DALLAS – With Derrill Osborn’s bovine art collection crossing the auction block on Oct. 14, Dallas Auction Gallery will party till the cows come home – along with the bulls, steers and heifers. LiveAuctioneers.com will provide Internet live bidding.
Osborn, a men’s fashion designer who retired in 2002 from a 40-year career in fashion that concluded with 23 years at the helm of Neiman Marcus’s men’s fashion divison, helped shape decades of fashion trends, including the three-piece suit. Now Derrill Osborn will bring his unique lifetime collection of art de la vache to market. Osborn’s collection boasts more than 500 cows whose origins span the globe and several centuries. Represented among the herd are Staffordshire, majolica, Flow Blue, Black Forest carvings, 19th- and 20th-century bovine oil paintings as well as fashionable treasures that Osborn has amassed over the years.
Aside from cows, Osborn’s passions also extend to carnations – his signature boutinierre.
“It is a rarity to find a collection so passionately and lovingly assembled over a lifetime – particularly one with such an interesting theme,” said Scott Shuford, president of Dallas Auction Gallery. “It is our great honor to host Mr. Osborn’s collection.”
The vast collection, toured by garden clubs and featured in the pages of home magazines in recent years, has moved from Osborn’s Oak Lawn town home to Dallas Auction Gallery’s preview room where visitors have lined up for the auction.
“I am sending the best of the world’s bovine out to seek new homes,” Osborn said. “I was too fortunate in having worked for the grand Neiman Marcus. The position took me around the world where much of the auction pieces were purchased. There will never be another like this.”
Osborn collected the bovine art for nearly 50 years from across the globe – from China to Germany to New Mexico to the Lone Sar State. A few highlights from the collection include:
- Gift from Versace: A pair of Empire-styled armchairs featuring a vivid Atelier Versace Medusa print on balloon seat cushions – the material was a personal gift from Versace to Osborn;
- Unique Staffordshire: A Staffordshire sculpture Bull-Beating depicting a bull fending off two dogs;
- Classic cow painting: An 1858 painting of a cow in landscape by British artist William Henry Davis;
- Five thousand cows: Donna Cook’s depitction of the Chisholm Trail Cattle Drive in oil on canvas depicts half of the 10,000 herd. Inspiration came from a 19th-century photograph taken by William H. Jackson, the “father of Yellowstone National Park;”
- Modern bovine: Austin artist Terrell Cook’s abstract interpration of a cow head in acrylic on board.
View the fully illustrated catalog and sign up to bid absentee or live via the Internet during the sale at www.LiveAuctioneers.com.
Auction items will be available for preview online through Dallasauctiongallery.com. For details call 214-653-3900.
View the fully illustrated catalog and register to bid absentee or live via the Internet as the sale is taking place by logging on to www.LiveAuctioneers.com.
Click here to view Dallas Auction Gallery’s complete catalog.
ADDITIONAL LOTS OF NOTE
