Swann Galleries will open the fall 2020 auction season with a sale of American Art on September 17. The sale encompasses the visions of Impressionism, Regionalism and early Modernism, with seaside portraits showcasing various coastal destinations featuring prominently throughout the sale.
A top highlight of the auction is a work by Anna Mary Robertson (Grandma) Moses. Completed at 101 years of age, Happy Days is a 1961 oil-on-masonite painting depicting a typical scene of Moses’s, a rural family working happily on their farm. The work is set to come across the block estimated at $50,000 to $80,000. The painting, with exhibition and publication history, last appeared on the market more than 40 years ago.
Works from the nineteenth century include a run of circa-1880 coastal scenes by Alfred Thompson Bricher with the oil-on-canvas works Low Tide, South Head, Grand Manan Island ($20,000-30,000), and Schooner off the Coast, Bishop’s Rock, Grand Manon Island ($15,000-20,000), as well as the watercolor A Coastal Scene($2,000-3,000). Also of note are still life scenes with fruit, including an 1850s oil-on-wood panel by Severin Roesen ($15,000-20,000), and a circa-1860 oil by William Mason Brown.
Impressionist scenes lead the sale with coastal watercolors by Childe Hassam: A Shady Spot (Appledore, Isle of Shoals), 1892 ($80,000-120,000), and Sailboat off the Coast, Isle of Shoals, 1894 ($30,000-50,000). Also depicting the Isle of Shoals is John Appleton Brown’s circa-1890 color pastel Celia Thaxter’s Garden and View of the Sea, Isle of Shoals ($7,000-10,000). Further Impressionist works of note include Alice Mary (Beach) Winter’s circa-1915 oil-on-canvas View of Gloucester ($5,000-8,000), Edward Potthast’s oil-on-canvas New England Harbor Scene, circa 1900–10 ($5,000-8,000), and a small run of works by Gertrude Fiske including the oil board Boston Waterfront, circa 1919–22 ($2,000-3,000).
Marsden Hartley’s 1922–23 color crayon and pastel drawing Seated Male Nude stands out in an offering of early Modernism ($30,000-50,000). Charles Burchfield is present with Untitled (Harmony in Nature) gouache over pencil, circa 1915–16 ($7,000-10,000), and Frozen House in Winter, watercolor and gouache, circa 1918 ($10,000-15,000). Joseph Stella’s oil-on-canvas Still Life with Chrysanthemums and Goldfish, circa 1911–12 makes an appearance ($12,000-18,000). Additional highlights include works by Walt Kuhn and Jerome Myers.
Scenes of New York City throughout the seasons include Guy Wiggins’s circa-1940 oil-on-canvas Snow Scene, depicting a busy winter day as people make their way to their destinations in a snowstorm ($20,000-30,000). Reginald Marsh’s circa-1930 oil-on-canvas Manhattan, Waterfront, which depicts the Manhattan skyline on a clear day ($15,000-20,000), and John Marin’s 1953 watercolor View of Central Park, New York, showing a loose rendering of the park’s trees and the city skyline ($15,000-20,000), are also available.
