September 2011 - Page 5 of 17 - Auction Central News

Fort Monroe in line for ‘monument’ status, says Salazar

Pen and ink hand-drawn map of Fort Monroe, Va., 1862. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

RICHMOND, Va. (AP) – Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said Wednesday he is pushing ahead with Fort Monroe’s preservation as a national monument, an approach welcomed by Virginia advocates of a Chesapeake Bay outpost that has seen the sweep of the nation’s history.

Preserving portions of the Hampton fortress as a national monument could be achieved under presidential order under the Antiquities Act. It would not require congressional approval.

“The Antiquities Act has been used by presidents, both Republicans and Democrats, to protect historic sites and natural wonders,” Salazar said in an interview with The Associated Press in Washington, D.C. “It’s an important law.”

Salazar said his office has been in discussions with local and state officials on the national monument approach to Fort Monroe and those discussions are now heading to the White House.

“We are in the process of doing that analysis and we will soon be (seeing) what exactly the president will do with respect to Fort Monroe,” Salazar said of President Barack Obama.

A week ago, the Army handed responsibility for managing Fort Monroe to Virginia. The land it occupies at the mouth of the Chesapeake saw the first European arrivals to the New World more than 400 years ago, including Jamestown settler John Smith, and was the first stop for African slaves. It also is seen as the place where slavery began to crumble when runaway slaves sought refuge during the Civil War at the Union fort.

The moated fort has seen a who’s who of U.S. political figures, including President Abraham Lincoln, Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee, the imprisoned Confederate President Jefferson Davis, and writer Edgar Allen Poe was stationed there.

Terrie Suit, secretary of veterans affairs and homeland security for Virginia, welcomed Salazar’s comments as a positive development in ensuring Fort Monroe’s future. The national monument status would have the same results as a national park, but would likely be achieved swifter.

“That’s huge to me,” she said. “We’ve had conversations with the National Park Service and they’ve been pretty supportive of this. To have the secretary comment on this is very positive.”

The Antiquities Act, which dates to 1906, authorizes presidents to proclaim “historic landmarks, historic and prehistoric structures, and other objects of historic or scientific interest” as national monuments, the National Park Service website states.

President Theodore Roosevelt used the act broadly, proclaiming more than 800,000 acres of the Grand Canyon as a national monument. More recently, President Bill Clinton proclaimed the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument in Utah a national monument.

Fort Monroe was ordered closed in 2005 as part of the nation’s base realignment, intended to cut costs, and had been in continuous operation since 1823. In recent decades it served as the home of the Army’s Training and Doctrine Command.

Consistent with its history, the fort contains more than 170 historic buildings. It also has 8 miles of waterfront and a 332-slip marina. The parts of the fort the state doesn’t want turned into a national park will be used for housing and other developments that are expected to remain in line with the area’s architecture.

The Fort Monroe Authority’s executive director, Glenn Oder, said approximately 40 percent of the fort and its grounds would initially be part of the Park Service. The 200 acres is primarily open space.

The state is also seeking additional park status for other significant portions of the fort, including the parade grounds and the quarters where Lincoln and Lee had spent time.

Legislation that has the bipartisan support of Virginia’s delegation is also pending in Congress to designate the fort a national park.

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Associated Press writer Matthew Daly in Washington, D.C., contributed to this report.

Online:

Fort Monroe Authority www.fmauthority.com

Steve Szkotak can be reached at www.twitter.com/sszkotakap

AP-WF-09-21-11 2201GMT

Missing moon rock found among Clinton’s papers

A lunar sample brought back by Apollo 17, which is on display at the Virginia Air and Space Museum. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 License.

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) – A missing moon rock that the state of Arkansas received after the Apollo 17 mission was found Wednesday in a box of papers from former President Bill Clinton.

An archivist found the rock, which weighs less than half an ounce, in one of some 2,000 boxes of Clinton’s gubernatorial paperwork and memorabilia housed in Little Rock, said Bobby Roberts, who directs the Central Arkansas Library System.

“This morning, one of the processors opened up a box and there’s the moon rock, out of nowhere,” Roberts said.

The rock was presented to Arkansas more than 30 years ago—sometime after it was collected during the 1972 Apollo 17 mission.

The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette first reported the rock was missing last year. Since then, Roberts said he has been following the news about the moon rock.

“It kind of became Arkansas’ mystery about where’s the moon rock,” he told The Associated Press.

Roberts said he’s not sure how the rock ended up among paperwork from when Clinton served as governor, but he said he’s glad it has been recovered.

“It really is something from an important era in the history of the country and you hate to see it disappear,” Roberts said. “I guess it’s one more Arkansas mystery solved.”

An Arkansas museum employee discovered another moon rock last summer, according to the Democrat-Gazette. That piece of the moon was from the Apollo 11 mission.

AP-WF-09-22-11 0005GMT

Phyllis George selling ‘unloved’ belongings

Phyllis George, Miss America 1971, signing autographs at a Miss America 2008 event. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.

LEXINGTON, Ky. (AP) – Quilts, paintings and Kentucky Derby hats belonging to former Kentucky first lady Phyllis George are going on the auction block this weekend at Brunk Auctions in Asheville, N.C. LiveAuctioneers will provide Internet live bidding for both Saturday and Sunday sessions.

George began going through the items she had in storage in January and talking to her children about which pieces they wanted. Many of the items were collected while her then-husband, John Y. Brown Jr., was governor, the Lexington Herald-Leader reported (http://bit.ly/nvg2fm ).

George says the items she is selling were boxed up and have been “unused and unloved.” She says she sees the auction as a positive step because the things she is giving up will go to someone who will love them.

George’s items and the rest of the auction catalog are at www.brunkauctions.com and www.liveauctioneers.com .

AP-WF-09-22-11 0732GMT

ADDITIONAL LOT OF NOTE

From the collection of Phyllis George is this painting of a Parisian flower market by Constantin Kluge (French, 1912-2003). The oil on canvas painting, 31 1/2 by 39 1/4 inches, has a $3,000-$5,000 estimate. Image courtesy of Brunk Auctions.

Model plow to break new ground at Cowan’s, Oct. 8

Fine exhibition model Champion workplow. Estimate: $20,000/$30,000. Image courtesy of Cowan’s Auctions Inc.

CINCINNATI – Cowan’s Fall Fine and Decorative Art Auction will take place on Saturday, Oct. 8. The 364-lot sale, to be held at Cowan’s salesroom, will offer fine and decorative art items from the 18th to the 20th centuries. Internet live bidding will be provided by LiveAuctioneers.com. The sale will begin at 10 a.m. Eastern

The auction features American folk art, furniture, decorative arts and paintings, as well as Asian and Continental works. Highlights include a Regina music box, and a fine exhibition model Champion work plow.

“This sale underscores the great diversity in things American, and things Americans kept and treasured. It is also, to me, an indication of sellers coming back to auction with great items, so they must feel some confidence in buyers as well,” said Diane Wachs, director of Fine and Decorative Art.

Fine and Decorative Art Senior Specialist Janet Rogers, notes, “It’s going to be a great sale for American decorative arts. We have a great collection of silver, lamps, and early furniture, including an ornate Mitchell Rammelsberg hall stand. We also have a nice selection of Regina music boxes, as well as some rare Rookwood, art glass and metalware by Tiffany.”

A fine exhibiton model Champion workplow is estimated to sell for $20,000/$30,000. The plow was made in Springfield, Ohio, by the Champion Machine Co. A three-quarter model of carved rosewood, the plow was intended to extol the advancements of the Champion Co’s chilled plow.

A seven-volume set by John James Audubon’s The Birds of America is expected to bring anywhere from $15,000/$20,000. This set contains drawings made in the United States and its territories. It also includes 500 lithographic plates with tissue covers.

A painting by Elizabeth Nourse is expected to sell for $20,000/$30,000. Titled French Cathedral, the painting is signed and dated with the artist’s name and her title on verso. Elizabeth Nourse was a portrait and a landscape painter born in Cincinnati in 1859. Some of her works can be seen at the Cincinnati Art Museum.

A fine Regina music box is estimated to bring $20,000/$25,000.

A Demetre Chiparus Amis De Toujours bronze is estimated at $8,000/$10,000. The bronze depicts a figure of an Art Moderne woman with an ivory face and hands, flanked by Irish wolfhounds and mounted on a marble base.

A Mitchell Rammelsberg hall tree is estimated to sell anywhere between $8,000/$10,000.

A Fine coin silver presentation pitcher is expected to bring $9,000/$12,000. This monumental presentation pitcher of inverted pear form has chased and repoussed elaborate decoration and has an engraved dedication, “To the Captain of the Cunard Line’s Britannica,” with marks for Gayle, Wood, & Hughes, a New York silversmith firm.

A bucolic landscape by Carleton Wiggins, oil on canvas, is estimated at $5,000/$6,000. Carleton Wiggins’ work owes much to the Barbizon style of his teacher, George Innes. First exhibited at the National Academy of Design in 1870, the academy nominated Wiggins as a member in 1892. Wiggins’ most celebrated works include ones that, similar to this example, depict grazing herds amid Barbizon pastoral landscapes.

Quadrupeds of North America, in three volumes, by John James Audubon is estimated to bring anywhere between $4,000/$6,000. This hardcover three-volume set by Audubon and his collaborator the Rev. John Bachman includes 155 colored plates.

An Anna Pottery stoneware railway pig bottle is estimated at $4,000/$6,000.

A China trade plaque for the American market is expected to sell for $10,000/$15,000. The plaque is carved and painted wood, and depicts an eagle clutching three half-furled American flags under a banner reading “E Pluribus Unum,” all on a field of stars, surrounded by a delicately carved oval frame with Chinese motifs.

To learn more about Cowan’s auction visit the company’s website at www.cowans.com or phone 513-871-1670.

View the fully illustrated catalog and register to bid absentee or live via the Internet as the sale is taking place by logging on to www.LiveAuctioneers.com.

ADDITIONAL LOTS OF NOTE

‘French Cathedral’ by Elizabeth Nourse. Estimate: $20,000/$30,000. Image courtesy of Cowan’s Auctions Inc.

Regina music box. Estimate: $20,000/$25,000. Image courtesy of Cowan’s Auctions Inc.

Mitchell Rammelsberg, Cincinnati, hall tree. Estimate: $8,000/$10,000. Image courtesy of Cowan’s Auctions Inc.

China trade plaque for American market. Estimate: $10,000/$15,000. Image courtesy of Cowan’s Auctions Inc.

Beijing breaks ground on city’s tallest skyscraper

Beijing's central business district in September 2008. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License

BEIJING (AFP) – Construction has started on Beijing’s tallest skyscraper, set to rise 1,650 feet and shaped like a vase, the state-owned CITIC group said Tuesday.

The building is the latest in a surge of ambitious construction projects in the Chinese capital, which along with other cities in China is attracting cutting-edge international architects keen to push design boundaries.

A groundbreaking ceremony on the China Zun tower, named after a type of traditional Chinese wine vessel, took place in Beijing Monday, a spokesman for CITIC, the building’s developer, told AFP.

The state-owned investment giant said the tower would be both its office building and a tourist attraction.

It would feature the latest energy-saving technology, and the top floor would encourage sightseeing from a platform and have a cafe with panoramic views, CITIC told the state-run Global Times.

Online pictures of a model of the tower show a slender glass and steel structure that appears to have an observation platform on the roof and a central atrium at the top of the building.

It will be built just a stone’s throw from the 330-metre-tall China World Trade Center Tower 3, Beijing’s current tallest building.

In the run-up to the Beijing Olympics, the capital added buildings such as the ultra-modern opera house—a rounded titanium and glass structure—by French architect Paul Andreu, and the 90,000-seat “Bird’s Nest” stadium.

The soaring, cantilevered China Central Television Tower by Dutch architectural wunderkind Rem Koolhaas—described as one of the most daring pieces of architecture ever attempted—was also built to much acclaim.

Renowned British architect Norman Foster, meanwhile, who designed Terminal 3 at Beijing’s international airport, is also building CITIC Bank headquarters in the eastern city of Hangzhou.

Relative says he may move Dillinger house

An FBI mug shot of John Dillinger. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

MOORESVILLE, Ind. (AP) – A relative of 1930s gangster John Dillinger might move a central Indiana farmhouse that was owned by his family, saying local officials haven’t shown any interest in his plans to turn it into a tourist attraction.

Jeff Scalf, a great nephew of Dillinger who owns Dillinger LLC, said he’s “had enough waiting around” for Morgan County officials and has started looking elsewhere for a home for his collection of Dillinger heirlooms and possibly even the farmhouse now in Dillinger’s hometown of Mooresville.

“I’ve offered the house and my ideas numerous times to Mooresville, but they haven’t taken the chance to approve it,” Scalf told The Reporter-Times. “I had to look at moving it out of Morgan County.”

Scalf said he has talked with people in two out-of-state locations and in Greencastle, the Putnam County city that was the site of a Dillinger bank robbery in 1933.

In addition to presenting Mooresville with the Dillinger museum offer, Scalf said he prepared a Morgan County tourism plan that included a John Wooden-themed festival for Martinsville, a racing museum in Paragon and other events.

Morgan County Councilman Jeff Quyle said Scalf prepared a good set of ideas but no formal plan has ever been presented to the county.

“This has the potential to offer some advantages, but Jeff has damaged his credibility in the community,” Quyle said.

Dillinger and his gang attracted a lot of publicity during a yearlong crime spree that started in 1933 that included bank robberies, shootouts, jailbreaks and, according to authorities, the killing of 10 people. Dillinger’s relatives maintain he didn’t kill anyone himself.

Dillinger broke out of the Lake County Jail in Crown Point while awaiting trial in the killing of an East Chicago policeman in 1934. He was 31 when FBI agents fatally shot four months later outside Chicago’s Biograph Theater.

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Information from: The (Martinsville, Ind.) Reporter-Times, http://www.reporter-times.com/

AP-WF-09-20-11 1720GMT

50th anniversary Peace Corps items go to Smithsonian

President John F. Kennedy greeting Peace Corps volunteers, Aug. 28, 1961. Abbie Rowe, photographer. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

WASHINGTON (AP) – The Peace Corps is donating objects from volunteers to the political history collections of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History.

The donated items include brochures, posters and correspondence from volunteers who have served around the world over the past 50 years. The collection includes a congratulatory letter from the White House signed by President John F. Kennedy, who created the Peace Corps.

The museum also will receive a sign that hung at the original Peace Corps office in Ghana, the first country to host Peace Corps volunteers.

The Peace Corps is celebrating its 50th anniversary.

AP-WF-09-21-11 0528GMT

Public to judge Grand Rapids’ ArtPrize competition

Taylor Mazer created this is a 4-foot by 27-foot pen and ink drawing of downtown Grand Rapids. It is his entry in Artprize 2011 and can be viewed at The Spot, 29 Pearl St. in Grand Rapids, MI 49503. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.

DETROIT (AP) – Even within the creative world of public art, it was an audacious plan: launch a citywide show of international artwork and let the general public be the judge.

After round two last year proved it was no fluke, ArtPrize is back for a third year and aims to draw 500,000 people to the western Michigan city of Grand Rapids for the event that began Wednesday and runs through Oct. 9. While the winners of most art competitions are decided by a few professionals, ArtPrize allows any adult to enter and any attendee to vote for the winners.

Organizers say this year’s show will host 1,582 artists from 39 countries and 43 states displaying their work in 164 venues within three square miles of the city’s downtown.

The democratic, experimental event, which includes a speaker series and educational events, will expand this year with musical showcases at downtown’s St. Cecelia Music Center.

“The nature of the (ArtPrize) model is for the whole system to evolve and learn from itself,” said founder Rick DeVos. “We want to make sure everyone knows that ArtPrize can host really any type of expression.”

Still, the draw is the art and the artists whose canvas is limited only by their own imagination and, well, various municipal ordinances. Past entries have included Play Me, I’m Yours, which consisted of multiple pianos that anyone could play, a series of portraits that were silk-screened on salt mounds and SteamPig, a massive sculpture of a “Steam Operated Flying Porcine Craft” named Parsifal.

“It’s not so much about finished product—ArtPrize is very much about process, trying things year after year,” DeVos said, adding that for some, it’s “literally the first time they’ve called themselves an artist.”

“We’re trying to be that catalyst to let a whole bunch of crazy stuff happen,” he said. “With that comes a lot of bad art, as well as a lot of amazing art.”

About 1,580 artists will compete for nearly $500,000 in awards, of which about $450,000 will be awarded to the top 10 artists based on a public vote. ArtPrize also has five additional juried awards and two Special Recognition Awards.

DeVos is the grandson of billionaire Rich DeVos, a co-founder of direct-sales giant Amway Corp., and son of Dick DeVos, a former Amway president who unsuccessfully ran for Michigan governor as the GOP candidate in 2006. In starting ArtPrize, Rick DeVos’ long-term goal was to “ignite a broad culture of creativity” in the region and state—and that vision goes well beyond art.

“I think our need and challenge in the Midwest and Michigan is to relentlessly experiment,” he said. “The first half of (the 20th century) was very good to us—the industrial model served us well. It’s also a very rigid, monolithic model. I think we need to get back to a place where we’re embracing risk, embracing creativity.

“It’s letting people identify their own objectives and goals and letting people pursue them,” he said.

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Jeff Karoub can be reached at http://twitter.com/jeffkaroub

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Online:

http://www.artprize.org

AP-WF-09-20-11 1921GMT

Sen. Bunning donates memorabilia to university

Jim Bunning, pictured in a 1964 Topps Giant baseball card, pitched a perfect game that season. The right-handed power pitcher won 224 games in 17 seasons in the majors. Image courtesy of LiveAuctioneers Archive and Hassinger & Courtney Auctioneering.

HIGHLAND HEIGHTS, Ky. (AP) – Northern Kentucky University says former U.S. Sen. Jim Bunning has donated papers from his career in Congress to its library.

Bunning, of Southgate, Ky., spent 24 years as a representative and senator before retiring. The school told The Kentucky Enquirer that Bunning also plans to donate memorabilia from his years as a professional baseball player for the Detroit Tigers and Philadelphia Phillies.

The political papers won’t be available for public use for several years, but the school has started raising money in an effort to preserve and digitize them.

The political papers of Kentucky congressmen Eugene Snyder and Ken Lucas are also stored at NKU.

Attendance spiked at Puchsteins’ Labor Day weekend show

Elizabeth Bartholomew arranges her inventory of fine Japanese textiles. Images courtesy of West Palm Beach Antiques Festival.

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. – The September edition of the West Palm Beach Antiques Festival, held over the Labor Day weekend, Sept. 3-5, had a 25 percent increase over attendance from the September 2010 event according to show owners Kay and Bill Puchstein.

Early buyer registration was up 33 percent and the weather was seasonably nice with highs in upper 80s and no rain. Earlier in the week everyone was watching hurricane Irene as it was heading toward Florida before making a turn to the north. The show stayed busy and crowded all weekend.

One of the first items to leave the show early Saturday by way of an early buyer admission was a 1923 Gibson guitar in its original case priced at $2,500. The name on the guitar was “The Gibson.” It had the Indian rosewood finger board that has stirred controversy recently in the classic American guitar market.

Early holiday items are always a favorite at the September festival. Monica Laethem from Boca Raton, Fla., offered a turn-of-the-century bellsnickles and reported selling a red and white ceramic Santa Claus, a paint decorated little sleigh and many other expensive small holiday items.

One of the earliest pieces of furniture to ever come through the West Palm Beach show was a large blanket chest from the early 1700s. The heavily carved show stopper was in the booth of Gerald Snyder of Stuart Fla. Made of oak with an old finish, it had an English provenance. Len Bartkowiak, Fort Myers, Fla., offered a breathtaking Japanese carving that was one of a kind. Carved out of bone and ivory, this 36-inch by 36-inch masterpiece from the 1950s had never been out of its original shipping crate.

One of the most interesting and highly specialized booths at the West Palm Beach Antiques Festival is operated by Elizabeth Bartholomew. Bartholomew, originally from Florida, had a vintage clothing business in Texas and a fine jewelry operation in the Caribbean before moving back to Florida. In her third year at the festival she specializes in antique and vintage clothing with a tight focus on Japanese textiles.

Her favorite items are examples of the kimono, the full-length robe that is the traditional Japanese garment for women and men, always wrapped with the left over the right and secured at the waist by a sash known as an obi, which is tied in the back. At one time the use of the kimono was so ubiquitous that the name itself means “clothing” or “thing to wear.”

Aside from the traditional full-length silk kimono, Bartholomew has fine examples of the haori, the shorter hip or thigh length robes originally worn only by men but now universally used as an overgarment and the yukata, the common cotton kimono traditionally seen as summer dress. But the top of the line is the uchikake, the formal wedding kimono that is heavily embroidered and worn outside the regular kimono as an overcoat without an obi. The uchikake is woven of the finest silk and hand painted, made of a single bolt of cloth. The most striking thing seen in the booth is a full length uchikake on a tall stand.

Bartholomew also has examples of the hitoe, the unlined silk kimonos also used as summer garments, and like all of her examples they are all hand sewn. Many examples are made of shiboroi, fine silk that has been hand tied and hand died, resulting in a pucker texture and some even have the traditional monsuki or family crest on the back panel.

Bartholomew exhibits over 500 items in her booth and besides Japanese textiles she has an assortment of pottery, glass, sterling silver and fine jewelry. Items in her booth range from $25 to $1,000 or more for a custom order kimono, but she notes that the supply of finer vintage kimonos is drying up.

The remaining summer show date will be Oct. 1-2 with a full day of setup for dealers on Friday 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. The Puchsteins have lowered dealers’ booth rent for the summer season over the normal show fee. The popular early buyer admission feature will be continued in the summer starting at 9 a.m. on Saturday before the regular show opening time of 10 a.m. Summer show early buyer admission has been reduced to $10 and is good for both days of the show. Adult daily admission $7, seniors $6 with a 1$ discount coupon for adult admission available on the website. Anyone under 16 is admitted free. There is no charge for parking at the fairgrounds.

The West Palm Beach Antiques Festival is held at the South Florida Fairgrounds, located off Southern Boulevard in West Palm Beach, 1 1/2 miles west of the Florida Turnpike and 1 mile east of U.S. Route 441/State Route 7.

For details contact the West Palm Beach Antiques Festival at 941-697-7475, e-mail info@wpbaf.com or visit the website at www.wpbaf.com.

ADDITIONAL IMAGES OF NOTE

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