June 26, 2013 - Auction Central News

Bonanza of an auction: TV star Lorne Greene’s items for sale

Cropped screenshot of Lorne Greene from the television series Bonanza. Episode: 'Showdown' (1960).

RENO, Nev.—Several pieces of memorabilia from the long-running hit TV series Bonanza are going up for auction in Nevada, including the branding iron used in the iconic Western’s opening credits.

The family of Canadian star Lorne Greene is selling a number of the deceased actor’s personal items and much of his memorabilia from the show at an auction Saturday in Reno. The sale was arranged by Greene’s son, Chuck, who lives at Lake Tahoe.

The Ottawa-born actor died in 1987 at age 72. From 1959 to 1973, he played Ben Cartwright, the patriarch of the Bonanza family, whose sprawling, 1,000-square-mile Ponderosa Ranch was set in the high Sierra between Tahoe and Virginia City.

Jeff Pilliod, who owns the auction house handling the sale, said he got excited as soon as he heard from Chuck Greene’s personal assistant that the actor’s son had decided he had too “much stuff.”

“When you have a name to match with the auction, it adds a lot more . . . to it,” said Pilliod, owner and auctioneer of Anchor Auctions and Appraisals.

“And Bonanza was very, very popular,” he told the Reno Gazette-Journal.

Chuck Greene’s assistant, Sky Richarde, said they picked Pilliod as the auctioneer partly because of the local ties. Chuck Greene lives near the site of a replica ranch that operated as a tourist stop at Incline Village from 1967 to 2004.

Chuck Greene “still has a lot of his father’s stuff,” Richarde said. “He needed to not have so much stuff and he wants the public to have access to these things that were his father’s.”

The family earlier donated some of Lorne Greene’s documents to the University of Southern California for research purposes, she said.

One of the auction’s highlights is the branding iron that appeared during each episode’s opening credits, burning up the Old West-style map of the ranch and surrounding frontier.

Also up for sale are awards, photos of Lorne Greene at the Reno Rodeo and large personalized belt buckles, including one he received in 1962 from the owners of the Bucket of Blood Saloon in Virginia City with an inset of an 1884 Liberty silver dollar.

Lorne Greene also starred in the science fiction series Battlestar Galactica but is best known for his role in Bonanza. His TV sons were played by Dan Blocker (Hoss), Pernell Roberts (Adam) and Michael Landon (Little Joe) during the first run of the popular series seen by an estimated 400 million people in 80 countries.

The show, which was filmed mostly in Los Angeles and partly around Lake Tahoe, helped put Nevada on the map worldwide, said Guy Rocha, retired Nevada state archivist and historian.

“People throughout the world saw this area depicted on TV and thought of Bonanza and the Cartwright family,” Rocha said. “There were generations raised on the show.”

Pilliod said he has reached out to fan clubs of both Bonanza and Battlestar Galactica, as well as museums he believes might have interest in displaying some items. He said he has even sought out fans in Europe and Asia, where Bonanza remains popular today because of the allure of the Old West there.

“We hope for a busy weekend,” Pilliod said. “We have already had quite a bit of interest, so we’re looking forward to it.”

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Asian soapstone carving sells for record $2.3M at Michaan’s

An exceedingly rare and important soapstone figural carving,18th century, dated by inscription to 1750. Sold for $2,235,000. Record price for soapstone carving sold in a US Auction house. Michaan's image.

ALAMEDA, Calif. – Michaan’s Fine Asian Works of Art Auction held on Sunday, June 23, 2013 realized over $4,670,000, making it the San Francisco Bay Area company’s highest grossing event ever. LiveAuctioneers.com provided the Internet live bidding services for the sale.

Half of the day’s gross was attributable to another phenomenon: lot 3080. An exceedingly rare and important soapstone figural carving centering Qing dynasty imperial porcelain kiln supervisor Tang Ying was far and away the star of the auction.

Expectations ran high for the work of art, with a presale estimate of $100,000-150,000. As bidding commenced for the piece, people rose from their seats amongst a standing room floor audience of well over 100 attendees, while all phone banks were busy with calls. Two online bidding stations managed the activity as calls poured in from around the world. Heavy floor and phone bids pushed the selling price to $2 million, closing with a victorious phone bid and a round of applause. The carving broke auction records as it captured a final price of $2,360,000, making it the highest-selling Asian soapstone carving ever auctioned in the United States, as well as Michaan’s highest-single selling lot to date.

Asian Art Specialist Harry Huang remarked that the sale “…greatly exceeded my expectations. I believe that this work of Tang Ying will continue to be a powerful force in the world marketplace. I also think that this auction speaks volumes on the explosive state of the current Asian antiquities marketplace; what appears to be its very bright future is a thrilling prospect for Michaan’s Auctions.”

Categorically, fine jade carvings dazzled at auction, with a substantial list of successes. Two jade double-gourd-form pendants performed amazingly well, as they sold for over 53 times their high estimate (lot 3027, $1,500-2,000). The pendants closed at $106,200, garnering expressions of elation and awe. The pair of pendants topped a lengthy list of 15 additional carved jade lots to sell from over 5 times to over 33 times projected high values.

Additional honorable mentions from the astounding jade sales included two phoenix plaques at $64,900 (lot 3014, $2,000-3,000) and two figures of pigs at $50,150 (lot 3074, $1,000-1,500). Three jade lots also managed to realize a price of $44,250 each, greatly exceeding their estimates. The shared figure was seen in groupings of two rectangular white jade pendants (lot 3008, $2,000-3,000), four animal carvings (lot 3020, $1,500-2,000) and three white jade bird carvings (lot 3033, $4,000-6,000).

Chinese paintings were another section of the auction to hold top performers. A new international record was established by a hanging scroll titled “Mountainous Dwellings” by Li Yin (lot 3217, $25,000-35,000). The piece realized $112,100, the highest figure ever achieved at auction by a Li Yin work. Rounding out the impressive lots in the category was a collection of fan paintings and calligraphy by various artists that sold for $76,700 (lot 3218, $30,000-50,000), a hand scroll after Li Tang depicting figures on horseback for $56,050 (lot 3206, $3,000-5,000) and an anonymous album of three paintings realizing a price of $50,150 (lot 3209, $2,000-3,000).

A 14th century album of 12 paintings attributed to Wang Yuan (lot 3210, $6,000-8,000) and a landscape hand scroll in the style of Wen Boren (lot 3212, $4,000-6,000) each brought $47,200. In addition to the substantial figures that these painting selections brought, the section proved to be a formidable platform in obtaining solid numbers for lesser-known artists. Examples are found in an ink and color on paper hand scroll after Xu Longjiu (lot 3208, $5,000-7,000, sold for $10,620) and Zhong Hui’s album of 10 paintings sold as lot 3225 ($1,200-1,800, sold for $5,900).

Handsome figures were also seen across other Asian art disciplines. A Tibetan cloisonné enamel ewer and cover from the Qianlong period surpassed its $20,000-30,000 estimate at $53,100 (lot 3150). Multiple ceramic offerings saw fruitful numbers, as evidenced in a pair of famille rose porcelain plaques (lot 3310, $5,000-7,000, sold for $32,450), a famille rose vase of the Guanxu mark and period that sold for over 13 times its high estimate (lot 3292, $1,500-2,000, sold for $26,550), yet another famille rose offering in a pair of 19th century vases (lot 3294, $3,000-5,000, sold for $26,550) and a pair of enameled-porcelain plaques signed “Zou Guojun” (lot 3311, $4,000-6,000, sold for $26,550). A pair of hardwood armchairs with marble insets was another lot to realize $26,550. It sold for over eight times the projected high value (lot 3178, $2,000-3,000).

Numerous private collection offerings in the auction produced excellent sell-through numbers, as did the entire sale, which had a more-than-84% sell-through. A largely jade-based, private San Francisco collection saw a 100% sell-through of its 44 lots, as did a prominent collection once owned by Senator Theodore Francis Green. A collection of Chinese silk fan paintings from the Reynold Tom Collection sold out as well, as did the entire painting collection of Mr. and Mrs. Edward W. Tom.

Michaan’s Auctions Vice President and Chief Operating Officer Scott Bradley acknowledged the impact and scope of the sale. “This Asian auction has established itself as the largest and most significant event in our company’s history thus far. The sale of the Tang Ying carving was the largest single sale I have presided over in my career. It has been a thrilling and exciting time to say the least.”

View the fully illustrated catalog, complete with prices realized, online at www.LiveAuctioneers.com.

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ADDITIONAL LOTS OF NOTE

Li Yin (Early Qing Dynasty),Mountainous Dwellings.Sold for $112,100. World record price the artist. Michaan's image. — Li Yin (Early Qing Dynasty),Mountainous Dwellings.Sold for $112,100. World record price the artist. Michaan’s image.

Two jade double-gourd-form pendants. Sold for $106,200. Michaan's image. — Two jade double-gourd-form pendants. Sold for $106,200. Michaan’s image.

Two jade figures of pigs, Han Dynasty.Sold for $50,150. Michaan's image. — Two jade figures of pigs, Han Dynasty.Sold for $50,150. Michaan’s image.

After Li Tang (1066-1150), Figures on Horseback, Qing Dynasty. Sold for $56,050. Michaan's image. — After Li Tang (1066-1150), Figures on Horseback, Qing Dynasty. Sold for $56,050. Michaan’s image.

Tibetan cloisonne enamel ewer and cover, Qianlong mark and mark of the period.Sold for $53,100. Michaan's image. — Tibetan cloisonne enamel ewer and cover, Qianlong mark and mark of the period.Sold for $53,100. Michaan’s image.

Pair of hardwood armchairs with marble insets. Sold for $26,550. Michaan's image. — Pair of hardwood armchairs with marble insets. Sold for $26,550. Michaan’s image.

Gettysburg exhibit tells of York’s surrender, occupation

L. Prang & Co. print of the 1887 painting 'Hancock at Gettysburg' by Thure de Thulstrup, showing Pickett's Charge in the Battle of Gettysburg. Restoration by Adam Cuerden of scan from original in US Library of Congress.

YORK, Pa. — The eyes of the world are on Gettysburg, for the next two weeks.

Rightfully so, many say, given that the fight there 150 years ago was a turning point in the Civil War.

But before the Confederates reached Gettysburg, many came through York, leaving an impact that is still felt today.

The Fiery Trial: York County’s Civil War Experience, opening to the public at the York County Heritage Trust on June 29, focuses on life in York leading up to and during the Civil War, including the two days the Confederates occupied the town.

Victoria Allen, assistant librarian at the trust, said each piece in the exhibit has importance.

From the two John Brown pikes, which belong to the trust, to the telegraph equipment loaned to the trust by the Morse Telegraph Club, Inc., on display in a special interactive portion of the exhibit, The Fiery Trial is designed to allow visitors to connect with the past.

“To me, to hold that (pike) and think that John Brown held it, is amazing,” said Daniel Roe, director of education at the trust.

Allen added, “History’s awesome when you can connect to it.”

For her, the discovery of one piece included in the collection brought particular joy.

In the back corner of Gallery IV, the Glatfelter Gallery — one of two spaces that house the exhibit — on a shelf not much bigger than a shoebox, behind a pane of plastic glass, museum visitors will find a letter about the size of a postcard. The half sheet of lined, white paper dated June 27, 1863, is proof of a unanimous vote of York City’s Committee of Safety to authorize they “surrender the town, peacefully” to the Confederates.

The letter acknowledges the Committee of Safety, charged with making decisions that would keep the citizens safe during conflict, believed York to be “defenseless,” Allen said.

Before she found the letter, Allen said she sometimes joked with her colleagues at the trust that A.B. Farquhar, the businessman who first made contact with the invading Confederates, rode his horse out to greet them and surrender the town. There are many people who think the surrender was a cowardly act.

“This has been a controversy for 150 years,” Allen said about whether York should have surrendered.

But the letter has given her something to think on.

In June 1863, “there were no troops here,” Allen said. The local militias were comprised of men “too old or too young” to defend the town.

“There was no choice,” Allen said. “They weighed their options and knew they had nothing on their side.”

The document doesn’t answer all the questions about the surrender.

But it might start a conversation among visitors to the museum.

Cindy Brown, collections manager, pointed out several pieces of clothing that will be included in the exhibit.

“Life didn’t stop during the Civil War,” she said, pointing out a formal rich, gold ball gown. “The South had cotillions and the North had a social life.”

The Fiery Trial offers a broad look at life for York’s residents in 1863, she said, as she encouraged people to come out and see it.

“It’s a little smaller here and a little quieter” than what’s happening in Gettysburg for the 150th, Brown said. “But we have quite a story to tell.”

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Anne Frank museum must return archives after bitter spat

The Anne Frank House alongside the Prinsengracht in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Photo by Massimo Catarinella, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.

THE HAGUE (AFP) – An Amsterdam court on Wednesday ordered the city’s Anne Frank museum to return archives on loan from a Swiss foundation set up by the father of the Jewish teenager, after an acrimonious legal spat.

The court said that Amsterdam’s Anne Frank House had until the end of the year to return the extensive family archives, including letters and photos, on loan from the Anne Frank Fonds Basel.

The court also ordered the Anne Frank House to pay the legal costs of the foundation, which was set up by Otto Frank in 1963.

The Anne Frank House said in a statement that it “finds it regrettable that the archives cannot remain in the Anne Frank House.”

The museum said it did not dispute who owned the archives, but had not been able to return the documents immediately because they were on long-term loan.

“The Anne Frank House finds it deeply regrettable that the two organizations stood in opposition to each other in court,” Anne Frank House director Ronald Leopold said.

“We hope that with this court ruling we can now put this period behind us, and that the partnership… can be resumed in close consultation and dialogue, in the interests of the legacy and the spirit of Anne Frank,” Leopold said.

Anne Frank’s diary is a moving account of her two years in hiding from the Nazis with her family in a secret annexe that is today a popular museum in central Amsterdam.

She died in 1945 aged 15 at the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in Germany.

The case did not involve the actual Anne Frank diaries, which belong to the Dutch state and have been given to the Anne Frank House on permanent loan.

“We didn’t expect anything else. The situation is clear, the ownership was clear, the international law is clear,” Yves Kugelmann, a member of the board of the Anne Frank Fonds Basel, told AFP.

“It was strange to have to go to court, it was so clear that it was a loan and nothing else.”

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Texas teen impaled on horn of bull statue

Sculptures of cattle outisde the National Ranching Heritage Center, Texas Tech University, Lubbock, Texas. Photo by Billy Hathorn, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license.

LUBBOCK, Texas (AP) – A 14-year-old West Texas boy is dead after he ran into a bull statue on the Texas Tech University campus and impaled himself on one of its horns.

University spokesman Chris Cook says Miguel Martinez impaled himself while playing hide-and-seek with friends in the pre-dawn hours of Saturday morning.

Campus police say Martinez was at the museum with two adults and two minors when police were called to the scene. Police say Martinez was running on the National Ranching Heritage Museum on the Texas Tech campus when the horn pierced his chest.

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Granddaughter puts Picasso muse nudes on show

Poster announcing the exhibition 'Picasso, Nudity Set Free' at Le Centre d'Art la Malmaison. Image courtesy of the museum.

CANNES, France — As a child, Pablo Picasso’s granddaughter Marina often found herself shut out of his sumptuous Cannes villa “La Californie”. Four decades after his death, the gates of the house she inherited, along with thousands of his art works, are always promptly opened to visitors.

“Living in this house, unconsciously perhaps it’s a way of recapturing lost time in a place where we were once excluded,” says Marina, who for many years struggled to accept “an inheritance given without love.”

To mark the 40th anniversary of Picasso’s death this year, Marina has opened up her private collection to help stage an exhibition exploring the recurrence of nudes in the great Spanish artist’s work.

“Picasso, Nudity Set Free” features 120 works. Around 90 come from Marina’s collection, some of which have never before been on public display.

But Marina, who was in her early twenties when her famous grandfather died, is matter-of-fact about the loan.

“This comes from my inheritance, I don’t make anything special of it,” she tells AFP with an air of detachment.

Marina and her elder brother Pablito’s childhood was punctuated by rare and unhappy visits to see their grandfather, who spent most of his life in France.

These often featured “long waits behind the gate” while “the master” woke up, she says. Picasso’s second wife “Jacqueline used to order that we wait; she rejected anything that disturbed him,” Marina recalls.

Born in 1950, Marina is the daughter of Paulo Picasso, son of Picasso, and his first wife, Russian ballerina Olga Khokhlova.

Marina grew up in poverty despite her illustrious lineage and Paulo, an alcoholic, died in his fifties two years after the artist. “He was always a bit the toy of his father. He was never able to grow up,” she says.

As an adult, Marina underwent years of therapy and poured her painful childhood memories into her 2001 memoir “Picasso: My Grandfather.”

“At the beginning, I couldn’t bear to see his paintings. It took me a lot of time to make the distinction between the artist and the grandfather,” she says.

“He was not a real grandfather, or a benevolent father (to Paulo)…”

The legacy of childhood rejection took a terrible toll on Pablito. Following Picasso’s death at the age of 91 in April 1973, he swallowed bleach after Jacqueline refused him permission to see his grandfather. He died three months later.

According to Marina, “my brother wanted to embrace him for one last time and Jacqueline threw him out.”

“He went home and killed himself by drinking bleach.”

But if Picasso’s grandchildren suffered as a result of their relationship with him, the fate of his muses — bronze busts of whom dot the villa — was equally tragic.

Marie-Therese Walter hanged herself. Jacqueline Picasso shot herself. Dora Maar suffered depression and became something of a recluse. Marina’s grandmother Olga died in Cannes in 1955 unvisited by her estranged husband.

“He loved women and used them in order to be creative,” she says flatly.

Four decades on, Marina has tried to overcome the bitter legacy of the past.

The Cannes house, long since renamed Pavillon de Flore, has been restored and is now filled with paintings, sculptures and ceramics by Picasso, and other artists.

Funding projects such as an orphanage in Vietnam has also helped the mother-of-five feel she has put her inheritance to good use and she now plans to turn her attention to philanthropic work in France.

With children, she says, it is what happens at the start of their lives that is the most important.

“The more that one can help (when they are) young, the better they will live later,” she adds.

“Picasso, Nudity Set Free” runs until October 27 at the Centre d’art La Malmaison at Cannes.

Visit the museum online at http://www.cannes.com/fr/culture/centre-d-art-la-malmaison.html.

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New US exhibit to show Magritte’s surreal turn

Rene Magritte (Belgian, 1898-1967), 'La Trahison des Images' (The Treachery of Images), 1928-9. Low-resolution image originally from Univ. of Alabama site 'Approaches to Modernism.' The artwork is now owned by Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Image restored and enhanced by Shimon D. Yanowitz, 2009, for Wikipedia. Fair use of low-resolution image of possibly copyrighted artwork to illustrate an educational article about Magritte's move into surrealism.

NEW YORK (AFP) – A new exhibition focused on Belgian painter Rene Magritte’s embrace of surrealism will visit museums in Chicago, Houston and the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York, organizers said Tuesday.

“Magritte: The Mystery of the Ordinary, 1926-1938” groups some 80 paintings, collages, photographs and objects, and will be at the MoMA from September 28 through January 12 before moving on to the Menil Collection in Houston and the Art Institute of Chicago.

“This will be the first show in a museum devoted to the work of Magritte to be held in New York City in over 20 years, a generation,” Anne Umland, the organizer of the MoMA exhibition, told reporters.

After starting out as an impressionist and trying his hand at cubism, Magritte (1898-1967) started edging closer to surrealism in 1926 while still living in Brussels.

The following year he moved to Paris and from then on committed completely to the surreal style of painting, creating fantastical landscapes and portraits incorporating bowler hats, apples and pipes.

Josef Helfenstein, director of the Menil Collection, noted that while “Magritte stayed for less than three years in Paris, … it was the most productive period in his life. He produced over 200 paintings.”

The exhibit includes some of his best-known works, such as “La trahison des images (The Treachery of Images), “Les amants,” (The Lovers) “Le faux miroir” (The False Mirror) and “L’assasin menacé,” (The Menaced Assassin) giving an appreciation of “Magritte’s unique genius,” Umland said.

“Many of the key strategies that we will see Magritte developing — framing, doubling, repetition for defamiliarizing the familiar and for making the ordinary and the everyday deeply strange.”

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Virginia Beach man selling historic plane collection

VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. (AP) – A Virginia Beach man is selling his historic plane collection and may close a museum that houses them.

Gerald Yagen owns the Military Aviation Museum near Pungo. He told The Virginian-Pilot Monday he no longer has the money to keep his collection of World War I and II-era planes that is billed as one of the world’s largest.

He says only nine groups visited the museum last week.

“I’m subsidizing it heavily every year and my business no longer allows me to do that financially, and therefore I don’t have a solution for it,” he said.

So far, he said he’s sold two planes: a Boeing B-17, a heavy American bomber, and a Focke-Wulf 190, a single seat German plane. Both were used during World War II.

Yagen said he doesn’t know how many planes he owns. Some in Virginia Beach have never been exhibited. He said he has other around the world that won’t make it to Virginia Beach.

The Aviation Institute of Maintenance in Chesapeake and three other vocational trade schools Yagen owns have been acquired, he said.

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Information from: The Virginian-Pilot, http://pilotonline.com

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