The Coeur d’Alene Art Auction has another strong year
By Kristin Hoerth
Victor Higgins, Taos in Winter, oil, 24 x 30.
This story was featured in the October 2019 issue of Southwest Art magazine. Get the Southwest Art October 2019 print issue or digital download now–then subscribe to Southwest Art and never miss another story.
THE ANNUAL COEUR d’Alene Art Auction is always a good barometer for the western art market. Now in its 34th year, it’s the largest auction of western art in the country, and it’s known for regularly handling top estates and blue-chip artworks. This year’s installment, held in late July in Reno, NV, finished with a strong total of $16.8 million sold and several world records set for important artists.
The top lot in the auction was CASUALS ON THE RANGE, a 1909 oil painting by Frederic Remington, which sold for $981,750 against its presale estimate of $800,000 to $1,200,000. It was one of almost 20 paintings in the auction to come out of the esteemed collection of John J. “Jack” Mitchell, the cofounder of United Airlines.
A world-record price was set for Taos Society artist Victor Higgins when his painting TAOS IN WINTER sold for $833,000 against a $400,000-$600,000 estimate; it’s the first time his work has gone above the $800,000 mark. Ending up in similar price territory was fellow Taos artist Joseph Henry Sharp, whose CROW ENCAMPMENT, MONTANA brought $892,500 compared to its $300,000-$500,000 estimate; that was the fourth-highest price ever paid for a Sharp at auction.
One of the most notable sales was that of French artist Rosa Bonheur’s EMIGRATION DE BISONS (AMERIQUE), which also came from the Mitchell estate. Estimated at $300,000-$500,000, it hammered for $773,500, setting a new world record for her work. The over-6-foot-wide painting, done in tempera and pastel in 1897, depicts a bison herd in the snow in highly detailed realism. Bonheur never traveled to the United States to see bison in the West, but she met Buffalo Bill Cody at the Exposition Universelle in Paris in 1889. She was, reportedly, enchanted with him and visited his Wild West show multiple times, making sketches of the Indians and buffalo that were part of his extravaganza. Widely considered the most famous female painter during the 19th century, Bonheur was celebrated for her paintings of animals, including PLOUGHING IN THE NIVERNAIS in the Musée d’Orsay and THE HORSE FAIR at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Other world records were also set at the auction: Hammering for $101,150 was ADOBE, SNOW AND SUNSHINE, a 1926 painting by Theodore Van Soelen. And selling for $166,600 was STRANGERS IN THE VALLEY by contemporary Montana artist Don Oelze, an oil depicting three Lakota warriors and their horses looking out over a sacred valley in the Black Hills.
This story was featured in the October 2019 issue of Southwest Art magazine. Get the Southwest Art October 2019 print issue or digital download now–then subscribe to Southwest Art and never miss another story.
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