By KATHY McKIMMIE
AntiqueWeek Correspondent INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. — If there’s a T.C. Steele in an Indiana art auction, you can be sure it will be no. 1 on the block. At the June 8 Jacksons’ Auction & Real Estate Co. auction there were two Steeles, so it was a double bang on the hammer and a total of $106,700, after 10 percent premium, for the two landscapes.
First up for Steele (1847-1926), one of the five painters in the Hoosier Group, was a 17.5 by 23.5in landscape with cows dated 1893 in what looked like a newer frame, selling for $82,500, well above estimate (all prices include premium). Although not a record for a Steele painting, if you were to go by a per-inch price, as some auctions do, it would be, said Dennis Jackson, senior auctioneer. A slightly larger and more impressionistic work of Brown County, Ind., 1914, in what appeared to be the original frame, brought $24,200. Both purchasers have Indiana connections.
How has the economy been treating the Indiana art market? “I don’t think the economy affects the art market as much as it has affected the antique market,” said Jackson, and it’s not hitting the top end of its art auctions. The company is seeing new buyers at every auction and half of them are buying. “What we’re seeing different is a new buyer coming in at a higher entry level.”
Traditionally, people start buying art in the $300 to $1,000 range, then start paying more, he explained. “Today we’re seeing people coming in and paying $5,000, and one first-time buyer at one of our auctions bought a $20,000 painting.”
After the top Steele lots, the next-highest price paid was $8,250 for a landscape by Louis W. Bonsib that blew away estimates and set an auction record for the Fort Wayne artist. The 20 by 24in oil on canvas in great old frame was not your average Bonsib, as reflected in the bidding. It was more finished and detailed than most of his works. Three of his watercolors sold under estimate for $88 to $165.
Another work that broke from the typical mold was an oil on board New York City winter street scene — just 8in by 10in, by W.A. Eyden Jr. selling for $2,310. Indiana art collectors are used to seeing his beech trees, again and again. It was a break from the norm and he showed he could paint well in another style. In contrast, a 16in by 20in oil on board landscape by the same artist brought $275.
Jackson said the only other auction record was set on a painting by living artist Lois Davis. Her huge 30 by 48in acrylic of a family in turmoil, titled Toll, brought $2,475. A watercolor by Davis with a Halloween theme titled Things that go Bump in the Night brought $605.
An oil on canvas by the artist’s late husband, Harry Davis, was one of a handful of paintings that did not sell for want of a decent starting bid. Harry Davis fans probably didn’t know what to make of it. Instead of his familiar early figures or his later historic building paintings, it was an abstract.
Two paintings fetched $7,700: Hillman’s Gold, a landscape by C. Curry Bohm, and a Derk Smit painting of the Presbyterian Church in Brown County. The recognizable landmark in Smit’s painting drove the top price. Two other of his Brown County landscapes sold for $1,375 and $935.
Works of two other Hoosier Group artists were offered, including a pastel by Otto Stark in newer frame that did not sell. Two 5.5 by 7in mixed media sketches by William Forsyth, Munich in 1881, sold for $200 each, and a slightly larger pen and ink sketch by Forsyth sold for $82.50.
Three oil paintings of flowers by Kokomo artist Leota Loop (her trademark) sold for $880 to $1,925. But her top seller was a landscape, The Big Oak, with a 1941 Hoosier Salon tag on the back, selling for $2,475.
Although well done, auctioneer Bryan Jackson pointed out at the preview that it is not listed in the Hoosier Salon exhibition book, so it was apparently rejected.
Other notable pieces included a signed Liar’s Bench by Nashville, Ind., photographer Frank Hohenberger, for $633, and Glen Cooper Henshaw’s pastel portrait of an old woman selling for $935. A 1945 book on Henshaw by Louise Heritage and Warren Wilmer Brown, numbered 190 of 1,000, brought $200. Another ever-popular Indiana book, All the Year Round by James Whitcomb Riley and illustrated by Gustave Baumann, Rotarian edition, sold for $495.
The auction company does not publish pre-auction estimates for artwork in their catalog, although they’ll give you a ballpark if you ask, said Bryan Jackson. But you can find estimates, he added, at www.askart.com, which requires them from participating auction houses.
Asked if he thinks Indiana art is a good investment, Dennis Jackson said: “We say yes, as long as you’re buying the right paintings. That means buy paintings that have some substance to them. Don’t buy all landscapes with trees; buy paintings with buildings and figures in them that are well executed, and if you do that it’s going to be a good investment, especially for the young people, 10, 15, 20 years from now.”
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