesauction.com. Visit the company online at www.mapesauctions.com. View the fully illustrated auction catalog online at www.LiveAuctioneers.com.

Copyright Jeffrey Herman, hermansilver.com

I find it’s time to discuss a very troubling trend I’ve witnessed in silver displayed in museums: over cleaning. Years ago, I visited a prominent northeastern museum housing a large and impressive silver collection. Major presentation and historically important American and European silver were on exhibit. I was on a museum tour at the time, explaining to the other silver aficionados in the group how some of the pieces were created. I became alarmed at what I had been viewing: silver objects stripped of every last bit of patina!  I soon asked the docent why the silver had been stripped, leaving it so white, so one-dimensional. She replied: “The museum wanted to display the silver the way it looked upon completion by the silversmith.” I pointed out the obvious purple-colored firestain that mottled many of the objects, and that it would not have left the silversmith’s workshop in that condition. That the smith would have “fired” their piece, then given it an acid bath to dissolve the copper from the surface of the sterling, leaving a fine silver finish. Over decades of polishing, the oxidized copper (or firestain) may be revealed.  Silversmiths, especially those practicing up through the 19th century and into the 20th, probably would have patinated an ornamental piece, giving it a more three-dimensional look. “That’s just the museum’s policy,” the docent said. I had the immediately urge to confront the museum director and curator of decorative arts, but that wasn’t the time.

Modern “taste,” fickle at best, has no place in museum conservation. And, I am not alone in thinking that museums over clean their silver. Recently, a spoon collectors club visited my workshop. Below is an excerpt from an e-mail I received from one of the collectors after the visit: “I am always distressed to see museum silver with all the patina carefully removed. New sterling is now even being sold looking as though it just had a bath in Tarn-X.” 

Much time had passed from that eye-opening day at the museum visit to receiving that letter. It is a reminder of my responsibility to silversmiths long passed, to collectors unknowing of possible impending alterations to their bequests, and to museum decision makers entrusted with preserving our history. Museums are considered the authority of how our objects maintained. If ground-breaking or ill-conceived ideas are made without consulting others in the field (and that includes silversmiths themselves), irreversible mistakes will continue to be made without the public’s knowledge. And if we consider a museum’s policy to be the last word, we will then accept those poor conservation techniques as our own.

Jeffrey Herman started Herman Silver Restoration & Conservation in 1984, and has built a national reputation of quality craftsmanship and sensitivity towards the finishing of every piece. Herman has repaired & reconstructed everything from historically important tankards, tea services, and tureens to disposal-damaged flatware. And yes, he will also polish a single spoon or fork. He considers himself an environmentalist, using the safest, non-toxic, most organic products whenever possible.

Herman Silver Restoration & Conservation

PO Box 786

West Warwick, RI 02893

800/339-0417, 401/461-6840

Fax: 401/461-6841

E-mail: jeff@hermansilver.com

Web: http://www.hermansilver.com

The autumn season of wine sales at Sotheby’s Hong Kong opens with the eighth auction of wine from the Classic Cellar from a Great American Collector, the greatest Single-Owner wine collection in Sotheby’s history. Offering over 500 lots, this auction features the finest Bordeaux from the last three decades.

London – Phillips de Pury & Company is pleased to announce the ceramics highlights from its London Design auction. The sale will offer the most important group of Modernist ceramics ever to appear at auction. Approximately forty works have been selected from the renowned Berkeley Collection. Formed during a period of nearly thirty years of close friendship between the collectors Harley Carpenter and Geof Walker and the Viennese born potter Lucie Rie. This auction is a unique opportunity to acquire some major works with an extraordinary exhibition history and well documented provenance by these most revered of ceramic artists. The ceramic works and wall will be displayed in the Phillips de Pury gallery in an innovative setting designed to enhance the viewers’ experience of the exhibition.’

Lucie Rie gave Harley Carpenter and Geof Walker access to some of her best pieces and encouraged them to also collect those of her friend and collaborator Hans Coper. The collection grew steadily and soon became the first port of call for Museum curators looking for willing lenders. Many of the works on offer are recently returned from a groundbreaking tour of Japan, the first retrospective of Hans Coper’s work in that country. Some pieces have also been shown at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, Issey Miyake’s Design Foundation in Tokyo, The Barbican in London, The Museum Angewandte Kunst in Vienna and The Gardiner Museum in Toronto amongst others.

Catalogue now available online for Leslie Hindman’s October 4th & 5th Asain Works of Art Auction.

Sotheby’s October 5th Photographs auction in New York features a varied range of material from the 19th to 21st centuries.  Two landmark documents in the history of photographic literature will be offered—an early copy of Gardner’s Sketchbook of the War, and a complete set of Alfred Stieglitz’s photographic quarterly, Camera Work.  Modernist innovator Pierre Dubreuil’s mastery of the medium is evident in two of his best-known images: Spectacles and The First Round.  A dramatic, twice-signed mural of Ansel Adams’s famed Moonrise, Hernandez, New Mexico, and a mural of Leaves, Mt. Rainier National Park are featured, along with other Adams photographs.  A rare lifetime print of Diane Arbus’s Viva, the Warhol superstar, was originally illustrated in an early issue of New York, nearly causing the magazine’s demise.  A massive print of Peter Beard’s Maureen Gallagher and Late-Night Feeder presents a dazzling array of color drawing and collage elements.

Following the successful May 2011 sales of volumes I and II, the third volume of works from the Collection of Allan Stone comes to Sotheby’s New York this autumn. Trained as a lawyer, but passionate about art, Mr. Stone opened his own gallery in 1960. He joined the ranks of influential New York dealers such as Leo Castelli and Sidney Janis, while blazing his own path with a unique selection of artists.