MONROVIA, CA —Nearly 500 lots of fine art and sculpture — all centered on the recurring event theme of the American West — will cross the block at John Moran Auctioneers on Tuesday, September 10. The complete catalog is now open for bidding at LiveAuctioneers.
The sale’s highest-estimated lot by far is a unique tempera on paper by Oscar Howe (1915-1983) titled Grass Dancer (Pezhin wachipi). Dating to 1959, the avant-garde work belies its era and resembles the work of many later artists in the 1980s and beyond, proving once again that Howe, a Yanktonai Dakota artist, was far ahead of his time. Moran estimates the 23.75 by 16.75in original, passed down two generations from the original buyers, at $80,000-$120,000.
Eanger Irving Couse (1866-1936) was a founding member and first president of the Taos Society of Artists, and spent his lengthy career creating realistic depictions of American Indians and the American Southwest. California Cypress was likely painted in 1904, when Couse took a rail journey to California. The trees survived only in two locations: Pebble Beach near Monterey, and Point Lobos on California’s central coast. Couse at some point sold the painting to Mrs. Jeanie Kerr, who presented it to her son Alexander as a gift in 1936, as documented by a note on the reverse. Moran estimates the work at $30,000-$50,000.
Born in Communist China in 1953, Z. S. Liang attended art school there and in Massachusetts, where he became enamored of American Indian culture and history. This newfound interest provided Liang with ample subject matter and direction for his career, which has focused on historic depictions of various tribes. Native American Hunter is a 2006 oil on canvas measuring 46 by 26in. Originally purchased in a Jackson, Wyoming gallery, it is now estimated at $20,000-$30,000.
Gilbert Jerome ‘Gib’ Singleton (1935-2014) led a fascinating and varied career, but is best remembered as one of the 20th century’s leaders in bronze sculpture, both of American Western and Biblical themes. He taught himself how to work in bronze, found his way to Europe by way of a Fulbright scholarship, worked on the Vatican’s restoration of Michaelangelo’s Pieta, and even served Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis in restoring art damaged by flooding in Florence, Italy. Companeros is a 1995 work but this example, numbered 13 of 25, was cast in 2009. Signed to the base, the patinated bronze sculpture on a wood plinth is estimated at $12,000-$18,000.
