December 20, 2013 - Auction Central News

Lavish array of silver, jewelry & art in Stephenson’s Jan. 1-2 auction

Examples from a collection of Wedgwood to be offered in 60 lots. Stephenson's Auctioneers image.

PHILA., Pa. – Stephenson’s most anticipated auction of the year is their big New Year’s event held at the company’s suburban-Philadelphia gallery in Southampton, Pa. Traditionally, their first auction of the year – which in 2014 will take place on Jan. 1 and 2 – is known not only for its premier estate antiques and art, but also the unexpected treasures set aside throughout the year for inclusion in the New Year’s sale. As always, Internet live bidding will be available through LiveAuctioneers.

Collectors will want to give the succession of nearly 700 auction lots their full attention, as this is a sale whose level of quality is consistent throughout. The Wednesday session of decorative art and “smalls” contains an exceptional collection of 18th, 19th and 20th-century Wedgwood from the estate of Edgar “Ned” Simmons Jr. of Philadelphia. Most of the 50 pieces to be auctioned are Jasper dip, meaning they were created using a technique in which solid white forms are dipped into colored clay to impart particular colors or combinations of colors.

“We sold a portion of the Simmons estate a few years ago. The Jasperware was retained and stored at the Churchville, Pennsylvania home of Mr. Simmons’ parents, who are now deceased,” explained Stephenson’s owner, Cindy Stephenson. “It’s a very nice collection that includes some Jasper tri-color, some beautiful mini medallions and other Wedgwood.” Also from the Simmons estate comes some drabware, creamware and Lalique.

More than 70 lots of choice Indo-Persian silver – all from a single-owner collection – are entered in the opening session. Leading the gleaming array is an elegant 5-piece, .900-silver tea and coffee service decorated in heavy repousse style. Another top lot is a .900-silver centerpiece with liner signed “M. Tariliyan.” The Wednesday session also includes English and Chinese export silver.

If Santa wasn’t as generous as he should have been this Christmas, there will be many opportunities for gift-givers to make amends, starting with a superb 1920s platinum jabot pin resplendent with cabochon emeralds, pink sapphires, oval blue sapphires and 17 mine-cut diamonds. The brooch is expected to realize $4,000-$6,000. A gold pocket watch and many other pieces of fine jewelry, some of them late entries, will cross the auction block, as well.

A Manhattan estate was the source for some of the jewelry, furniture and art in the sale. It also produced a special luxury highlight for the ladies: several coveted Judith Leiber purses (rhinestone, faux-reptile, velvet, etc.), plus an 18in pearl necklace with jeweled clasp and pair of cased reading glasses, also by the revered New York designer.

The Thursday, January 2nd session will present a strong selection of art crossing many genres. There are two Edmund Coates (American, 1816-1871) Hudson River School pastorals that came from a Princeton, New Jersey estate. One of the paintings depicts ice skaters; the other is a landscape of the Lower Hudson River Valley showing farmers cutting wheat in a field.

A Philadelphia man who decided to deaccession some of the paintings in his vast collection selected several prized works for inclusion in Stephenson’s New Year’s Auction, knowing that the sale is a perennial drawcard for art buyers in the tri-state area. Within the grouping of 10 paintings he consigned is an appealing E.I. (Eanger Irving) Couse oil on canvas depicting a Native American with a patterned blanket in earth tones.

“Couse is a significant Taos school artist,” said Stephenson. “He was a founding member and first president of the Taos Society of Artists, and his work is highly sought after.”

A 1992 serigraph by noted pop artist Alex Katz (American, b. 1927-) is titled “Gray Day” is listed in the artist’s online catalogue raisonne. From an edition of 75, the work is appropriately presented in a modern floating frame.

The art section also includes five John Lear paintings, a Paul Gorka oil-on-canvas surrealist landscape, a David True mixed-media abstract, and a Jack Barnett oil on canvas of reclining nudes.

Also awaiting bidders are furniture – including fine inlaid designs from a Manhattan estate – clocks, lamps and a few hand-tied rugs. Of all the furnishings, the pieces that have drawn the most attention during the run-up to the sale have been the paint-decorated chests-of-drawers by Julia Gray Ltd. New York. “Every decorator who has walked into the gallery has gravitated to the pair immediately,” said Stephenson. “They’re from the 1960s or ’70s and have that stylish Hamptons look, with faux-marble tops and fancy paintwork.”

Another highlight from the aforementioned Princeton estate is a Handel floor lamp with reverse-painted shade. Of dome form, the shade is a mustard color with a black band and floral motif.

The auction is rounded out with primitives, stoneware crocks, Canton china, and a collection of World War II daggers and knives in sheaths.

Stephenson’s Wednesday and Thursday, Jan. 1-2, 2014 New Year’s Auction will commence at 10 a.m. Eastern Time at the company’s gallery located at 1005 Industrial Blvd., Southampton (Greater Philadelphia), PA 18966. Inspection is on Monday, Dec. 30 from 3-6 p.m.; Tuesday, Dec. 31 from 1-6 p.m.; and from 9-10 a.m. prior to the auction sessions on Wednesday and Thursday, Jan. 1 and 2.

For additional information on any lot in the sale, call Cindy Stephenson at 215-322-6182 or e-mail info@stephensonsauction.com.

View the fully illustrated online catalog and sign up to bid absentee or live via the Internet at www.liveauctioneers.com.

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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

Alex Katz 1992 screenprint 'Gray Day,' 37/75. Stephenson's Auctioneers image. — Alex Katz 1992 screenprint ‘Gray Day,’ 37/75. Stephenson’s Auctioneers image.

Pair of Julia Gray Ltd. paint-decorated chests-of-drawers. Stephenson's Auctioneers image. — Pair of Julia Gray Ltd. paint-decorated chests-of-drawers. Stephenson’s Auctioneers image.

French platinum, emerald, diamond and sapphire jabot pin. Stephenson's Auctioneers image. — French platinum, emerald, diamond and sapphire jabot pin. Stephenson’s Auctioneers image.

Indo-Persian .900 silver tea and coffee service. Stephenson's Auctioneers image. — Indo-Persian .900 silver tea and coffee service. Stephenson’s Auctioneers image.

One of two Edmund Coates (Hudson River School) oil-on-canvas landscapes to be auctioned. Stephenson's Auctioneers image. — One of two Edmund Coates (Hudson River School) oil-on-canvas landscapes to be auctioned. Stephenson’s Auctioneers image.

Examples from a collection of World War II military daggers and bayonets. Stephenson's Auctioneers image. — Examples from a collection of World War II military daggers and bayonets. Stephenson’s Auctioneers image.

E.I. Couse oil on canvas painting of Native-American with colorful blanket. Stephenson's Auctioneers image. — E.I. Couse oil on canvas painting of Native-American with colorful blanket. Stephenson’s Auctioneers image.

Ornate .900 silver centerpiece with .900 silver liner and accompanying miniature. Stephenson's Auctioneers image. — Ornate .900 silver centerpiece with .900 silver liner and accompanying miniature. Stephenson’s Auctioneers image.

Indian baskets, Southern folk art lead John Coker’s Jan. 4 auction

Two men’s gold Rolex wristwatches (left and right) and an 18K gold Tiffany pocket watch. John W. Coker Auctions image.

NEW MARKET, Tenn. – An old Tennessee estate that includes collections of important antique Indian baskets and Southern folk art serves as the centerpiece of John W. Coker’s Jan. 4, 2014 New Year’s Auction. All forms of bidding will be available, including live via the Internet through LiveAuctioneers.

“As we delved into the contents of this estate, it very quickly became evident to us that the owner had the heart of a collector and the eye of a knowledgeable buyer. This is by no means an average estate,” said auction company owner and principal auctioneer John W. Coker.

More than 125 Cherokee Indian baskets display a pleasing variety of forms and intricate patterns, some incorporating color. They are joined by a selection of beautiful Western Indian baskets whose motifs feature human and deer figures. Still others are woven in sophisticated abstract patterns. A particular highlight is a tightly woven 1880-1900 olla.

“It is highly unusual to encounter a collection of Indian baskets whose contents are of such consistently high artistic quality and condition throughout,” Coker observed. “This grouping comes from a well-known private collector of Indian baskets whom it would be safe to say is ‘legendary’ in these parts. Their collection includes some marvelous forms and designs. I think collectors are going to be very excited about the opportunities here.”

An abundance of Southern folk art pottery and stoneware includes designs by M.P. Harmon of Mohawk, Tennessee; and William Long of Crawford County, Georgia; as well as rare Tennessee pots by W.W. McFarland and Hull Mohawk. Also to be auctioned is a large collection of impressively sized, highly expressive Southern “ugly” face jugs. Each is a well-detailed, distinctive work of art; some with craggy, applied teeth visible from their smiling mouths.

An outstanding textile, an 1824 Pennsylvania Dutch bordered cross-stitch sampler by Susanna Thomas, is richly hand-decorated with doves, flowers, trees, butterflies, bowls of fruit, and many additional embellishments. Its motto reads: “This work in hand my friends may have / When I am dead and in my grave / And when my work each time you see / With fond remembrance think on me.” At the bottom it is hand-stitched “Susanna Thomas’s Work made in the 17th year of her age 1824.”

More than 60 pieces are included in a collection of early glass candy containers. Rare forms, some with paint or metal components, include a handled handbag, red-suited Santa standing next to a chimney, rocking horse, Chinese man, Charlie Chaplin, and a large rabbit upright on its haunches. A well-detailed windmill retains its original red, white and blue metal “pinwheel” topper with windmill blades and accessory piece marked “Teddy.”

Two fine men’s gold Rolex watches will be offered, one of them an Oyster Perpetual Date model. Joining them is an especially fine 18K gold Tiffany pocket watch.

The top ephemera lot is an 1865 document hand-signed by President Andrew Johnson in which he pardons a man named Jerry Cowles of Macon, Georgia. It is presented in a beveled dark-wood frame that may be the original.

A framed newspaper color panel cartoon from the Saturday, August 6, 1904 Evening Chronicle (city not known) is titled “How the Coonville Ball Team Won Out.” Its theme would interest collectors of either early baseball-related material or black Americana.

An abstract artwork of note is an original 1934 nautical watercolor by Expressionist artist Lyonel Feininger (German/American, 1871-1956). Depicting a ship at sea with all masts facing the wind, the work is signed by Feininger at lower left. Feininger was a versatile artist with a background as an illustrator and cartoonist.

“Many who were not previously aware of his work realized his importance as an artist when the Whitney Museum of American Art hosted a major Feininger retrospective in 2011,” said Coker.

Three large dovetailed blanket chests hold what appears to be an untapped trove of antique and vintage toys and cruise ship mementos, Coker said. “These chests belonged to a family that traveled extensively and always brought back toys from Europe. We haven’t even begun to delve into the contents, but it all looks very intriguing,” he said. The blanket chests will be auctioned separately from the goods they hold.

A final collection of note consists of late 19th and early 20th century decorative and utilitarian objects from the rustic Glentonian Bar in Lock Haven, Pa. Located in north-central Pennsylvania’s canal country, the Glentonian served a clientele that included loggers, boatmen and others who traveled the West Branch Canal of the Susquehanna River. Held in the same family for over a century, the collection runs the gamut from pickle crocks to barware and signs.

John W. Coker’s January 4 auction will be held at the Coker gallery located at 1511 W. Route 11-E in New Market, Tennessee, outside Knoxville. The opening session will commence at 10 a.m. Eastern Time. A 45-minute to 1-hour intermission will precede a 3 p.m. session devoted exclusively to the Indian basket collection.

For information on any item in the sale or to arrange a phone line, call 865-475-5163 or email john@antiquesonline.com.

View the fully illustrated catalog and sign up to bid absentee or live via the Internet at www.LiveAuctioneers.com.

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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

1824 Susanna Thomas sampler, Pennsylvania Dutch, created at age 17. John W. Coker Auctions image.

1865 Andrew Johnson Presidential Pardon for Jerry Cowles of Macon, Georgia. John W. Coker Auctions image.

Lyonel Feininger (German/American, 1871-1956) 1934 original watercolor. John W. Coker Auctions image.

Examples from a collection of 60+ early glass candy containers, some with paint or original metal accessories. John W. Coker Auctions image.

Southern folk pottery including pieces by M. P. Harmon, Mohawk, Tenn.; William Long, Crawford County, Ga.; J.A. Bishop, Georgia. Also includes rare pots by W.W. McFarland and Hull, Mohawk, Tennessee. John W. Coker Auctions image.

Large-size Southern ‘ugly’ face jugs, part of an extensive private collection. John W. Coker Auctions image.

More than 125 Cherokee Indian baskets are included in the auction. John W. Coker Auctions image.

Western Indian basket whose motif includes human figures and deer. John W. Coker Auctions image.

From a collection of Western Indian baskets. John W. Coker Auctions image.

Prized Indian olla, circa 1880-1900. John W. Coker Auctions image.

Greece to build Holocaust museum in Thessaloniki

The famous Stein Building on Eleftherias Square in Thessaloniki, Greece, as seen from the The Ritz, a hotel that was occupied by German forces during World War II. Photo taken in April, 1941.

THESSALONIKI, Greece (AFP) – Greece’s second-largest city, Thessaloniki, unveiled plans on Friday to build a Holocaust museum to honor some 46,000 Jewish residents deported and killed at German Nazi death camps during World War II.

“This is the fulfilment of a historic responsibility for Thessaloniki,” said Yiannis Boutaris, mayor of the city once known as the ‘Jerusalem of the Balkans.’

The museum will be created at the old railway station where the trains left Greece’s northern city for the notorious Auschwitz camp in Nazi-occupied Poland starting on March 15, 1943.

Thessaloniki, a multicultural city that served as a link between the Balkans and the East and had a population of more than 50,000 Jews before World War II, today is home to only about 1,000 Jews.

More than one million people, mostly European Jews, perished at Auschwitz-Birkenau, operated by Nazi Germany from 1940 to 1945.

The 10,000 square-meter (108,000 square foot) Holocaust museum is expected to be completed in 2020.

The museum will be built in a country that today is concerned about the rise of Greek neo-Nazi party Golden Dawn, which is Greece’s third most popular party despite an ongoing criminal investigation into its leadership.

Golden Dawn leader Nikos Michaloliakos and a number of his fellow lawmakers have been indicted following the murder of an anti-fascist musician by a neo-Nazi supporter in September.

For the first time in Greek political history, the party elected 18 deputies to the country’s 300-seat parliament last year, capitalizing on the country’s economic crisis and anger towards unchecked immigration.

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NY-based Lichtenstein foundation gives photo trove

Artist Roy Lichtenstein (American, 1923-1997). Fair use of low-resolution, copyrighted image of a historically significant, now deceased, individual, under the guidelines of US Copyright Law. Photo is used for informational purposes only and relates directly to the news article it accompanies. From the website of Marc Selwyn Fine Art; it is part of

NEW YORK (AP) – A trove of photographs of more than 400 artists at work is being given to five major American and European museums by the New York-based Roy Lichtenstein Foundation.

The foundation announced Thursday it’s donating about 200,000 black-and-white prints, negatives and other materials from its collection of works by Harry Shunk and János Kender.

The Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Getty Research Institute in Los Angeles, the National Gallery of Art in Washington, the Tate in London and the Centre Pompidou in Paris will receive the works.

The German-born Shunk and Hungary-born Kender formed a photographic partnership called Shunk-Kender in 1958. Over 15 years, they photographed visual artists including Alexander Calder, Andy Warhol and Lichtenstein, as well as dancer Merce Cunningham and rocker Lou Reed.

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SC Johnson sues to stop auction of Frank Lloyd Wright furniture

Shown as an example of Frank Lloyd Wright's furniture-design ethic, but unrelated to the pending court case, this dining room table and chairs sold for $77,500 + buyer's premium at Michaan's June 8 auction in Alameda, California. The set was produced by Bowerly Brothers Furniture Co., Chicago, in 1903, based on a commissioned design by Wright. Image courtesy of LiveAuctioneers Archive and Michaan's.

RACINE, Wis. (AP) – A desk and chair designed by Frank Lloyd Wright for SC Johnson in Racine is off the auction block for now while a federal judge decides who owns the furniture.

An order filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court in the Southern District of New York says the auction house Sotheby’s will hold on to the pieces until the ownership issue is resolved. The pieces together have an estimated worth of $480,000 to $720,000 and were to be auctioned Wednesday.

The Racine Journal Times says SC Johnson filed a lawsuit against Sotheby’s asking that the pieces be returned to the company. The desk and chair had once been in the SC Johnson administration building, which Wright also designed. Sotheby’s says the pieces were sent to it on consignment by an unidentified California man.

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Information from: The Journal Times, http://www.journaltimes.com

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Van Gogh’s ‘Green Wheat Fields, Auvers’ at Nat’l Gallery of Art

Vincent Van Gogh, 'Green Wheat Fields, Auvers,' 1890, oil on canvas. 28 3/4 x 36 5/8 inches (73 x 93 cm). National Gallery of Art, Washington. Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon.

WASHINGTON – Vincent van Gogh’s powerful and intense Green Wheat Fields, Auvers (1890), likely painted just weeks before the artist ended his life, goes on view in the National Gallery of Art’s West Building, Gallery M-83, beginning December 20. The painting was bequeathed to the Gallery by renowned philanthropist, art collector, and founding Gallery benefactor Paul Mellon (1907–1999), subject to a life estate in his wife, Rachel Lambert Mellon, which gave her the right to possess the work for her lifetime. She has now relinquished the remainder of her life estate, allowing the Gallery to take immediate possession of the work.

“Green Wheat Fields, Auvers is a marvelous complement to the Gallery’s Van Gogh collection and represents his wildly prolific late Auvers period,” said Earl A. Powell III, director, National Gallery of Art. “Thanks to the generosity of important benefactors such as Paul Mellon, Ailsa Mellon Bruce, Chester Dale, Pamela Harriman, and John Hay Whitney, we now have nine outstanding paintings by this master, of which six are already on view in Washington.” (The Gallery owns 11 prints and drawings by Van Gogh that may be seen by appointment by calling 202- 842-6380.)

Measuring 283/4 x 36 5/8 inches (73 x 93 cm) Green Wheat Fields, Auvers was likely painted in Auvers-sur-Oise, France, during the spring/early summer of 1890, following Van Gogh’s voluntary confinement at the asylum of Saint-Rémy. In this village just north of Paris, and as he did before in the countryside surrounding Arles and Saint-Rémy, Van Gogh painted what could be called “pure landscapes,” in addition to the Auvers Romanesque church, town hall, and picturesque thatched-roof houses.

In this painting, Van Gogh eliminates the rural figures, stony walls, wooden carts, dramatic trees, and rustic buildings that populate so many of his landscapes and focuses instead on the windblown clouds and tall grasses. Two-thirds of the composition consists of the field in a rich range of greens and blues, punctuated by outbursts of yellow flowers. The artist wrote of his return to northern France as a kind of homecoming, a peaceful restoration in which the vibrant, hot colors of the south were replaced by cool, gentle hues in green and blue. Van Gogh’s energetic strokes describe the movement of grassy stalks in the breeze, their patterned undulations creating a woven integral form anchored at the right by a juncture point between field, road, and sky.

“Because there is so little to read in the composition, the focus is on the color but even more so on brushwork―the clouds whipping around in spinning circles, opening out and closing in, Van Gogh’s brush squiggling across the surface in long calligraphic strokes. The paint is applied in thick impasto, creating the marvelous textured surface of Van Gogh’s best loved paintings. Through his dynamic touch and vivid, unmediated color, Van Gogh expresses the intense freshness of this slice of countryside,” said Mary Morton, curator, French paintings, National Gallery of Art.

Green Wheat Fields, Auvers will hang in a gallery with other Van Gogh works: Girl in White (1890), and also from Auvers, La Mousmé (1888), The Olive Orchard (1889), Roses (1890), and Self Portrait (1889). Green Wheat Fields relates strongly to three of the Gallery’s pen and ink drawings by Van Gogh, all from 1888―Harvest–The Plain of La Crau, Harvest, and Ploughman in the Fields near Arles―in the rhythmic weave of the marks made to describe the artist’s connection to nature’s unifying energy.

The painting spent its early life first in Van Gogh’s brother Theo’s holdings, then in Germany, represented as early as 1905 by the brilliant modern art dealer Paul Cassirer, and sold in 1906 to Curt Herrmann in Berlin. His son, Frederick (Fritz) Herrmann, sold it through the Carstairs Gallery, New York, to Paul Mellon in December 1955. It has remained in the Mellons’ home in Upperville, VA, until now, with the exception of an exhibition devoted to their collection and that of Paul’s sister Ailsa Mellon Bruce at the National Gallery of Art in 1966.

General Information:

The National Gallery of Art and its Sculpture Garden are at all times free to the public. They are located on the National Mall between 3rd and 9th Streets at Constitution Avenue NW, and are open Monday through Saturday from 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. and Sunday from 11:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. The Gallery is closed on December 25 and January 1. With the exception of the atrium and library, the galleries in the East Building will be closing gradually beginning in July 2013 and will remain closed for approximately three years for Master Facilities Plan and renovations. For specific updates on gallery closings, visit www.nga.gov/renovation.

For information call (202) 737-4215 or the Telecommunications Device for the Deaf (TDD) at (202) 842-6176, or visit the Gallery’s Web site at www.nga.gov. Follow the Gallery on Facebook at www.facebook.com/NationalGalleryofArt and on Twitter at www.twitter.com/ngadc

Visitors will be asked to present all carried items for inspection upon entering. Checkrooms are free of charge and located at each entrance. Luggage and other oversized bags must be presented at the 4th Street entrances to the East or West Building to permit x-ray screening and must be deposited in the checkrooms at those entrances. For the safety of visitors and the works of art, nothing may be carried into the Gallery on a visitor’s back. Any bag or other items that cannot be carried reasonably and safely in some other manner must be left in the checkrooms. Items larger than 17 by 26 inches cannot be accepted by the Gallery or its checkrooms.

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Jimmy Stewart Museum in Pa. is rebounding after financial gift

James Stewart (1908-1997) in a studio publicity photo for the 1948 film 'Call Northside 777,' released by 20th Century Fox.

PITTSBURGH (AP) – The Jimmy Stewart Museum in western Pennsylvania is rebounding, after flirting with disaster.

The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review reports Wednesday that the museum was considering closing in 2010 due to a funding shortfall. But like the 1947 classic “It’s a Wonderful Life,” some good Samaritans stepped in to help the small museum, which is located in Stewart’s hometown of Indiana, Pa. That’s about 50 miles northeast of Pittsburgh.

Museum director Tim Harley says that in 2012 Ken and Carol Schultz began donating $25,000 per year to help keep the museum open.

The museum showcases artifacts from Stewart’s family, including his childhood bed, movie memorabilia, costumes, scripts and the front door from his Beverly Hills home.

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Ryan O’Neal wins court fight over Warhol portrait of Farrah Fawcett

Original Polaroid print of Farah Fawcett by Andy Warhol. Image courtesy of LiveAuctioneers.com Archive and Dreweatts and Bloomsbury.

LOS ANGELES (AFP) – A US jury on Thursday found in favor of veteran actor Ryan O’Neal in a dispute over an Andy Warhol painting of his ex-lover Farrah Fawcett, saying it rightfully belonged to him.

The six-man, six-woman panel rejected a claim by the University of Texas, where the late “Charlie’s Angels” star went to college, that she left the valuable portrait to her alma mater.

The actor’s sons Redmond and Patrick welcomed the verdict, which came after two days of jury deliberations.

“It’s an awesome, awesome feeling,” said Patrick O’Neal, who yelped in court when the verdict was read out.

Patrick, whose mother is actress Leigh Taylor-Young, said his father could not attend because he had had minor cancer surgery on one cheek.

Twenty-eight year-old Redmond, O’Neal and Fawcett’s only child together, said he believed his mother had helped steer the jury in the right direction.

“I know she had something to do with this up there,” he said.

The university’s lawyer David Beck voiced disappointment, and remained tight-lipped about a possible appeal. He noted the length of deliberations and the non-unamimous decision; the jury voted 9 to 3 in O’Neal’s favor.

“We’ll have to see where we go from here,” he said.

The university sued O’Neal after the painting was spotted in the actor’s home during an episode of reality TV show “Ryan and Tatum: The O’Neals.”

It said Fawcett bequeathed all her artwork to her alma mater when she died, and insisted the Warhol painting should be displayed in a museum next to a near-identical portrait of the late actress, also created in 1980.

O’Neal’s lawyers said during the two-week trial that Warhol gave one portrait to Fawcett and the other to O’Neal.

Defending himself during the trial, the 72-year-old said the portrait belonged to him, but he had left it at her home because his new girlfriend “was uncomfortable with Farrah staring at her” from the wall at his own home.

He said he removed the work from Fawcett’s Wilshire Boulevard condominium shortly after she died of cancer on June 25, 2009 — the same day as pop icon Michael Jackson — aged 62.

O’Neal said he kept the portrait at his Malibu home from 1980 to 1998, but loaned it to Fawcett from time to time, to take to exhibitions with her own copy.

But that changed after Fawcett caught him with another woman, when she let herself into his home in 1997. “She was hurt, she was in shock,” he said, adding that he subsequently asked Fawcett to take the painting and keep it for him.

“I asked her to keep the portrait with her, store it for me, because my young (girlfriend) was uncomfortable with Farrah staring at her,” he told the court.

Fawcett was born in Texas and went to college there for three years, but left without graduating after being “discovered” and moving to Los Angeles to pursue an acting career. But she remained loyal to her alma mater.

“Farrah never forgot where she came from,” the university’s lawyer David Beck said when the trial opened on November 26.

While the university said the portrait is worth about $12 million, O’Neal’s lawyer Martin Singer estimated its value at just under $1 million, adding: “The University of Texas should have been satisfied with what they got.”

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Donor offers $5 million to help protect Detroit art

The Great Hall at the Detroit Institute of Arts. Image courtesy of Detroit Institute of Arts.

DETROIT (AP) — A former Detroit university professor is pledging $5 million, hoping it will spark a wildfire of private financial support to protect valuable art from being sold to pay creditors in the city’s bankruptcy.

A. Paul Schaap said he wants to help the Detroit Institute of Arts as well as retirees whose pensions could be cut as part of the city’s plan to eventually exit Chapter 9 bankruptcy. Art purchased over the years with city money could be pursued as assets that should be sold to pay off a portion of $18 billion in long-term debt.

Schaap and wife Carol want to prevent that from happening.

“I believe there are more than just a few people in the metro Detroit area who would step up and see this as something we should all try to do to save the pensions and stabilize the DIA,” Schaap said in an interview Friday.

Detroit emergency manager Kevyn Orr hasn’t said whether he will sell art as part of any bankruptcy reorganization plan. New York auction house Christie’s said art purchased with city money is worth $450 million to $870 million. It’s 5 percent of all art at the Detroit Institute of Arts.

“We have a passion for the city,” said Schaap, who lives next door in Grosse Pointe Park and was a Wayne State University chemistry professor before starting his own technology company. “We go to the DIA, the symphony, ballgames. We’re Detroiters. Maybe this is a way to help.”

Schaap, 68, said he was meeting Friday with U.S. District Judge Gerald Rosen, who is serving as chief mediator between the city and its creditors while the bankruptcy case moves forward. The Detroit News and Detroit Free Press have reported that Rosen has reached out to foundations and wealthy people to try to raise as much as $500 million to protect the museum and assist pensioners.

Schaap said he read about Rosen’s effort and decided to step forward, becoming one of the first to publicly make a pledge. The judge and others in the philanthropic community have declined to comment, although Orr this week said he “fully supports” Rosen’s pitch to potential donors.

“I’ve already heard from people who can’t give that much but want to contribute,” Schaap said, referring to his $5 million. “We will be looking for a mechanism to make that possible.”

Short of cash, Detroit has been relying on deep pockets to meet critical needs. Mayor Dave Bing delivered the last of 23 new ambulances Thursday, all paid for by companies or foundations. One hundred new police cars also are being given to the city.

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Follow Ed White at http://twitter.com/edwhiteap

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