Butch Cassidy’s ‘amnesty’ Colt SAA .45 gun with holster and extensive documentation, sold to a LiveAuctioneers bidder for $175,000. Image courtesy of LiveAuctioneers.com Archive and California Auctioneers.
VENTURA, Calif. (AP) – A .45-caliber gun once owned by Butch Cassidy has sold at auction in Southern California for $175,000.
A spokesman for the private seller said Sunday that the Colt Single Action Army revolver went to an anonymous bidder.
The gun is accompanied by a black leather shoulder holster and two binders filled with documentation verifying the revolver’s authenticity.
Cassidy, the infamous Old West bank robber, bought the revolver in a hardware store in Vernal, Utah, in 1896. He turned it over to Utah authorities in early 1900 in an unsuccessful attempt to gain amnesty. Known as the “Amnesty Colt,” it is the most documented of Cassidy’s guns.
The outlaw was immortalized in the 1969 film “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.” He was played by Paul Newman.
Sunday’s sale was held by California Auctioneers of Ventura.
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ADDITIONAL IMAGE OF NOTE
Butch Cassidy’s ‘amnesty’ Colt SAA .45 gun with holster and extensive documentation, sold to a LiveAuctioneers bidder for $175,000. Image courtesy of LiveAuctioneers.com Archive and California Auctioneers.
SALT LAKE CITY (AP) – A Salt Lake City artist’s massive moveable sculpture of a praying mantis, which previously descended on the Burning Man festival in Nevada’s Black Rock Desert, may soon be a centerpiece in a $350 million downtown Las Vegas revitalization project.
The 30-foot-by-40-foot metal insect, built onto a truck and featuring antennae that shoot flames, recently attracted the attention of Zappos.com CEO Tony Hsieh.
“It’s going to be the entry piece into a shipping container retail space,” creator Kirk Jellum told the Deseret News. “(Hsieh is) taking shipping containers and tricking them out into a hipster-like retail space.”
The big bug has a neck that can be raised 35 feet into the air and can shoot 20-foot flames. Jellum and his wife, Kristen Ulmer, had it mounted on a dump truck and drove it 500 miles to the Burning Man in 2010.
The eclectic, art-focused festival draws tens of thousands of people each year to a dry lake bed north of Reno.
It’s made several other public appearances before its creators sold it to Hsieh. The shoe and apparel company chief is investing millions of his own dollars into the redevelopment effort, which will bring retail and residential properties to Las Vegas’ aging downtown corridor.
“It felt a bit like we were selling one of our children, but we didn’t have a problem with it,” Ulmer said.
The sculpture was the first art project for Jellum, whose background is aerospace engineering. But the praying mantis has since led to other large-scale metal works, including a gigantic female scorpion mounted on a boom truck.
He’s not running out of ideas, either. His latest effort will be an enormous hummingbird, provided he gets an investor to fund the dream.
“It’ll maybe be 50 feet in the air, and who knows how wide the wings will be,” Jellum said. “I’m actually going to articulate the wings, so they’ll move.”
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Information from: Deseret News, http://www.deseretnews.com
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Copyright 2012 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Police have located a 60-year-old theft report from the day a Renoir painting disappeared from the Baltimore Museum of Art that matches the description of an artwork that sold for $7 recently at a flea market. Now an art theft expert says the museum has a strong case to get it back.
Baltimore police on Friday uncovered the report from Nov. 17, 1951. The museum on Thursday said it also found a record in its library that the painting was stolen. The police report noted there was no evidence of forced entry at the museum and that the painting was valued then at $2,500.
According to the report, James N. Foster Jr., an executive assistant at the museum, reported that “some time between 6 p.m. Nov. 16 and 1 p.m. this date (Nov. 17) someone stole the following painting.”
The brief police report notes the 5½-by-9-inch piece, “On the Shore of the Seine,” was painted by Pierre-Auguste Renoir. It describes “a river scene in pink and blue.” No other items were reported stolen.
Six decades later, a Virginia woman said she bought the painting at a West Virginia flea market in 2010. She kept it in storage for nearly two years — thinking it must be fake — and then decided to have it examined by an auction house in Alexandria, Va.
The Potomack Co. verified it was Renoir’s “Paysage Bords de Seine,” which translates to Banks of the River Seine. The auction house said it checked a worldwide registry of stolen artwork in July, and the Renoir piece had never been reported stolen or missing.
The painting was to be sold at auction for the woman on Saturday and it was expected to fetch at least $75,000.
The auction was postponed this week after a Washington Post reporter first found evidence the painting had been on loan to the museum from 1937 until 1951.
An expert on art thefts told The Associated Press the museum likely has a strong case to reclaim the painting. Robert Wittman, a former FBI investigator of national art thefts, said the artwork’s dimensions and composition are key in matching it to a stolen piece.
“I just figured it would be a matter of time before somebody made a claim because those things just don’t disappear,” Wittman said of the Renoir found in a box of trinkets.
If there’s a legal dispute over ownership of the painting, it would likely be a civil, not criminal, dispute, Wittman said.
The museum’s insurance company from 1951 also might be able to make a claim, though the museum had not located insurance records to identify the company.
Museum officials were combing through paper records Friday to learn more about the theft. So far, they have found a record documenting the museum had borrowed the painting from art patron Saidie A. May, who donated many other works to the museum.
The painting was on exhibit at the time it was stolen, said museum spokeswoman Anne Mannix. It’s listed in a catalog for the 1951 exhibit, “From Ingres to Gauguin: French 19th Century Paintings Owned in Maryland.”
Susan Helen Adler, a great-niece of May and an art teacher, has written a book about the life of her art collecting ancestor. She said there is no doubt May intended for the Renoir to stay at the museum permanently.
“In her will, every piece of art that had been in the museum was to stay in the museum,” Adler said.
Art records indicate the painting was sold in 1926 by the Bernheium-Jeune gallery in Paris to American lawyer Herbert L. May. The family believes he gave it to his wife, Saidie May, as a gift before they divorced.
Saidie May began loaning her extensive collection to about six U.S. museums and each year could take a portion of the value off her taxes. Her sister, Blanche Adler, lived in Baltimore and was a trustee at the Baltimore Museum of Art.
“I hope that they figure out how it was taken because it just seems odd,” said Susan Helen Adler. “It is a small piece of art. Maybe that’s how the people were able to get it out of the museum.”
Before the police report was found, the museum’s loan record was its only documentation of the painting being stolen. The card noted the museum had collected $2,500 from its insurance company after the loss.
“All the way up through 1951 you have it listed in the (museum) card file. Then it disappears … and the thing shows up in somebody’s garage,” said Wittman, the former FBI agent. “It’s remarkable that the museum would still have that catalog card. That’s fabulous.”
The FBI has confirmed it’s investigating. Wittman, who retired in 2008, said investigators would likely go back to the flea market and try to identify who sold it to try to determine where the piece came from.
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Associated Press researcher Julie Reed contributed to this report.
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Follow Brett Zongker on Twitter at https://twitter.com/DCArtBeat
Copyright 2012 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
SCOTTSVILLE, Ky. (AP) – An auction house open for 50 years in Scottsville was destroyed by fire on its final day of business, and its owners say they had no insurance.
The fast-moving fire gutted the Wagon Wheel Antique Mall and Auction Company last Thursday.
Owner Jerry Whitney told The Daily News he and his wife were planning to move the business to another building. They had hoped to use money from the final day of sale to pay their first month’s rent at a new location.
Fire officials said there were no injuries and the cause had not been determined.
Whitney said he and his wife were inside with some customers when the fire started and he tried to put it out with his hands, but it spread rapidly.
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Information from: Daily News, http://www.bgdailynews.com
The historic Aleppo market, dating to medieval times, has been severely damaged. The market was located in the Ancient Aleppo district of Syria’s largest city and was designated a UNESCO World Heritage site. Photo by Preacher Lad, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.
BEIRUT — A fire sparked by battles between Syrian President Bashar Assad’s troops and rebel fighters tore through Aleppo’s centuries-old covered market Saturday, burning wooden doors and scorching stone stalls and vaulted passageways. The souk is one of a half-dozen renowned cultural sites in the country that have become collateral damage in the civil war.
The damage to one of the best-preserved old souks in the Middle East was the worst yet to a UNESCO World Heritage site in Syria. Across the country, looters have broken into a historic castle, stolen artifacts from museums and damaged ruins in the ancient city of Palmyra, antiquities officials and Syrian experts say.
The Aleppo market, a major tourist attraction with its narrow stone alleys and stores selling perfume, fabrics and spices, had been the site of occasional gun battles and shelling for weeks. But amateur video posted Saturday showed wall-to-wall flames engulfing wooden doors as burning debris fell away from the storefronts. Activists said hundreds of shops were affected.
“It’s a big loss and a tragedy that the old city has now been affected,” Kishore Rao, director of UNESCO’s World Heritage Center, told The Associated Press by telephone from Paris.
Most of the other sites recognized as heritage sites by UNESCO, the global cultural agency, are also believed to have suffered damage during the 18-month battle to oust Assad, Rao said. The ancient center of Aleppo — Syria’s largest city — has been hit the hardest, he said.
“It is a very difficult and tragic situation there,” said Ahmad al-Halabi, a local activist speaking by phone from the area. He said rebels and civilians were trying to control the blaze, but only had a few fire extinguishers.
The fire in the souk erupted late Friday and was still burning Saturday, following fierce fighting between regime troops and rebels trying to drive pro-Assad fighters out of the city of 3 million.
On Thursday, rebels launched what they said would be a “decisive battle” for the city, followed by days of heavy fighting, including shelling and street combat. Amateur video has shown rebels taking cover behind walls and makeshift barriers, attacking regime forces with grenades and assault rifles. Activists reported heavy shelling by pro-Assad troops.
Once considered a bastion of support for Assad, Aleppo has become the focus of the insurgency for the last two months, with rebels taking about half the city. Aleppo would be a major strategic prize: A rebel victory would give Syria’s opposition a major stronghold near the Turrkish border, while a regime victory would give Assad some breathing space.
It’s not clear what set off the fire in the old market, made of hundreds of stone stalls that line covered alleys with vaulted ceilings. Amateur footage posted online by activists showed flames engulfing the shops and rebels aiming a water hose at the fire. The shops’ wooden doors, along with the clothes, fabrics and inside some of the businesses, helped fuel the blaze, activists said.
The market stalls lie beneath the city’s towering 13th century citadel, where activists say regime troops and snipers have taken up positions.
The Syrian conflict has killed more than 30,000 people, according to activists. It has also wreaked widespread destruction, particularly in recent weeks as regime forces stepped up air strikes and shelling attacks, and rebels fired mortar shells and rocket-propelled grenades. Entire neighborhoods in Syria’s three largest cities — Aleppo, the capital Damascus and Homs — have been devastated.
A majority of Syria’s 23 million people live in a thin western sliver of the country; in this territory, rebels have established positions in rural areas, while Assad’s forces are trying to hold on to the cities.
Aleppo’s old center was added in 1986 to UNESCO’s list of World Heritage sites. Of the medieval souks in the Middle East, Aleppo’s was among the best-preserved, offering visitors a range of architectural styles covering hundreds of years, said Rodrigo Martin, a Brussels expert on Syrian historical sites.
“It was a unique example of medieval commercial architecture,” said Martin, a spokesman for a group of experts who monitor damage to Syrian historical sites and cooperate with the U.N. cultural agency.
Some of the other prized cultural attractions have also suffered damage.
Earlier this year, looters broke into Crac des Chevaliers, one of the world’s best-preserved Crusader castles, a Syrian antiquities official said at the time. Shelling also damaged the site, said Martin, citing amateur video.
The ruins of the ancient city of Palmyra were damaged by fighting, Martin said, according to reports he received from Syria. He said he had seen video that showed sculptures being taken away from Palmyra in a small truck.
The other World Heritage sites on UNESCO’s list are the old center of Damascus, one of the most ancient cities in the Middle East; the ancient city of Bosra, once the capital of the Roman province of Arabia; and a group of some 40 villages of north-western Syria that date from the first to seventh centuries.
Rao, the World Heritage chief, said the U.N. agency has asked Syria’s neighbors to be on the alert for attempts to smuggle looted objects out of the country. No incidents had been reported so far.
Lesser sites have also been affected in Syria. Regime shelling of neighborhoods where the opposition is holed up has smashed historic mosques, churches and souks in the central Homs province and elsewhere in the country. Looters have stolen artifacts from museums.
Martin said the Syrian regime bears the bulk of the responsibility for the destruction because it signed international agreements to protect cultural sites.
For at least two millennia, cultural sites have been threatened or destroyed by wars throughout the Mideast, Martin said.
“History continues, whatever we do,” Martin said. “Mankind can just be really destructive.”
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Associated Press writers Zeina Karam in Beirut and Lori Hinnant in Paris contributed to this report.
Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
ADDITIONAL IMAGE OF NOTE
The historic Aleppo market, dating to medieval times, has been severely damaged. The market was located in the Ancient Aleppo district of Syria’s largest city and was designated a UNESCO World Heritage site. Photo by Preacher Lad, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.
Wedgwood applied Egyptian designs in relief to their dry rosso antico body. This early 19th century red and black teapot – complete with crocodile finial – sold for $2,151. Courtesy Neal Auction Co.
In September, the Neal Auction Co. sold the furniture and decorative arts collection of legendary New York collector Lee B. Anderson. Entranced by the revival styles of the 19th century, Anderson accented his formidable holdings in Classical and Gothic Revival forms with a fine selection of artifacts in the rarer Egyptian Revival style. Buyers responded enthusiastically to the lots of French and English porcelain featuring motifs drawn from the tombs and temples along the Nile.
Over 30 years ago, Kevin Stayton, curator of decorative arts at the Brooklyn Museum, wrote an essay on “Revivalism and the Egyptian Movement” in connection with an exhibition – “The Sphinx and the Lotus” – at the Hudson River Museum. He said, “The mysteries and the majesty evoked by ancient Egypt have long occupied a secure niche in the mind and art of western man.”
“Indeed perhaps the greatest difficulty in defining an Egyptian revival in the 19th century is isolating a moment in history when the fascination with Egypt and things Egyptian is entirely lacking. Whether for its associations with exotic romance and absolutist power or for the purely aesthetic appreciation of its commanding forms and brilliant control of pattern, Egyptian art has played a role in Western culture since the Roman Emperors raided the land of the Pharaohs and re-erected looted obelisks in Rome …”
As the curator pointed out, Egyptian Revival is “The Thing That Wouldn’t Die.”
The Roman Emperor Hadrian, who ruled 117-138 A.D., decorated a wing of his Tivoli vacation villa like an Egyptian sanctuary. Artist Giovanni Battista Piranesi (1720-1778) illustrated how Egyptian motifs could be used in decorating the interiors of his own day. Architects from past to present have adapted ancient elements such as the obelisk, pyramid and pylon to fit modern purposes.
Although the relics of Egypt’s ancient civilization never completely disappeared, certain historical events brought the style back to the forefront of the public’s fashion consciousness. In the days before modern media, people were starved for accurate visual representations of far-off wonders. Fortunately, when Napoleon made his 1798-1801 expedition to Egypt, he took along artist Vivant Denon (1747-1825). His detailed drawings of monuments and scenes from daily life were published as Voyage dans la basse et la haute Egypte in 1802.
The overall result was passionate fervor for fashion, furniture and fine art featuring Egyptian themes which continued throughout the 19th century. The immediate effect on ceramics was the production of two massive Egyptian services at the French national porcelain manufactory of Sevres, under the leadership of Alexandre Brogniart.
A dessert service made for presentation to Czar Alexander I was sent to St. Petersburg in 1808 and now can be seen in the Kuskovo Palace, which serves as the Russian State Museum of Ceramics.
Empress Josephine had visited the factory during production and ordered a second Egyptian larger dinner service, to be paid for out of her divorce settlement. Eventually presented to the Duke of Wellington by a later monarch, the set is on display at Apsley House, his London residence. The plates from these services were carefully painted with Egyptian scenes after the Denon drawings. The deep blue and gold border designs feature ancient motifs including Horus falcons, scarab beetles and lotus flowers.
The specially designed serving pieces, such as sucriers, are further enhanced by handles and finials in the form of human or animal figures. Most notable were the sculptural centerpieces of white bisque, which depict architecturally accurate Egyptian temples and sphinxes. These services are among the most ambitious creative projects ever completed in clay.
The numerous smaller porcelain factories surrounding Paris quickly turned out their own cabinet plates painted with Egyptian scenes and patterns. Depending on the skill and imagination of the artist, some are more accurate, while others are decidedly fanciful. Pyramids rise at odd angles, sphinxes look more Renaissance than Middle Eastern and hieroglyphics are invented to fill space. The demand for exotic porcelain was extreme, and firms made money by putting their best decorators to work.
Across the Channel, Wedgwood – famous for fine Classical works – was encouraged to retool for Egyptian Revival by the 1801 British defeat of Napoleon in Egypt. The Rosetta Stone, which proved the key to the ancient Egyptian language, was put on display at the British Museum alongside other sculpture and artifacts retrieved from the valley of the Nile.
Wedgwood’s Egyptian designs are well-modeled and archaeologically accurate; they appear in the firm’s most popular wares. Collectors can find blue and white jasperware interpretations of the human-headed Canopic jars. Tea services were produced in a black and red ware called rosso antico; crocodiles form the finials. Black basalt ware, sometimes accented with gold, was used for elegant sphinxes.
While the most superb Sevres pieces are in museum collections, 19th century French and English porcelain in the Egyptian style was popular enough in its day that antique examples continue to appear at auction. Vigilant collectors can successfully locate and bid on desirable pieces at many price levels.
ADDITIONAL IMAGES OF NOTE
Wedgwood applied Egyptian designs in relief to their dry rosso antico body. This early 19th century red and black teapot – complete with crocodile finial – sold for $2,151. Courtesy Neal Auction Co.Responding to the passion for all things Egyptian, Paris porcelain decorators painted cabinet plates with scenes of the Nile. This example from the Lee Anderson Collection brought $2,868. Courtesy Neal Auction Co.Sevres produced two elaborate porcelain services decorated with views of ancient monuments recorded during Napoleon’s 1798-1801 expedition to Egypt. One service, enhanced by a centerpiece of bisque architectural constructions, was given to Czar Alexander I and can be seen at the Kuskovo Palace Museum of Ceramics in Russia.A pair of decorated cabinet plates with a russet marble border, marked by Paris porcelain makers Locre, Russinger, Pouyat, realized $5,079 at auction in September. The plate on the right features the Egyptian goddess Isis on a pedestal between two sphinxes. Courtesy Neal Auction Co.A pair of Wedgwood sphinxes in the firm’s black basalt ware brought $4,780. Courtesy Neal Auction Co.An elaborate Egyptian offering scene circles a two-handled Coalport vase, circa 1810, recently sold for $1,037. Courtesy Neal Auction Co.Enhanced by an intricate gilt border, this Paris porcelain cup and saucer with Egyptian deities against a dark ground brought $837 at auction. Courtesy Neal Auction Co.
Kyser & Rex ‘Mikado’ cast-iron mechanical bank, rare blue variation, top lot of the sale, $198,000. Morphy Auctions image. DENVER, Pa. – With 2,750 auction lots from which to choose, collectors of antique toys, banks, dolls and sports memorabilia felt like Christmas had already arrived Sept. 13-15 at Morphy’s Pennsylvania gallery.
“We offered a great variety and excellent quality in virtually every category in the sale. There were a lot of happy buyers, some of whom had traveled long distances to attend,” said Morphy Auctions CEO Dan Morphy. LiveAuctioneers.com provided the Internet live bidding for the sale.
Several major collections anchored the three-day auction, which realized $2.76 million, inclusive of 20% buyer’s premium. The Al Winick collection of 100 fine mechanical banks was described by Morphy as “the best mechanical bank collection to come to auction since the world-record Steckbeck sale of 2007.” More than 100 bidders turned out to bid in person during the bank portion of the event.
The Winick banks certainly lived up to Morphy’s assessment, with a rare blue variant of Kyser & Rex’s circa-1886 “Mikado” mechanical bank claiming top-lot honors at $198,000. A beautiful example in near-mint condition, the cast-iron depiction of a magician performing a sleight-of-hand shell game trick had been estimated at $100,000-$150,000.
With crossover appeal to black Americana collectors, an 1880 “Freedman’s Bank” was in enviable near-mint condition and came with provenance from both the Tudor and Steckbeck collections. It cashed out at $138,000, comfortably within its $125,000-$150,000 estimate range.
Other Kyser & Rex cast-iron mechanical banks that finished in the top 10 included a Merry-Go-Round, ex Steckbeck collection, $126,000; and Roller Skating bank depicting an old-fashioned skating rink with skaters, $84,000. Also finishing well in the money were two desirable productions by J. & E. Stevens: a football-theme Calamity bank in superb condition, $38,400; and an 1880 Chimpanzee bank, $37,200.
There was keen interest in Ed Sandford’s collection of pristine Japanese die-cast robots. Several bidders even made the trip all the way from Italy to Pennsylvania to preview and pursue prized pieces from the collection. Most of the robots were made in the 1960s by companies whose designs are now very rare and collectible, e.g., Popy, Clover, Takara and Bandai. Fetching the highest price was Takara’s Diaclone Big-Powered Convoy, a toy that inspired the later Transformer production known as Ultra Magnus. Estimated at $600-$1,000, it muscled its way to a winning bid of $10,800.
Not far behind it was a mint-boxed Popy GA-50 Daiku Maryu, which was never marketed outside Japan. With its particularly rare blue missiles and original packaging, it had no problem reaching $10,200 against an estimate of $4,000-$6,000.
At the Sept. 13-15 auction Morphy’s presented part I of the 40-year Jack Matthews collection comprising more than 2,000 scarce composition figures from the O.M. Hausser (Elastolin, Pfeiffer) and Lineol companies. A scarce Hausser eight-wheeled armored car with electric lights, Panzer driver and even its original Morse Code unit stowed in the rear compartment found favor with collectors, who bid it to $6,600.
The Friday session included 150 antique and vintage holiday lots, primarily Christmas and Halloween pieces. A fine 22-inch Santa candy container with composition face and hands, and rabbit-fur beard, came complete with a basket of toys, fir sprig and small American Flag. Estimated at $2,000-$3,000, it realized $5,100.
Every classification in the sale had its own knowledgeable following. Doll aficionados competed vigorously for a circle dot Bru bebe with bisque socket head, blue paperweight eyes and original kid body. Dressed in a blue-gray satin dress with matching hat, the blond beauty reached the midpoint of its estimate range at $10,200.
Other highlights included a Buddy ‘L’ pressed steel Huckster wagon, the largest and rarest of the company’s flivver series, $16,800; and an extremely rare 1934 Quaker cereal advertisement featuring baseball legend Babe Ruth, $4,200.
Morphy’s has a full slate of auctions planned for the fall and winter months. To contact Morphy’s, call 717-335-3435 or e-mail serena@morphyauctions.com.
View the fully illustrated online catalog for the Sept. 13-15 auction, complete with prices realized, at www.LiveAuctioneers.com.
Le Corbusier (Charles Edouard Jeanneret, French 1887-1965). Image courtesy Rago Arts and Auction Center.
LAMBERTVILLE, N.J. – Rago Arts and Auction Center will host an open house on Thursday, Oct. 25, featuring a talk by George H. Marcus, adjunct assistant professor of the history of art at the University of Pennsylvania.
“What is Modern about Modern Design,” discusses how the work of the great architect/designer Le Corbusier and his interpretation of modern design continues to have an impact today.
Marcus is co-author of the pioneering design survey Landmarks of Twentieth Century Design (Abbeville, 1993) and of a forthcoming monographic study, The Houses of Louis Kahn (Yale). His other publications include Masters of Modern Design (Monacelli, 2005), What is Design Today? (Abrams, 2002), and LeCorbusier: Inside the Machine for Living (Monacelli, 2001). For over 30 years he served as director of publications and graphic design at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.
The talk takes place during preview week for Rago’s 20th/21st Century Design auctions, to be held on Oct. 26-28.
The auction house opens on Thursday, Oct. 25, at noon. A reception begins at 5 p.m. Marcus will speak at 6 p.m.
RSVP to 609-397-9374 ext. 119 or raac@ragoarts.com. All are welcome.
ADDITIONAL IMAGES OF NOTE
Le Corbusier, Untitled, 1930-59, lithograph, framed. Sold in Rago’s October 2005 auction, lot 614. Sale price: $3,120. Image courtesy Rago Arts and Auction Center.Le Corbusier for Cassina. Chrome, black steel and hide adjustable chaise lounge (no. LC4). Sold in Rago’s Modern Auction, April 2010, lot 1011. Sale price: $2,318. Image courtesy Rago Arts and Auction Center.
Inside Out mural by JR in New York. Photo by Kelsey Savage.
NEW YORK – Someone’s watching you in Williamsburg, thanks to a mural installation by photographer and street artist JR, whose black and white photographs have graced buildings around the world.
The prize-winning artist put up the mural at Berry Street and South Fifth in early August. The eye, staring out at the Williamsburg Bridge, is a tribute to the Native American Lakota tribe and part of JR’s Inside Out Project. The artist has contributed to the tribe’s group action to bring their story to Manhattan, which was once a sacred ground for American Indians. The worldwide project seeks to share the untold stories and images of people around the world.
JR’s work won the TED prize last year for his efforts that have drawn attention to slums in countries such as Cambodia and Haiti and Hong Kong.
This wheatpasting artist required a cherry picker to put into place the segments of the large prints, matching up the seams for the perfect eyeball. His paintings, sold for large amounts of money at respected auctions such as Sotheby’s, allow him to continue his “photograffeur” street work.
ADDITIONAL IMAGES OF NOTE
Inside Out mural by JR in New York. Photo by Kelsey Savage.The artist used a cherry picker to apply the mural to a building in New York. Photo by Kelsey Savage.
Bonnie Parker’s Colt .38 snub-nose Detective Special .38 revolver sold for $264,000. Image courtesy of RR Auction. NASHUA, N.H. (AFP) – The handguns worn by 1930s outlaw lovers Bonnie and Clyde when they died in a hail of bullets in a Louisiana ambush have been sold at auction for more than $500,000. LiveAuctioneers.com provided the Internet live bidding for the sale.
In a statement Monday, RR Auctions said Bonnie Parker’s Colt .38 snub-nose Detective Special revolver went for $264,000 while Clyde Barrow’s Colt Model 1911 Government Model semi-automatic .45 pistol sold for $240,000.
The buyer of both guns was a Texas collector who asked to remain anonymous.
The guns were among 130-plus lots from the estate of deceased Texas author and collector Robert Davis that went under the hammer Sunday in Nashua, New Hampshire.
Bonnie, 23, and Clyde, 25, crisscrossed the central United States in the early years of the Great Depression, becoming pop culture icons as they pulled off a string of daring hold-ups and cut down several law enforcers.
The two handguns sold Sunday were unique for having been taken literally from their dead bodies after the May 1934 ambush in Bienville Parish, Louisiana, the auctioneers said.
Parker had used medical tape to strap her “squat gun” to her thigh; Barrow tucked his under his waistband.
Also sold Sunday were five items from Bonnie and Clyde’s bullet-riddled car: a woman’s silk stocking, an unused bullet, a side temple from a pair of eyeglasses; a small screwdriver and an empty tin of aspirin. As a single lot, they sold for $11,400.
View the fully illustrated auction catalog, complete with prices realized, at www.LiveAuctioneers.com.
