BEVERLY, Mass. – With over 600 lots, Kaminski’s 20th Century Modern Auction on Sept. 22 saw the successful sale of a wide variety of fine art, sculpture and furnishings.

LiveAucitoneers.com provided Internet live bidding.

The top lot of the day was an abstract painting by the American artist Ralph Coburn, which fetched $9,000 against an original estimate of $1,500 to $2,500. The painting captures well Cobern’s characteristic use of simple colors and dynamic geometric compositions. Coburn is an important figure in the development of modern art in Boston. Trained at MIT and at the Museum School at the MFA, Cobern has been featured in exhibits at both the Cape Ann Art Museum and the Museum of Fine Arts Boston.

Paintings from contemporary New England artist Scott Prior and American Pop artist James Rizzi also performed well. Sold as lot 8100, Prior’s hyper-realistic scene of a New England landscape behind a house, titled Backyard Barbeque, sold well above its high estimate for $4,600. James Rizzi’s colorful work, One Man’s Floor is Another Man’s Ceiling, also attracted many absentee and phone bidders, and represents the kind of work for which he is most known. The multilayered print of anthropomorphic city buildings was hammered down at $2,300 and sold to an online bidder.

A Freideberg cat clock also attracted many bidders’ interest. In Pedro Friedeberg’s work, one sees the sensibilities of a surrealist artist translated into furniture and decorative items. The cat clock features an feline torso supported by two hominid feet. The torso, in turn, backs a clock face with each hour designated by a hand displaying the appropriate number of fingers. In this way, the cat clock captures the same absurd and playful combination of body parts seen in Friedeberg’s most famous piece, Hand Foot Chair. Estimated at $3,000-$5,000, the clock sold for $4,250.

A four-panel Fornasetti screen was also among the top lots of the day. The screen, estimated at $6,000-$8,000, depicts a trompe l’oeil scene of an eclectic library bookshelf on one side and images of stringed instruments on the reverse. With many bidders vying to own the exceptional piece, the screen reached its high estimate of $8,000.

Of the furniture offered in the sale, bidders seemed most drawn to a coffee table from the designer Max Kuehe. The silver leaf and polychrome table features a delicate depiction of white petaled flowers inscribed into the surface. Estimated at a conservative $1,500 to $2,500, the table sold to an online bidder for $5,500.

Click here to view the fully illustrated catalog for this sale, complete with prices realized.

ADDITIONAL LOTS OF NOTE