1869 French style Boneshaker bicycle, est. CA$3,000-$3,500

Toys, vintage advertising dominate Miller & Miller’s Sept. 11-12 sales

1869 French style Boneshaker bicycle, est. CA$3,000-$3,500

1869 French style Boneshaker bicycle, est. CA$3,000-$3,500

NEW HAMBURG, Canada – Miller & Miller Auctions, Ltd. will hold back-to-back auctions the weekend of September 11 -12. The Saturday, September 11 event will be a Toys & Nostalgia sale, featuring the Bryan Beatty collection. The Sunday, September 12 sale will be an Advertising & Historic Objects auction, featuring the Scott Vanner breweriana collection. Absentee and Internet live bidding will be available through LiveAuctioneers. All estimates quoted are in Canadian dollars.

Read more

Stormfield, the final dwelling of author Samuel Clemens, aka Mark Twain, has been listed at $4.2 million. Photo by Bernadette Queenan, provided by TopTenRealEstateDeals.com

Stormfield, Mark Twain’s final home, listed for $4.2M

Stormfield, the final dwelling of author Samuel Clemens, aka Mark Twain, has been listed at $4.2 million. Photo by Bernadette Queenan, provided by TopTenRealEstateDeals.com

Stormfield, the final dwelling of author Samuel Clemens, aka Mark Twain, has been listed at $4.2 million. Photo by Bernadette Queenan, provided by TopTenRealEstateDeals.com

REDDING, Conn. – Samuel Langhorne Clemens was fascinated by thoughts of adventure as a boy, dreams that he later wrote about when he took on the pen name “Mark Twain,” which is a steamboat slang term for 12 feet of water. Later in his life, he moved to Connecticut to be closer to his publisher, and he eventually purchased a stunning estate outside of Redding that he called Stormfield – named after his last published story during his life, Captain Stormfield’s Visit to Heaven. He was only able to live there for two years before he died in 1910.  It is now on the market, listed at $4.2 million.

Read more

Queen Anne figured maple high chest of drawers, est. $3,000-$3,500

Estate furniture, antiques lead Nye & Co. Sept. 8-9 auction

Queen Anne figured maple high chest of drawers, est. $3,000-$3,500

Queen Anne figured maple high chest of drawers, est. $3,000-$3,500

BLOOMFIELD, N.J. – Nye & Company Auctioneers’ two-day, online Chic and Antique Estate Treasures auction features property from the Bishop-Peabody-Metcalf family; the NAMITS collection; the Princeton, New Jersey estate of Peter Benchley, the author of JAWS; and several private collections. It is slated for September 8 and 9, starting at 10 am Eastern time on both days. Absentee and Internet live bidding will be available through LiveAuctioneers.

Read more

Frankenthaler: Late Works exhibition opens Oct. 14 in Palm Springs

Helen Frankenthaler, Janus, 1990. Acrylic on canvas, 57 x 94 3/4 in. (144.8 x 240.7 cm). Helen Frankenthaler Foundation, New York © 2021 Helen Frankenthaler Foundation, Inc. / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

PALM SPRINGS, Calif. – This fall, Palm Springs Art Museum will present Helen Frankenthaler: Late Works, 1990-2003, the first museum exhibition dedicated to the late work of Helen Frankenthaler. The exhibition will feature 20 paintings on paper and 10 paintings on canvas on loan from the Helen Frankenthaler Foundation. It opens Oct. 14, 2021 and will run through February 27, 2022.

Read more

Porfirio Salinas, ‘Bluebonnets with Fence and Gate,’ est. $40,000-$60,000

Texas artists shine at Dallas Auction Gallery Sept. 8

Porfirio Salinas, ‘Bluebonnets with Fence and Gate,’ est. $40,000-$60,000

Porfirio Salinas, ‘Bluebonnets with Fence and Gate,’ est. $40,000-$60,000

DALLAS — Dallas Auction Gallery announces their fall Fine and Decorative Art auction, scheduled for September 8. Absentee and Internet live bidding will be available through LiveAuctioneers.

Read more

Dungeons & Dragons: Not just for nerds anymore

This Dungeons & Dragons Power Cycle production concept watercolor drawing made $600 plus the buyer’s premium in January 2019 at Bruneau & Co. Auctioneers. Image courtesy of Bruneau & Co. Auctioneers and LiveAuctioneers

This Dungeons & Dragons Power Cycle production concept watercolor drawing made $600 plus the buyer’s premium in January 2019 at Bruneau & Co. Auctioneers. Image courtesy of Bruneau & Co. Auctioneers and LiveAuctioneers

NEW YORK— Designed by a group of college students in 1974, Dungeons & Dragons was the first role-playing game (RPG), and it set the standard for all RPGs that followed in its wake. D&D, as it’s commonly known, can involve figures or miniatures, but at its heart, it’s a storytelling game that lets players invent and direct a narrative that typically involves treasure quests, cast magic spells and battle monsters. The D&D world is inhabited by races such as orcs, gnomes, clerics, elves, humans and giants. Games are organized by the dungeon master, who normally keeps track of loot acquired by the party, though party members will often take notes on current events. In addition to choosing a race, the player characters, aka PCs, also select a class, such as fighter, wizard, or rogue.

Read more

Selkirk to auction Mississippian Picture Cave system, Sept. 14

On September 14, 2021, Selkirk will auction a two-cave system of Native American polychrome paintings, together with 43 acres of surrounding land. Estimate: $1 million to $3 million. Image courtesy of Selkirk

ST. LOUIS – In a remote area of eastern Missouri, roughly 50 miles outside of the bustling urban center of Saint Louis, the prairies meet the Ozark plateau, and a mystical plat of land richly packed with natural resources conceals a well-known subterranean masterpiece that has come to be known as Picture Cave. Housing what some scholars believe to be the greatest assemblage of indigenous American polychrome paintings ever discovered in the ancient cultural area known as Mesoamerica, the two-cave system was once an important ritual site for early Mississippian culture. Today it functions as a vital ecosystem for one of the densest populations of the endangered Indiana gray bat. With an eye on the important future stewardship of this land and the caves nestled within it, Picture Cave will be auctioned on September 14, 2021, with absentee and Internet live bidding available through LiveAuctioneers.

Read more

Wurlitzer 950 vintage jukebox, est. $19,000-$46,000

Preston Opportunities plans amusement-filled Labor Day weekend sale

Wurlitzer 950 vintage jukebox, est. $19,000-$46,000

Wurlitzer 950 vintage jukebox, est. $19,000-$46,000

MACON, Ga. – Preston Opportunities, founded by Preston Evans, will auction goods from the estate of Kim Hammergren over Labor Day weekend, with absentee and Internet live bidding available through LiveAuctioneers on Saturday, September 4.

Read more

Kandinsky: Around the Circle opens Oct. 8 at the Guggenheim

Vasily Kandinsky, ‘Dominant Curve (Courbe dominante),’ April 1936 (detail). Oil on canvas, 50 7/8 × 76 1/2 inches (129.2 × 194.3 cm). Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, Solomon R. Guggenheim Founding Collection 45.989

Vasily Kandinsky, ‘Dominant Curve (Courbe dominante),’ April 1936 (detail). Oil on canvas, 50 7/8 × 76 1/2 inches (129.2 × 194.3 cm). Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, Solomon R. Guggenheim Founding Collection 45.989. © 2021 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/ADAGP, Paris

NEW YORK — From October 8, 2021 through September 5, 2022, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum presents Vasily Kandinsky: Around the Circle. Drawing from the Guggenheim’s exceptional collection of works by Kandinsky, the exhibition features approximately 80 paintings, watercolors, and woodcuts, as well as a selection of his illustrated books, spanning the artist’s earlier years in Russia and Germany and through his exile in France at the end of his life. The presentation, installed along the midsection of the museum’s spiral rotunda, reconsiders Kandinsky’s career not as a fixed path from representation to abstraction, but as a circular passage through persistent themes centered around the pursuit of one dominant ideal: the impulse for spiritual expression.

Read more

Interior designers freshen decor by mixing styles

Carsons tufted chaise lounge in burnt orange. Image courtesy of LiveAuctioneers and Regency Auction House

NEW YORK – The freshest style in decor these days is … mixing styles.

Traditional and contemporary often work well together. Think abstract art with an overstuffed chaise, or an 18th century-style toile wallpaper with an ’80s-era lamp. The appeal is in the pleasing tension between the styles; sophisticated, artsy, yet livable.

Read more