May 18, 2012 - Auction Central News

Phoebus Auction to mark 20th year on Memorial Day weekend

Seth Eastman (American, 1808-1875) oil on canvas ‘Seminole Peace Party,’ circa 1840, 35 1/2 x 25 1/2 inches. Estimate: $450,000-$650,000. Image courtesy Phoebus Auction Gallery.

HAMPTON, Va. (ACNI) – When Gail Wolpin attended parties following the death of her husband 30-some years ago she quickly tired of being introduced—she recalls—as “Gail, so-and-so’s widow.”

“That’s when I realized it was time to find something to do with my life,” said Wolpin, a single mother of two.

Having been introduced to antique auctions by her mother-in-law, Wolpin decided become an auctioneer. It was a natural progression.

“I was raised in retailing,” said Wolpin, the daughter of a successful merchant in New Castle, Pa., and later the owner of a discount designer clothing store in Norfolk.

Now she’s introduced at parties as owner and auctioneer of Phoebus Auction Gallery.

Customers will have the opportunity to meet Gail Wolpin at Phoebus Auction Gallery’s 20th anniversary auction Memorial Day weekend (May 27-28). Sunday’s sale will be capped with a gala party at the storefront gallery, located at 18 E. Mellen St. in Hampton’s historic Phoebus neighborhood. Wolpin plans to have live music and plenty of food.

“It will be fun and joyous and it will be a good time,” said Wolpin, adding that she’ll be in bed by 10 o’clock that night, getting her rest for the second day of selling.

Selling will begin at 10 a.m. EDT both days. Sunday’s sale will have gold and silver coins, wooden ship models fine art, sports memorabilia and autographs.

Monday’s sale will continue an impressive lineup of antiques, collectibles and fine art highlighted by two important works.

The first is a rare painting by American artist Seth Eastman titled Seminole Peace Party. Eastman (1808-1875) was a West Point graduate who served in the Army during the Seminole Wars in Florida. His large oil on canvas depicts four Seminole warriors at a peace conference amid a grove of trees. Because Eastman’s works are owned primarily by the government and institutions, they seldom come to market. The last Eastman painting to sell publicly was by Sotheby’s, New York, in 1998 for $937,500. The painting consigned to Phoebus Auction Gallery is from a descendent of Eastman. It has a $450,000-$650,000 estimate.

The other painting is by Peter Max titled Zero Man Revealed. The 48-by-36-inch painting dated 1988 is the culmination of the pop artist’s Zero Man Seires, with the face of Zero Man revealed. It has a dedication on verso with an additional line drawing of a woman. The vibrantly colored painting in the artist’s trademark style has a $40,000-$60,000 estimate.

Also selling Monday will be antique furniture, sterling silver, fine jewelry, lighting, art glass and porcelains.

Prospective bidders who cannot attend the two-day auction may bid live online through LiveAuctioneers.com. In fact, Phoebus Auction Gallery was one of the first auction houses to sign up for online bidding services of LiveAuctioneers.com 10 years ago.

Wolpin credits her boyfriend and right-hand man Bill Welch for handling the technical aspects of the auction house.

“At first I thought, who would ever buy something on the Internet? Well, we know who the genius is here,” she said.

Joking aside, Wolpin will attest to the hard work necessary to build a successful 20-year run in the auction business.

She recalled the time and effort she put into her very first auction 20 years ago.

“After it was all sold, I looked around the empty room and sat down and cried. All that work and it’s all gone,” she said.

Of course, she quickly regained her composure.

“I realized auctioneering was the biggest and best secret in the world,” said Wolpin.

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For more information about Phoebus Auction Gallery and the two-day 20th anniversary auction visit www.phoebusauction.com or call 757-722-9210.

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

Peter Max, ‘Zero Man Revealed,’ acrylic on canvas, culmination of the Peter Max Zero Man Series, 48 x 36 inches, signed upper right ‘Peter Max 1988,’ dedication on verso with additional line drawing of woman. Estimate: $40,000-$60,000. Image courtesy Phoebus Auction Gallery.

Sevres hand-painted plate in gilt candleholder frame, pierced bronze or brass frame with double candleholders,1846, 10 1/4 inches diameter. Estimate: $1,500-$3,000. Image courtesy Phoebus Auction Gallery.

Lowrey Cherry Stardust organ with bench, Model SU-530, color touch LCD screen, 600 song titles. List price: $60,000. Estimate: $20,000-$40,000. Image courtesy Phoebus Auction Gallery.

Wooden ship model, HMS Victory, Lord Nelson's flagship at the Battle of Trafalgar, 1805, fully rigged, plank construction, 32 x 36 x 12 inches. Estimate: $400-$800. Image courtesy Phoebus Auction Gallery. — Wooden ship model, HMS Victory, Lord Nelson’s flagship at the Battle of Trafalgar, 1805, fully rigged, plank construction, 32 x 36 x 12 inches. Estimate: $400-$800. Image courtesy Phoebus Auction Gallery.

Jackie Robinson autographed picture card, 3 x 5 inches, $500-$750. Image courtesy Phoebus Auction Gallery.

Wallace sterling silver flatware, circa 1934, 66 pieces, 66.12 troy ounces. Estimate: $2,000-$3,000. Image courtesy Phoebus Auction Gallery.

Painting of ‘exposed’ South Africa leader provokes fury

South Africa President Jacob Zuma. Image used with permission. Copyright by www.gcis.gov.za

JOHANNESBURG (AFP) – A portrait of President Jacob Zuma posing as Lenin with his genitals hanging out has sparked outrage in South Africa, but the gallery on Friday refused demands from the ruling ANC to take it down.

Zuma’s African National Congress has demanded that the private gallery in Johannesburg withdraw the “distasteful and vulgar” portrait by satirical artist Brett Murray.

But the gallery won’t budge.

“They (the ANC) feel its so-called depiction of our president has been defamation towards his character. Our lawyers have written back to them saying we will not remove the painting,” Goodman Gallery spokeswoman Lara Koseff told AFP.

The red-yellow and black painting entitled The Spear depicts Zuma mimicking a pose by Vladimir Lenin in a Soviet era propaganda poster, but with his penis exposed.

The polygamous president generated national debate when he married his fourth current wife last month. He has 21 children, including several out of wedlock.

Zuma’s office on Friday said it was “shocked and disgusted at the grotesque” piece of art.

“We are amazed at the crude and offensive manner in which this artist denigrates the person and the office of the president of the Republic of South Africa,” Zuma’s office said in a statement.

It said Zuma was an architect of the freedom of expression enshrined in the country’s laws but that such rights were “not absolute.”

“Nobody has the right to violate the dignity and rights of others while exercising their own,” the statement added.

The ANC also said it was “extremely disturbed and outraged by the distasteful and indecent manner in which Brett Murray and the Goodman Gallery in Johannesburg is displaying the person of comrade President Jacob Zuma.”

It vowed to go to the courts for an order to censor the painting.

But constitutional law expert Pierre de Vos said the ANC had slim chances of a court victory.

“Given the protection for artistic freedom in the constitution and the many exceptions in our law made for the expression of such artistic creativity, I am almost 100 percent certain that the ANC’s proposed legal action will not be successful.

“In a democracy, courts seldom order the censoring of a work of art—even if that work of art makes fun of the president and his philandering patriarchal ways,” he said.

Koseff said the collection running under the title “Hail to the thief” was “a very satirical look at contemporary South African politics … of the disillusion of democracy within the country.”

Murray did not answer repeated calls to his phone.

The painting was bought by a German private collector for 136,000 rands (about $16,000) a day before the exhibition opened.

The Congress of South African Trade Unions, an ANC ally, said it was “disgusted at the demeaning portrait.”

“This picture is offensive and disrespectful not only to an individual but to the democratically elected president of South Africa and therefore to the whole country and the people of South Africa,” complained the labor movement .

A promotional flyer described Murray’s collection as “acerbic attacks on abuses of power, corruption and political dumbness” and “attempts to humorously expose the paucity of morals and greed within the ruling elite.”

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Calif. museum gets big gift to build space shuttle exhibit

Space Shuttle Discovery riding piggyback during a flyover of the National Mall in Washington, D.C., on April 17. Image by Jason Quinn. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.

LOS ANGELES (AP) – The California Science Museum said it has raised nearly half of the $200 million needed to build a permanent exhibit for the space shuttle Endeavour.

The museum recently received a donation from the Mr. and Mrs. Samuel Oschin Family Foundation that will allow it to start the design phase of the project. The museum didn’t disclose the amount of the gift, citing an agreement it made with the foundation.

“This is a huge boost. It gives a vote of confidence for the project” museum president Jeffrey Rudolph said Wednesday.

Rudolph spent the past year fundraising and still has halfway to go to fulfill the museum’s goal. The museum has received gifts from private foundations, corporations and individuals, but Rudolph said the latest donation was “very significant and truly transformative.”

When the display opens in 2017, it will be called the Samuel Oschin Air and Space Center in memory of a real estate developer and astronomy enthusiast, and will feature Endeavour in a vertical position, as if it’s ready to launch.

Until then, Endeavour will be housed in a temporary exhibit currently under construction. It is slated to be bolted to the top of a modified jumbo jet and arrive in Los Angeles in late September.

Since NASA retired the shuttle fleet last year, technicians have been busy prepping the shuttles to their final destination as museum pieces. Atlantis remained in Cape Canaveral, Fla.

Last month, Discovery wowed crowds by swooping over the nation’s capital before landing in Virginia where it will go on display at the Smithsonian Institution’s hangar at Dulles International Airport. Several weeks later, the prototype shuttle Enterprise sailed over the Statue of Liberty and past the skyscrapers along Manhattan’s West Side before touching down at Kennedy Airport. It will be towed by barge next month to New York City’s Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum.

Rudolph said he expected the same fanfare when Endeavour arrives at the Los Angeles International Airport. Details are still being worked out, but Rudolph said he expects the shuttle to fly over the Hollywood Sign and other landmarks. Current plans call for towing Endeavour from the airport to the museum near downtown—a move that will require taking out traffic lights and closing streets.

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Renovated Rodin Museum to reopen July 13

The Rodin Museum in Philadelphia. Image by Bobak Ha'Eri. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license.

PHILADELPHIA (AP) – The Rodin Museum in Philadelphia is getting ready to reopen after three years of renovations.

The museum is home to the largest collection of sculptures by French artist Auguste Rodin outside of Paris.

The revitalization project started in 2009. It aimed to clean the pollution and grime that have built up at the institution over the past several decades. The museum first opened in 1929.

Restoration work includes interior and exterior renovations, garden rejuvenation and a reinstallation of the collection. Major pieces include The Thinker, The Gates of Hell and The Burghers of Calais.

Media outlets previewed the changes on Wednesday. The museum will reopen to the public on July 13.

The museum was founded by Philadelphia entrepreneur and art collector Jules Mastbaum.

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Arrest made in 2001 cold case slaying of auctioneer

AUBURN, N.H. (AP) – Police have arrested a New Hampshire man in connection with the shooting death of a businessman over 10 years ago.

Police arrested 43-year-old Arthur Collins of Manchester. He’s been charged with second-degree murder in the death of 50-year-old George Jodoin of Auburn.

Collins was arraigned Thursday morning in court in Candia.

Jodoin was found dead in his home, shot multiple times in the head and neck on Dec. 26, 2011.

No arrests had been made in the case until Wednesday. Auburn police and the New Hampshire state Police Cold Case Unit said late last year that they were investigating new leads and his family offered a $50,000 reward.

Jodoin was a real estate broker and auctioneer who co-owned a pawn shop in Manchester.

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Barnes Foundation opens at new location amid protesters

The Barnes Foundation, Logan Square, Philadelphia. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.

PHILADELPHIA (AP) – After years of bitter court fights, The Barnes Foundation opened its doors Wednesday for a sneak peek at its new location on the museum-studded Benjamin Franklin Parkway.

The $150 million modernist art palace, now home to the multibillion-dollar art collection of the late pharmaceutical magnate Dr. Albert Barnes, opens Saturday. Admission is free for the first 10 days, though all tickets are sold out. The $18 admission fee ($15 for seniors, $10 for students and children) kicks in starting May 26.

Stephen Harmelin, a Barnes trustee and its treasurer, described efforts that began a decade earlier to secure what was “an embattled institution.”

“There were financial challenges to be faced … questions about how the foundation as it existed could go on with its mission, worries about the safety and integrity of the collection in the long run,” he said. “We were convinced that the only change that could save the Barnes was to redouble our commitment to its mission, to reach out more widely than ever before, to build, to expand and to move the collection to a more accessible location.”

It was a difficult decision “but it brought us to where we are today,” Harmelin told several hundred media and donors attending the reception.

Barnes, a pharmaceutical magnate who died in 1951, stipulated in a trust that his legendary trove of 800 impressionist and post-impressionist paintings forever “remain in exactly the places they are.”

Foundation officials asked a judge’s permission in 2002 to break Barnes’ trust, allowing the collection to relocate near Philadelphia’s museums and cultural attractions. The foundation said its endowment was exhausted and it would go bankrupt if required to keep the 181 Renoirs, 69 Cezannes, 59 Matisses, 46 Picassos and thousands of other objects in their suburban Merion home, which was subject to township zoning regulations restricting the number of visitors.

Three charitable organizations promised to help the Barnes raise $150 million for a new gallery and an endowment when the relocation was approved in 2004. Opponents called the move a power play by Philadelphia’s elites to bring the renowned collection to the city against its late owner’s wishes.

The Barnes is officially not a museum but an educational institution keeping with its mission when Albert Barnes established it in 1922 to teach populist methods of appreciating and evaluating art. Its new home does have museum-like amenities like a cafeteria and gift shop, however, as well as discreet classroom and lecture space.

The art galleries replicate Barnes’ own eccentric arrangement in Merion, with paintings grouped closely together and accompanied by furniture and ironwork, but hidden state-of-the-art lighting reveals “the true colors and vibrancy” of many paintings for the first time, Barnes president and executive director Derek Gillman said.

Ellsworth Kelly, who created a sculpture for the Barnes grounds, mistakenly thought one painting had been cleaned because it looked remarkably more vivid, Gillman said.

A handful of members from Friends of the Barnes Foundation, a citizens organization that unsuccessfully waged a legal fight for years to halt the move, protested near the entrance as visitors made their way inside.

“We had the real thing—it was successful, it was financially sustainable,” said Evelyn Yaari, a group member who lives near the Barnes building in Merion. “This is a fake. The public is not getting the real thing.”

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Online:

http://www.barnesfoundation.org

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