NEW YORK – Fascinating folk and outsider art as well as more traditional Americana are showcased in a Jasper52 online auction on Sunday, April 9. Absentee and Internet live bidding is available through LiveAuctioneers.
A matched pair of folk art portraits of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln (above) are relief carved on sheet rock and painted. Each measures about 20 inches by 16 inches. Together the pictures are estimated at $1,500-$1,800.
An untitled painting by outsider artist Purvis Young (1943-2010) is typically executed on salvaged material. In this piece Young used the backside of a broken billboard for model homes to make a statement about splintered neighborhoods and lives. The use of thinly applied house paint and vertical brush strokes bring the splintered edges and grainy imperfections of the wood into the visual story. The signed painting is 40 by 34 inches. It is from the 1980s-1994.
A 48-star American flag “jack” and 40-inch staff from an mid-20th-century pleasure craft is presented in a shadowbox frame. A jack is one of the three primary signals flown on a U.S. Navy ship. When at anchor or moored, the jack is flown at the bow (front), the national flag or “ensign” is flown at the stern (back), and the commission pennant is flown from the the main mast. When under way, the Jack is furled and the ensign may be kept in place or shifted to a gaff if the ship is so equipped. The American Navy jack is a blue flag with a field of white stars. The design is the mirror image of the canton of an American national flag. In scale, the jack was meant to be the same size as the canton of the corresponding Stars & Stripes ensign with which it was flown. The owners of private yachts sometimes emulated the Navy’s use of traditional signals. This was perhaps especially true when the captain was a former Navy man. This particular 48-star jack (below) was not made for a Navy boat, but for a smaller, private one. It is affixed to an elegant, turned, hardwood staff that would have been original to the craft. A deep shadow box was made to accommodate the staff.
A triple mourning portrait of firemen, while rendered by a child, has great folk attributes. The 8-by-13-inch wax crayon and watercolor artwork dates to the circa 1870s. Each subject is wearing a numbered parade hat and that the man on the right may have been the chief, because his coat is blue instead of black. The portraits are painted on a piece of brown parchment and are recessed behind a piece of mat board with oval windows. Black, mourning draperies hang above each window.
“Votes for Women,” declares a suffragette pennant from the early 20th century. The pennant, made from a length of yellow cotton cloth with applied paper, measures 5 1/2 inches by 17 1/2 inches. The solid walnut frame, 12 3/7 by 17 1/2 inches, dates to the period between 1860 and 1880, has excellent, early, black varnished surface.
Several trade signs are included in the catalog. One of the largest – 60 inches wide by 24 1/4 inches – advertises “Fresh and Smoked Fish.” The sign has iron bracket made by a blacksmith.
Handcrafted tramp art boxes, collectible bird decoys, and detailed wooden frames are just a few of the whimsical treasures offered in this Americana sale.
The Jasper52 auction will begin Sunday at 11 a.m. Eastern.
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