Tag: Onderdonk
Dallas International Returns, Open Thru Sunday
The Dallas International Art, Antiques and Jewelry Show is back again. The show opened with a private preview party that was not packed, but had a constant flow of people. The show made a first go of it in 2009 at the Dallas Convention Center, but skipped a year to return at a new location, the Irving Convention Center.
If there’s one reason I hear repeated often for a show’s success or failure-especially in Dallas, it’s paid vs. free parking. Parking is $8. I’m not sure how true it is that parking can make or break a show like this. There are plenty of places I go in Dallas and Fort Worth and have to pay for parking. Those places are often packed. Plus the show has made every attempt to boost the numbers by offering complementary tickets. The web site of New Orleans retailer M.S. Rau, for example, offers downloadable comps.
It’s a good looking show. Not too big, not too small. There are a number of landmark items. Dealer Gavin Spanierman has a Mary Cassatt, Willard Metcalf, Joseph Stella and Andrew Wyeth. David Dyke brought several outstanding Hudson River works by Julian Onderdonk. M.S. Rau brought a Gilbert Stuart. There was an painting of an American Indian attributed to Charles Willson Peale.
Booth of Roberto Freitas, Stonington, CT
For a city without a navigable waterway (the largest landlocked metropolitan area in the world as I understand it), there were plenty of marine items including a number of seascapes by William Trost Richards. Katherine King of Milwaukee had two, plus several works by tonalist master George Inness.
There is English furniture and American furniture, from the 17th to mid 18th centuries. Mark West brought his glassware all the way from England.
The show-stopper had to be a Peaceable Kingdom painting from the 1850s placed in a prime spot by Alexander Gallery of New York. I approached a second time and said “everyone is talking about this painting, I’m curious how much you are asking.” The response had something to do with it being a national treasure. “How much is a national treasure?,” I asked. While I was given a price, I’ll leave it out of this post. Rarely is it that a painting by a little-known artist can gain this stature. Seeing is believing. The next opportunity to see it may in fact be in a museum.
Make your way to the show before Sunday. Support the event. Dallas needs a show like this.
Give Me Glory and Blue Bonnets: Texas Art Results from Heritage
News came from Heritage Director of Texas Art Atlee Phillips via Facebook that the long-lost and much talked about The Battle of San Jacinto by Henry McCardle more than tripled estimate to bring $334,600 at November Dallas Signature Art of the American West & Texas Auction on Saturday. A draftsman for the Confederate Navy, McCardle later served with General Robert E. Lee in his first campaign in West Virginia on the engineer staff. In the 1880s, he began began painting a new work, The Battle of San Jacinto, which was completed in 1895 and hangs across the room of the Senate chamber at the Texas State Capitol. In 1901, McArdle painted an alternate version of The Battle of San Jacinto which was believed lost by scholars. In his book, Painting Texas History to 1900, Sam Ratcliffe briefly mentions, “a slightly scaled-down (5′ x 7′) version of San Jacinto, which is unlocated.” It remained a mystery until this year when Jon Buell, the artist’s great-great grandson, discovered it in the attic of his family’s home in West Virginia.
It would seem to have many elements that would lead to a successful auction, and the buzz was certainly there. A number of events surrounding the painting offered by Heritage certainly helped things along. If you read the previous post comparing the art market in China and the United States, a follow-up to that may be that several regions within the U.S., of which Texas may be primary, retain a great amount of regional pride and a relatively intact economy. A look at the market for antique maps is another indicator of this. Maps of places people identify strongly with sell well. Texas maps do much better than Pennsylvania maps (people in that state identify with either Philadelphia, Central Pennsylvania or Western Pennsylvania). People in Texas love Texas and are quite proud to call it home.
That said, this was an exceptional piece–particularly in historical terms, that comes around perhaps only once in a lifetime. Other items included a painting of blue bonnets by Texas landscape favorite Julian Onderdonk failed to sell. The market for this artist has escalated in recent years and maybe a plateau of sorts has been reached. The painting was estimated at $75,000-$100,000 and is available for purchase at $83,650 including premium. It would seem prices for this New-York trained tonalist turned impressionist painter are somewhat out of whack considering considerably lower prices for other tonalist painters, but that’s the Texas factor. This can also be seen within Onderdonk’s raisonne as an autumn landscape probably painted in the Northeast also failed to sell as is available for $7,170 including premium.
A painting from 1909, the year Julian Onderdonk moved back to Texas did sell at Heritage. Onderdonk came in the fall, and this Spring scene probably depicts a landscape from the Northeast.It brought $8,962.50 with premium. A similar painting from the same year was offered at the THETA show by David Dike Fine Art of Dallas priced at just $10,000–a reasonable price considering the minimal ten percent difference between it and the one that sold at auction and the fact that dealers usually have some room to move on their price.
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