RENTON, WA — Harry Bonath (1903-1976) was a lifelong commercial artist, envisioning and creating imagery and systems for advertisers, builders, and corporate brands. Seattle Mayor Allan Pomeroy, who served from 1952 to 1956, helped Seattle win the right to host the 1962 World’s Fair by coordinating local support for a bond issuance that would fund the needed infrastructure required by the grand and sprawling event.
Many artifacts survive to this day from the 1962 World’s Fair, which was officially known as the Century 21 Expo. Several have become landmarks, including the Paul Allen-funded Hendrix museum, the opera house, the Pacific Science Center, and of course, the Space Needle, now an icon of Seattle.
Bonath immortalized the Needle in his original circa-1962 oil on canvas affixed to board. Titled with the event’s more colloquial name ‘Seattle World’s Fair 1962,’ it stars the newly finished Space Needle and includes his signature. Bonath’s use of color and modernist technique make it the perfect symbol for the Kennedy-era exuberance that fueled the Space Race and other early-1960s forward-looking initiatives.
MBA Seattle Auction brought the Bonath original to market July 18 as a star lot in its Pacific Northwest Modernism and Fine Art sale. Originally estimated at $3,000-$6,000, it hammered for $14,000, or $17,500 with buyer’s premium. LiveAuctioneers bidders went after the work early and right until the end, but it sold to the floor.
DENVER, PA — Among the highlights of the Automobilia and Petroliana auction held by Morphy Auctions on July 11 was this Aerio 70 gasoline globe. Estimated at $15,000-$25,000, it sold for $29,000, or $37,120 with buyer’s premium.
Probably never used on a pump, this is one of the great survivors. Not only is the globe itself in exceptional order — both lenses are condition-graded 96 and 94 out of 100 — but it comes with its original shipping box from Cincinnati Advertising Products. Aerio 70 gasoline was a product of Gregory Independent Oil Company of Gregory, South Dakota.
PITTSBURGH, PA — The range of nursery rhyme and sporting figures made by Phillip Segal Toys are among the most desirable of all hollowcast lead figures known as ‘civilians.’ They were made by the Hampshire, England firm in two brief periods before and after the Second World War from 1938 to 1939 and from 1947 to 1951 when Segal died. The charming Nursery Rhyme series covers the characters in many of the best-known children’s poems and songs, including the Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe, Humpty Dumpty, The Three Little Pigs, and Little Red Riding Hood.
All are considered rare in good condition, but the set for Hey Diddle Diddle has become something of a Holy Grail item in the collecting hobby. Featuring four large figures – the Cat and the Fiddle, the Cow That Jumped Over the Moon, the Little Dog Who Laughed to See Such Fun, and the Dish That Ran Away with the Spoon – the only surviving full set was pictured on the front cover of a past issue of Old Toy Soldier magazine.
Unboxed but in good condition, it appeared as part of the John Cullen Dimestore collection at Old Toy Soldier Auctions in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on July 12. It was estimated at $4,000-$6,000, but sold to an internet bidder via the LiveAuctioneers platform at a cool $10,000, or $12,800 with buyer’s premium.
MARLBOROUGH, MA — An outstanding example of British medieval pottery formed part of the Stanley F. Goldfein collection of ceramics sold by Bonhams Skinner in a timed auction that closed on July 11. The so-called Black Boy Jug, dug in the city of Nottingham, England more than half a century ago, sold well above its estimate of $1,000-$3,000 to bring $24,000 ($30,720 with buyer’s premium).
Fragments of green-glazed ‘knights’ jugs have been found in a variety of kiln sites in eastern England, including Scarborough, Nottingham, and Lincoln, and are illustrated in both Bernard Rackham’s Medieval English Pottery, first published in 1948, and in Jeremy Haslam’s Medieval Pottery, published in 1978. Made in the 13th and 14th centuries, these wares, with their complex relief designs of knights on horseback hunting deer and wild boar, marked the pinnacle of British pottery at the time and would have been high-status objects.
This piece, standing an impressive 18 1/2in (47cm) high, was excavated from the site of the Black Boy Hotel in Long Row, Nottingham after the former coaching inn was demolished in 1970. Published in 1977, it has been dated to around 1270. Before it was sold at auction by Sotheby’s in March 1990, it was on display at Nottingham City Museums and Galleries at Nottingham Castle together with perhaps the best-known piece of British medieval pottery, the Moot Hall Jug. A similar ‘knights’ jug, it was found in 1955 during excavations of one of four undisturbed medieval middens, or rubbish pits, in caves under the former Moot Hall, on Friar Lane in Nottingham.
The sale of the Goldfein collection is being conducted by three different auction houses in the UK and the US. Dreweatts, in association with Christie’s, is offering an additional 142 works, split between a live June 27 auction at the Newbury saleroom that featured 127 lots, and 15 items with estimates of more than £10,000 ($12,900) each that will be sold by Christie’s in London sometime in the autumn.
GARDENA, CA — When Trader Vic’s closed in Beverly Hills in 2017, many of the décor items were saved and stored away until Julien’s Auctions brought them to market July 12 in its Trader Vic’s Tiki Paradise 116-lot event. Many lots overperformed their high estimates, but two items stood out from the others. The black velvet paintings of a young Polynesian lady and a young Polynesian man blowing on a conch shell were estimated at $200-$300 and $300-$500, respectively. Fierce bidding brought both to hammer prices of $4,000, or $5,200 with buyer’s premium.
The painting of the man was signed ‘- Erwin – / Honolulu’, indicating it was the work of famed mid-century artist Bill Erwin of Honolulu. The painting of the woman was unsigned, but is also likely the work of Erwin. Both measured 22 by 29in and came framed, just as they had hung in the legendary restaurant for decades.
