George Rodrigue painting, $98,400, New Orleans Auction Galleries
A large oil on canvas painting by George Rodrigue, featuring his classic “Blue Dog” and titled My Yellow Oak, sold for $98,400 at a Southern Experience Auction held Feb. 23-24 by New Orleans Auction Galleries. Also, an oil on canvas by Marie Madeleine Seebold Molinary, titled Chrysanthemums, went for $61,500, a world auction record for the artist; two 19th century automaton music boxes realized $36,900; and a provincial Louis XV-style fruitwood settee hammered for $11,992. Prices include a 23 percent buyer’s premium.
Bettie Page negatives (19). Guernsey’s image. NEW YORK – Guernsey’s has announced that an incredible collection of Bettie Page memorabilia will be sold at auction as part of the Movie Star News Collection sale. Bettie Page is considered by many to be the first pin-up model. The Movie Star News collection, which is believed to be the largest and most comprehensive collection of Hollywood photography, will be sold in a series of auctions on April 6 and 7 at the Arader Galleries. LiveAuctioneers.com will provide Internet live bidding.
The Movie Star News collection began in 1939 when photographer Irving Klaw struck a deal with the movie studios, then operating in New York City, to collect movie photography that was in great demand by Hollywood fans. Klaw eventually began to represent the Hollywood studios and received the original negatives from which prints were made for the media and adoring fans. This is the first time in 75 years that this archive has been open to the public. Since 1980, and until recently, the collection was housed at West 18th Street and had become a treasured New York City site.
Irving Klaw is credited for creating the world of pin-up photography. He discovered and extensively photographed Bettie Page, who came to be known as the “Queen of Pinups.” The Bettie Page Collection includes over 5,000 negatives, photographs, articles of clothing and other props, that will complement the Movie Star News collection of approximately 3 million photographs, in addition to hundreds of thousands of negatives, chronicling the history of Hollywood through its most famous stars and films.
In addition to the Bettie Page material, the collection has been divided into different categories, such as by film genre and actor, for the purposes of the auctions. Fans from around the world will have the chance to own photography of legends including Marilyn Monroe, James Dean, Judy Garland, Audrey Hepburn and Charlie Chaplin, as well as from classic films such as King Kong, Citizen Kane, Gone With the Wind, Frankenstein and The Wizard of Oz.
The Marilyn Monroe file alone contains over 600 photographs, many of which are one-of-a-kind images.
Additional highlights from the auction include:
– Hundreds of thousands of photography negatives;
– Original Movie Star News sign;
– Irving Klaw’s Speed Graphic camera;
– Props and clothing including original Bettie Page high heels and vintage tambourine.
For additional information, interested collectors and fans should contact Guernsey’s in New York City 914-882-7356.
Chinese scroll painting, Zhao Shao’ang (1905-1988), ink and color on paper, height 72 inches x width 32 inches. Price realized: $86,500. Leslie Hindman Auctioneers image. CHICAGO – Leslie Hindman Auctioneers’ Asian Works of Art auction brought spirited energy and a packed salesroom to its Chicago gallery March 24-26. The three-day sale grossed over $2.99 million, offering Chinese, South Asian and Japanese paintings and works of art to buyers around the world.
LiveAuctioneers.com provided Internet live bidding, which had a significant impact on the sale. Of the 1,359 lots offered, 500 were purchased online, nearly 37 percent. Bidders participating via LiveAuctioneers’ live-bidding console numbered 1,336. In addition, 1,599 absentee bids were placed through LiveAuctioneers.com. The online catalog buzzed with activity. LiveAuctioneers.com recorded more than 169,000 page views during the auction; 76,771 on the first day of the sale.
“The Chinese session of the sale was well-rounded and caught the attention of a myriad of buyers, both old and new, achieving strong prices in every medium. Jade performed especially well; however, we were also pleased with prices realized in paintings, bronze, furniture, textiles, porcelain and other mediums of art,” said Phyllis Kao, director of Asian Works of Art at Leslie Hindman Auctioneers.
The highly anticipated painting by Chinese artist Zhao Shao’ang, brought $86,500. The consignor, David D. Buck, Professor Emeritus of History at the University of Wisconsin, originally purchased the painting at the artist’s studio in 1967.
Other highlights of the sale included the cover lot, a pair of carved white jade quail boxes bearing imperial Qianlong seals. The pair sold for $92,500 to an overseas bidder on the telephone. A jade and wood hat stand carved with scrolling clouds surprised the audience early in the sale when it brought $116,500. The hat stand was from the estate of Frank Buttram of Oklahoma City and was one of several Chinese works from the estate that sparked interest in the sale.
Perhaps the most exciting lot sold during the three-day auction, was a carved jade lotus-form bowl, which generated strong bidding activity on the phone, the Internet and in the room, ultimately selling to a bidder in the room for $230,500.
The Japanese session ended the three-day auction with noteworthy activity and demonstrated that the Japanese art market continues to strengthen. A shibayama and silver decorated koro brought $10,625 and a Meiji period cloisonné covered vase by Kawade Shibataro brought $23,750.
Leslie Hindman Associates’ next Asian Works of Art auction is scheduled for Sept. 16-17. Consignments for this auction are welcomed through July 22.
Chinese scroll painting, Zhao Shao’ang (1905-1988), ink and color on paper, height 72 inches x width 32 inches. Price realized: $86,500. Leslie Hindman Auctioneers image.
Chinese carved jade and wood hat stand, height overall 11 1/4 inches. Price realized: $116,500. Leslie Hindman Auctioneers image.
Pair of white jade quail-form boxes, Qing Dynasty, length 3 7/8 inches. Price realized: $92,500. Leslie Hindman Auctioneers image.
Drawings from an 1894 anthropology book of katsina figures, or spirits, made by the native Pueblo people of the Southwestern United States.
WASHINGTON (AFP) – Two museums in Arizona have joined an effort by Hopi cultural officials to halt the sale of sacred Hopi kachina artifacts at a Paris auction house next week.
In messages on social media, the Heard Museum and the Museum of Northern Arizona said the scheduled April 12 sale by Neret-Minet Tessier and Sarrou has triggered outrage within the indigenous Hopi community.
On its website, the French auctioneers say it will be putting 70 kachina visages — mask-like representations of spirit characters used in Hopi ceremonies — on the block.
One of them is valued as high as 50,000 euros (more than $64,000).
Robert Bruenig, director of the Museum of Northern Arizona, appealed for the objects’ return to Arizona, in an open letter to the auctioneers posted on the Flagstaff institution’s Facebook page.
“The proposed sale of these katsina friends, and the international exposure of them, is causing outrage, sadness and stress among members of the affected tribes,” he said, using an alternative spelling for kachina.
“For them, katsina friends are living beings. … To be displayed disembodied in your catalog, and on the Internet, is sacrilegious and offensive,” he said.
The Heard Museum in Phoenix, in a statement it posted on Facebook, said the “sale of items of significant religious and cultural importance to the Hopi tribe” was a matter of “extreme concern” for its American Indian staff.
Last month the director of the Hopi Cultural Preservation Office, Leigh Kuwanwisiwma, urged Neret-Minet to cancel the auction and “begin respectful discussions to return them back to the tribe.”
Kachina spirit figures are fundamental to the faith and heritage of the more than 18,000 members of the federally recognized Hopi tribe who mainly live in northeastern Arizona.
The Arizona Republic newspaper said it was unclear when or how the items were acquired, but it noted that in past US cases, some artifacts have been secretly sold to collectors by tribe members for a profit.
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Drawings from an 1894 anthropology book of katsina figures, or spirits, made by the native Pueblo people of the Southwestern United States.
The North American XB-70A Valkyrie on display at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 License.
DAYTON, Ohio (AP) – The national Air Force museum in southwest Ohio will close some galleries starting next month due to federal budget cuts.
The director of the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force near Dayton says the presidential and research and development galleries will be closed until further notice beginning May 1.
Museum Director Jack Hudson says popular exhibits in the affected galleries include President John F. Kennedy’s Air Force One and the XB-70 Valkyrie. He says museum officials hope to reopen those galleries as soon as possible.
The mandated budget cuts also will end weekly tours of the museum’s restoration area after April 26 and cancel some lectures and all of the summer aerospace camps.
The museum also has canceled all staff training and travel and is deferring non-emergency maintenance work.
Copyright 2013 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast rewritten or redistributed.
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The North American XB-70A Valkyrie on display at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 License.
The Corn Palace in Mitchell, S.D., in 1907. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.
PIERRE, S.D. (AP) – A recent scanning of glass plate negatives is helped preserve nearly 600 South Dakota images from the late 1890s to 1910s.
The grant from the City of Deadwood and the Deadwood Historic Preservation Commission helped the South Dakota State Historical Society digitize and catalog the glass plate negatives from the Lester Black Collection.
The images can be viewed at the Cultural Heritage Center in Pierre.
Locations within the collection include Redfield College, Mount Rushmore, Devils Tower, the Corn Palace, Sylvan Lake and the South Dakota State Fair.
Town images include Redfield, Gettysburg, Mitchell, Elk Point, Huron, Waubay, Hot Springs, and Pierre.
Other topics include sod homes, Native American encampments, floods, railroad scenes, stone artifacts, farm scenes, automobiles, a balloon flight, baseball games and family portraits.
Copyright 2013 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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The Corn Palace in Mitchell, S.D., in 1907. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.
An art gallery in Damascus, Syria before the war. Image by High Contrast. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Germany license.
DAMASCUS, Syria (AP) – A Jewish synagogue in Damascus believed to be thousands of years old has been damaged and looted as clashes have consumed the surrounding neighborhood, a Syrian official and an anti-government activist said Monday.
Damage to the Jobar Synagogue, which tradition holds was built by the biblical prophet Elisha, is the latest example of Syria’s rich cultural heritage falling victim to the civil war between President Bashar Assad’s regime and rebels seeking his ouster.
Syria is home to thousands of years of civilizations at the crossroads of the Levant and boasts important cultural sites dating back to the Bible, the ancient Roman empire, the Crusaders and the arrival of Islam.
Before the Syrian conflict started two years ago, these sites attracted international tourists. Many have since been damaged as the conflict evolved into a civil war. Combatants have garrisoned in historic castles, turning them into targets. And street battles raged last month near Aleppo’s landmark 12th century Umayyad Mosque in the walled Old City, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
The mosque itself was heavily damaged last year, soon after a fire gutted the city’s famed medieval market.
The Jobar Synagogue, in the neighborhood of the same name in northeastern Damascus, is a relic of the area’s once sizeable Jewish population. Tradition holds that the biblical prophet Elisha built the first structure on the site over a grotto in which his teacher, the prophet Elijah, had sought refuge.
“It was a very prestigious synagogue to hold a pulpit in and there were great rabbinic scholars who held court there over the centuries,” said author Joseph Braude, who has written about Jewish history in the Arab world. “Long after Damascus ceased to be central to Jewish learning, the synagogue continued to be an important pilgrimage site and a place of worship for Jews living in Damascus.”
The synagogue fell out of use after the foundation of Israel in 1948 and the departure of most of Syria’s Jews during the next few decades. Before Syria’s conflict began, it was opened only occasionally for tourists and pilgrims.
On Monday, people from both sides of the conflict said they were sad to see the site harmed.
“It’s the heritage of the homeland regardless of religion, whether it’s Jewish, Muslim or Christian,” Maamoun Abdul-Karim, head of the Antiquities and Museums Department of the Syrian Culture Ministry, told The Associated Press. “It’s the Syrian mosaic and the heritage of the people.”
Abdul-Karim said some of the objects from the synagogue had been stolen last year, but that officials hadn’t been able to visit the building in about four months because rebels control the area.
After establishing footholds in a number of Damascus suburbs last year, rebel fighters sought to push into Damascus through Jobar, where they now clash daily with government troops.
It remains unclear how damaged the site is and how many of its artifacts are missing.
Activist videos posted online last month showed the building’s simple door with rubble in front of it. One wall had a hole in it, and part of a short wall around the roof was missing. It showed two plaques near the door. One, in English, read: “Shrine and Synagogue of Prophet Eliahou Hanabi, Since 720 B.C.”
The other, in Arabic, said it was the tomb of Al-Khodr, held in some Islamic traditions to be a prophet who traveled with Moses.
Another video showed shattered windows, rubble-strewn hallways and a hole in a roof of what appeared to be adjacent buildings. Rubble and oranges knocked from a tree lay in an outdoor courtyard where stones bearing Hebrew writing sat atop a doorway.
It was not clear from a brief image of the main sanctuary if had been damaged.
The videos appeared authentic and corresponded to other reporting by the AP.
An anti-government activist in Jobar reached via Skype on Monday said the synagogue had been looted continuously during recent months and was damaged by government shelling meant to push rebels from the area.
He said he visited the facility in early March and found the main sanctuary undamaged.
“I don’t know exactly what was there originally, but we know there were lots of old books and artifacts that are not there anymore,” said the activist, who goes by the name Abu Hassaan al-Damishqi.
Like many rebels, he spoke on condition that he would be identified only by that nickname, by which he is known among his comrades, fearing that publication of his real name could endanger his family.
He said the site had been looted by government soldiers or thieves taking advantage of a lack of security.
“This is the history of the city, and it doesn’t matter if you are a Muslim or not,” he said. “This is the history of our country, so we all want to protect it.”
Also on Monday, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported shelling and clashes in a number of areas east and south of Damascus.
In the north, eight people, most of them children, were killed in government shelling of the city of Maaret al-Numan, the Observatory said.
And in the city of Aleppo, clashes continued near the Kurdish neighborhood of Skeikh Maqsound, where Kurdish militias clashed with government forces and set up checkpoints.
Civilians continued to flee the area, which was earlier a refugee for civilians trying to get away from fighting elsewhere, the Observatory said.
The U.N. says more than 70,000 people have been killed since Syria’s conflict began in March 2011.
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Hubbard reported from Beirut.
Copyright 2013 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast rewritten or redistributed.
AP-WF-04-01-13 1534GMT
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An art gallery in Damascus, Syria before the war. Image by High Contrast. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Germany license.
