MOUNT KISCO, N.Y. – The Benefit Shop Foundation Inc. will present an auction designed to tantalize buyers with powerful and figurative artworks as well as intricately carved sculpture and bronzes, along with noteworthy lots across the board ranging from farm tables to vintage slot machines on Wednesday, March 13, at 10 a.m. Absentee and Internet live bidding is available through LiveAuctioneers.
The sale is primarily driven by a Greenwich, Conn., and Palm Beach, Fla., estate where the collectors had a good eye for fine art, design, bronze smalls and much more. Several other choice local estates round out the auction, which consists of furniture, paintings, Asian art and antiques, bronzes, sculpture, coin-op, pottery, inkwells, decorative accessories and more. A lakefront Putnam County, N.Y., estate yielded many choice country antiques, including a farm table, as well as “man cave” items.
“The Greenwich and Palm Beach collectors split their time between two homes and furnished both with wonderfully vivid paintings that practically have the subjects leaping off the canvas as well as statement pieces and fine antiques,” said Pam Stone, owner and founder of The Benefit Shop Foundation. “Buyers will find many fine things here to choose from encompassing a flair for design as well as traditional antiques – all well-made and with the utmost attention to detail.”
Fine art will dominate the auction with a robust selection of colorful and striking paintings from the aforementioned Greenwich-Palm Beach estate, led by an Itzchak Tarkay (above) signed painting on canvas, depicting a woman sitting next to a table with fruit and flowers, 50 by 47 inches. Tarkay’s works are instantly recognizable and he is seen as a central figure in the modern figurative movement.
Another standout from the estate is a Peter Max acrylic on canvas painting, Liberty Head, 16 inches square, signed and professionally framed in a gold-toned shadow box. Peter Max (born Peter Max Finkelstein in 1937) is an American artist known for using bright colors in his work. Works by Max are associated with the visual arts and culture of the 1960s, particularly psychedelic art and pop art.
A pioneer of the hybrid art form – the action-painted portrait, Andrew Baird is a gestural action painter, one who flings or drips paint onto canvas to create compositions, rather than the traditional use of paintbrushes. He is represented in the sale with Jezebel, an acrylic on canvas, 46½ by 51 inches, professionally framed on gold/silver leaf wood frame. In this work, Baird marries the traditional realism seen in portraiture with Abstract Expressionism.
From the same estate that had a keen eye for bold paintings comes a Kim Schuessler signed splatter overlay acrylic artwork, Fleur de Lis Jacket With Orange Pants, which depicts two standing figures, 51 inches wide by 27 inches tall. Schuessler is a renowned figurative painter who uses color, texture, and pattern to create collages and paintings that connect the viewer to everyday experiences. Also on offer is a signed Len Abbott oil on canvas of figures, Chorus, 50 by 47 inches.
Along with fine art are a number of standout pieces that will make compelling design statements in the home, including an antique French railway carriage station rack with mirrored back ($1,000-$3,000) in brass-toned metal that would be a great wall shelving piece, 78 by 80 by 15 inches. Eminently suitable for today’s dining room is an antique English oak folding top farm-style table with turned legs and joined by two stretchers. Purchased earlier from Howard Kaplan Antiques in New York, the table measures 91 by 33 by 29½ inches.
Vintage gaming and coin-op machines will also be plentiful in the auction. Highlights include a Watling Baby Twin Jackpot Torch vendor-front 1-cent slot machine ($1,500-$3,000). This gooseneck bell, three-reel slot machine (below) was made by Watling in the late 1920s-early 1930s and has an Art Deco inspired front casting with twin jackpot and gumball banks, 23 by 15½ by 15 inches not including the 33-inch tall stand. Also crossing the block are a circa 1940s Challenger coin-operated arcade shooting game ($200-$400) by the A.B.T. Mfg. Co. of Chicago, with striking graphics to the metal and wooden case. and a 1930s PEO Little Whirl-Wind trade stimulator slot machine ($100-$400) made by Howard Peo in 1930. Peo Manufacturing’s Little Whirl-Wind became one of the most popular counter games of the 1930s, 17 by 9 by 7¼ inches.
Bronzes and sculpture of all manner and shape, in varied media, will whet buyers’ appetites for good three-dimensional art, such as a room-size abstract white marble disk sculpture ($1,000-$2,000) on black marble base and separate rectangular black stand, having a 25-inch diameter and standing on base at 53 inches tall.
Asian art is always a big draw here and this auction boasts ceramics, watercolors, vases and more, including a large and impressive bronze Buddha head on metal stand ($500-$1,000), 16 by 9 inches, and a vintage pair of bronze smiling Buddha figurals ($100-$200) 7 by 3 inches, mounted on square bases.
Highlighting a collection of scales from the Greenwich and Palm Beach estate is an antique French commercial scale, circa 1900 ($400-$600), having a plaque on front reading, “Usines de la Mulatiere, porter 2 kilo, Madison Beranger, Lyon (France),” 17 by 4¼ by 7 inches. It has a wooden box with glass over gauges and a marble top with metal plates, possibly for weighing meat.
For details contact the Benefit Shop Foundation Inc. at https://www.thebenefitshop.org or 914-864-0707.
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