03 Jul Auction Block: All Aboard

The Western, American, and other art markets 
are not pushing against the tide; they are part of it. Officials overseeing spring art sales in the secondary market reported generally strong prices and evident favorites, including Ed Mell in the Western genre and Norman Rockwell in American illustration art.

From Western landscapes to portraits of flowers, from surrealist sculpture to coastal California, fine art and its aficionados were in generous supply and the latter were even more generous in elevating bids for pieces considered representative of an artist’s oeuvre or rarity in coming to market.

Examples include a Maria Martins’ sculpture sold by Rago/Wright, with the piece estimated to bring $200,000 — at most — but which went for more than $3.1 million.

As for Ed Mell, he is a bit of a burning bush. “Ed Mell is on fire,” said Polly Larsen, co-owner of Larsen Art Auction. The auction saw a work by Mell scorch estimates of $30,000-$50,000 to achieve $90,000.

Just a month later, Heritage Auctions saw bidders push up the price of Mell’s Cactus Bloom (projected to bring $30,000-$50,000) to $112,000. Rockwell was the highlight of that auction, where 18 of his works sold.

Santa Fe Art Auction reported a raft of auction records broken and records set, including a painting by Robert Daughters, while a sale by John Moran Auctioneers showed an uptick in appreciation and price paid for a piece by visionary seascape artist Frederick Judd Waugh.

Phippen Museum Western Art Show and Sale

May 23-25
Total: N/A

More than 100 artists showcased their abilities and submitted their offerings at the three-day extravaganza at the Phippen Museum as it celebrated its 52nd annual Western Art Show and Sale. The event in Prescott, Arizona, drew on the interpretations of artists and on the generosity of art enthusiasts to mark an all-American style that is widely called Western art but which is a genre that includes historical and contemporary narratives.

Lisa Norman, Cadillac on the Rack | Acrylic | First Place in Acrylic Award

Amid activities from the sale of miniature masterpieces and quick-draw paintings, certain artists were selected for honors. Local Choctaw artist Karen Clarkson gained dual accolades, first place in oil and best in show for her portrait of a young Native American, In her Element. “The allure of Clarkson’s work is only equaled by her talent for engaging and inspiring others,” Phippen Executive Director Edd Kellerman said in a statement.

Karen Clarkson, In Her Element | Oil on Canvas | First Place in Oil and Best in Show Awards

In acrylic, Wyoming artist Lisa Norman was awarded first place for Cadillac on the Rack, a still life depicting a hand-tooled saddle and gear. Kellerman said the piece showed the artist’s mastery of tonal values and her attention to detail.

Surrounded by patrons, artists participate in the Phippen Museum’s Quick Draw Challenge. Photo courtesy of the Phippen Museum

He added about the yearly gathering, “Our participating artists continually tell us they value the historic setting, hometown atmosphere, and family environment as much as our dedication to gathering skilled fine artists who are fiercely dedicated to offering the best in authentic art of the American West.”

Christie’s Post-War and Contemporary Day Sale

May 21
Total: $102 million+

Please fasten your seatbelts. Or fasten somebody’s.

Christie’s Post-War and Contemporary Day Sale hit high speed on impact, garnering more than $102 million — the largest amount for a day sale since 2019 — with live, online and telephone bids rocking the floor of the Rockefeller Center saleroom in New York City.

Joan Mitchell, Untitled | Oil on Canvas | 64 x 38.25 inches | Sold: $5,382,000

A painting by Abstract Expressionist Joan Mitchell topped the list of bestsellers, with an untitled work created in 1965 going for $5,382,000. Estimates were $4 million-$6 million for the oil on canvas from a private collection in New Jersey.

Andy Warhol, Endangered Species | Screenprint in Colors on Lenox Museum Board, in Ten Parts | 38 x 38 inches | Sold: $4,467,000

Endangered Species by Andy Warhol, the Pop artist who became a pop icon, realized $4,467,000 against projections of $3 million-$5 million. The set of screenprints is among the famed artist’s most famed works, featuring 10 separate portraits of recognizable creatures whose decline by 1983 prompted Warhol to bequeath them with as much immortality as could be achieved on museum board.

Josef Albers, Homage to the Square: Golden | Oil on Masonite | 48 x 48 inches | Sold: $5,552,000

Just when you thought you should get groovier about Warhol and his works, one by Josef Albers jumped into the queue to capture the number three slot with Homage to the Square: Golden. Aptly described by its title, the oil went for $3,552,000, easily overtaking estimates of $650,000-$850,000 in a gravity-defying feat that set a new record for an acclaimed artist and teacher whose style emphasized color over form.

Helen Frankenthaler, The Last Minute in April | Acrylic on Canvas | 70 x 125 inches | Sold: $3,003,000

A painting by Helen Frankenthaler, The Last Minute in April, brought $3,003,000, as did Cracker Rows by Wayne Thiebaud, with each painting expected to bring $2 million-$3 million.

Heritage Auctions: American Art

May 19
Total: $6.1 million+

Heritage’s American Art Signature Auction brought a 68-lot assortment of illustration, Western and modern art in a sale that proved — once again — that a segment of bidders can’t get enough of Norman Rockwell’s brand of love.

Norman Rockwell, Study for Cheerleaders (1952) | Mixed Media on Paper | 40.125 x 38.5 inches | Sold: $600,000

Nostalgia for a United States of America depicted by Rockwell may be more pronounced in 2026 as the nation marks its 250th year.

Study for Cheerleaders (1952), headlined the total of 18 Rockwell works purchased at the auction in Dallas. The mixed media on paper featuring dejected cheerleaders — an oxymoron? — garnered $600,000 with fees compared to projections of $300,000-$500,000.

Norman Rockwell, Willie Gillis in Convoy | Oil on Canvas | 43 x 34.25 inches | Sold: $300,000

Rockwell’s Friend in Need, a portrait of a pair of Boy Scouts applying first aid to man’s best friend (who else? a beagle), went for $500,000 followed by Willy Gillis in Convoy (circa 1943), at $300,000 on target with its low estimate.

Joseph Christian Leyendecker, Newspapers over Books | Oil and Pencil on Canvas | 21 x 31 inches | Sold: $250,000

Newspapers Over Books, circa 1910 by Joseph Christian Leyendecker, a leading artist of the Golden Age of American Illustration, realized $250,000 (estimates $70,000-$100,000) to tie with contemporary painter Ernie Barnes’ The Trick Shot, 1983, for the number four position among top-selling items.

Ernie Barnes, The Trick Shot | Acrylic on Canvas | 29.5 x 39.5 inches | Sold: $250,000

Happily, the fifth placement was wildly occupied by a thing created by children’s book author and artist Maurice Sendak. Wild Things are Happening: Sea Horse for Bell Atlantic, 1997, sold for $175,000, with the expected range of $100,000-$150,000.

You don’t have to love the desert to love Ed Mell’s renderings of its landscapes and flora. Cactus Bloom, a gem of a painting by the painter, brought $112,000, easily surpassing estimates of $30,000-$50,000.

Rago/Wright Post-War and Contemporary Art

May 15
Total: $7.4 million+

It is possible no one would say it was impossible, but they likely would say it was unlikely.

Maria Martins, Impossible | Bronze | 31 x 30 x 19 inches | Sold: $3.1 million

The surreal sculpture by Surrealist sculptor Maria Martins broke the Brazilian artist’s auction record on May 15 in Chicago when Impossible sold for $3.1 million with fees. The 1946 bronze featured at Rago/Wright’s Post War and Contemporary Art Auction was estimated to go for $150,000-$200,000, projections still well below the previous auction benchmark of $329,000.

Sam Gilliam, Sun Woman | Acrylic on Canvas | 106 x 73 x 10 inches | Sold: $409,600

Rago/Wright officials said the achievement in mid-May signaled that Martins had achieved “her rightful place among the great sculptors of the 20th century.” The record-setter was the earliest of three known casts of Impossible and created during the artist’s exploration of curvilinear forms at the height of a Surrealist revolution that was sustained, for Martins, by her artistic “conversation” with the genre’s champion, Marcel Duchamp, according to statement by Rago/Wright, a network of independent auction houses.

Annie Morris, Stack 7 (Ultramarine Blue) | Pigment, Polystyrene, Concrete, and Steel | 80.75 x 7.5 x 7.5 inches | Sold: $268,800

The sculpture’s hybrid, sensuous forms — part human, part vegetal, part animal — speak to the themes of transformation and desire that define her work at its most powerful, according to the statement.

“Today’s result is not a surprise to those who know her work — it is a correction. The market has finally recognized what art history has always known: that Maria Martins belongs in the first rank of 20th-century sculpture,” said Rago/Wright Fine Art Director Lauren Bradley.

Miyoko Ito, Adam and Eve | Oil on Canvas | 50 x 34 inches | Sold: $281,600

Other bestsellers in the sale included: Sam Gilliam’s 1970 Sun Woman, which went for $409,600 against estimates of $300,000-$500,000; Miyoko Ito’s Adam and Eve at $281,600 compared to expectations of $200,000-$300,000; Annie Morris’ Stack 7 (Ultramarine Blue) at $268,800, with estimates of $150,000-$200,000; and Purity by Barry Ball at $217,600 against projections of $80,000-$120,000.

Santa Fe Art Auction: Art of the West

May 5-6
Total: $1.4 million+

It was Aldous Huxley who waxed poetic (yes, a philosopher is allowed to do that) about the disarming resilience and peculiar fecundity of deserts in the U.S. West. Artist Robert Daughters knew whereof Huxley spoke. The founding member of the art group known as the Taos Six answered — with paint and on canvas.

Robert A. Daughters, Untitled (Chamisa Landscape) | Oil on Linen | 40 x 30 inches | Sold: $55,350

The growing appreciation of Daughters’ images of the American Southwest reached a zenith in May, when Untitled (Chamisa Landscape) set an auction record for the artist and headlined Santa Fe Art Auction’s sale. The painting of rabbitbrush, sage, mountains and sky went for $55,350 with fees, or more than twice its high estimate of $25,000.

Frank C. McCarthy, Waiting for the Signal | Oil on Canvas | 30 x 24 inches | Sold: $41,600

The high bids didn’t stop there. Waiting for the Signal, a powerful piece by Frank McCarthy, scampered over expectations of $20,000-$30,000 to achieve $41,600 even as Bill Schenk’s Skies Dashing About the Mesas sold for $28,800 against estimates of $12,000-$18,000.

Quang Ho, Forsythia Branches & Still Life | Oil on Canvas | 42 x 44 inches | Sold: $18,450

The momentum secured, it was wine, women and song thereafter. One out of three, anyway: Kim Douglas Wiggins’ Rising Moon Over Chimayo went for $21,760, or twice its top estimate, to become the fourth best-selling item at an auction that marked many highs.

A work by Quang Ho, master of stillness, rose to fetch $18,450, with Forsythia Branches with Still Life, 2001, expected to bring $4,000-$6,000. Memory, a sculpture by Nguyen Tuan, matched the $18,450 (with estimates of $4,000-$8,000) to tie for fifth place.

John Moran Auctioneers: California and American Fine Art

May 5
Total: $1.1 million+

The aptly titled Smuggler’s Cove by Frederick Judd Waugh topped $50,800 with fees, or more than twice its high estimate, to steal the limelight at John Moran Auctioneers’ California and American Fine Art auction in Monrovia, California, the first week of May.

Frederick Judd Waugh, Smuggler’s Cove | Oil on Masonite | 40 x 50 inches | Sold: $50,800

Smuggler’s is one of the finer visual examples of the drama of Waugh’s seascapes, which encompassed both the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. Waugh and like painters in the latter half of the 19th century to mid-20th century bracketed the restless gray moods of the Eastern Seaboard with the bracing exuberance of the California coast to capture for posterity a legacy distinctively American.

Dignified yet celebratory, Smuggler’s exemplifies a strain of near-visionary artistic effort that brought surf and cloud, sea and sky into one. Pre-sale projections for the piece were within a range of $15,000-$25,000.

Armin Carl Hansen, Return of the Fishing Fleet | Oil on Board | 20 x 24 inches | Sold: $44,450

Return of the Fishing Fleet by Armin Carl Hansen achieved $44,450 among estimates of $30,000-$50,000. Hansen is best known for his pictorial explorations of California’s Monterey Coast and he was notable among post-impressionists for following the lives of the so-called ordinary man. Hansen’s everyman was a sailor and commercial fisherman.

An oil by William Wendt, the refreshing, breezy painter of the California Coast, fetched $44,450. It was a steal, even above estimates of $20,000-$30,000, for Freshening Breezes. The self-taught master of an aptly-tagged style known as California Impressionism, Wendt was the founder in the early 20th century of the California Art Club. Even those independent-minded painters who eschewed club-type membership responded to Wendt’s dream of forming a family of working artists.

American illustration art likewise struck a chord with bidders. Howard Pyle’s Citizen Genet Formally Presented to Washington, an oil on board that represented an 1896 illustration for Harper’s Magazine, sold for $38,100, or roughly three times its high estimate, to land the number four slot among best-selling items.

Portrait of Lucia Mathews in Pink Robe is a sweet, sweet tribute to the artist’s wife, who, in the painting, adorns a pink kimono and not vice versa. Arthur Frank Mathews’ small but charming art offering realized $34,925 against estimates of $10,000-$15,000. The classically-trained artist based in Northern California once studied at the California School of Design and later served as director.

Larsen Art Auction

April 18
Total: $1.9 million

It may behoove us not to inquire what pathos assailed artist Antonio Saura in 1959 but we know of at least one anguished masterpiece that emerged from it.

The oil by the Spanish painter, among those who put the “A” in the Avant-Garde art movement of the mid-20th century, is representative of an era that gave rise to a secular philosophy that saw man in a struggle to achieve expression in a world that denied its meaning. (Whew!)

Antonio Saura, Vara | Oil on Canvas | 51.25 x 38.25 inches | Sold: $168,000

Vara, a veritable portrait of angst, led Larsen Art Auction’s annual spring sale, going for $168,000 with fees against estimates of $100,000-$200,000.

Spring Dawn by the late Ed Mell easily surmounted expectations of $30,000-$50,000 to achieve $90,000. Mell’s variations on angular landscape themes of the American Southwest never fail to quicken the pulse and widen the eyes. Spring Dawn is one of Mell’s morning songs: Although light knifes across a canvas of just 18 by 24 inches, the impact on the observer is monumental.

Ed Mell, Spring Dawn | Oil on Canvas | 18 x 24 inches | Sold: $90,000

Thomas Worthington Whittredge’s painting, Fall Afternoon, Indian Encampment, Colorado, was thought to bring a modest $5,000 to $8,000 but defied projections. Drum roll, please. The picture, replete with the ethereal light so evocative of the Hudson River School art movement of the 19th century, sold for $60,000 with fees to land in the number three slot.

Polly Larsen, co-owner of the gallery and auction house in Scottsdale, Arizona, hailed Fall Afternoon as a stellar example of Whittredge’s oeuvre and, circling back to the maker of Spring Dawn, added, “Ed Mell is on fire.”

A collector happily offered the fourth highest amount for a painting of a Yasigi mask by British artist Daniel Crews-Chubb. Mios garnered $57,000 against estimates of $40,000-$60,000. The mixed-media 82.5-by-59-inch picture practically yells for attention but not just in terms of its size. The 2019 work of abstract art is a veritable frenzy of activity. It is not unlike Vara in its contrasts — not of tonal values but of the human condition.

Anyone who had the pleasure of meeting the late John Nieto knows his personality was as colorful as his paintings. Keeps the Mountain is no exception but it is exceptional in terms of its symbolism.

The monumental Native American depicted, head dressed in feathers, sits solidly in the foreground, an ax steadied by a large and iron grip. The ax bears a stylized grizzly and the extended metaphor is not lost on the observant: The hands around the ax and the hands imprinted as ornaments on the figure’s garments are more bear than human, more of authority than of might. Keeps went for $54,000 compared to projections of $30,000-$50,000.

Prix de West at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum

June 13
Total $3.7 Million+

Talk about a barn-burner. The 54th Prix de West Invitational Art Exhibition opening night sales blew past last year’s by more than $500,000, with two-thirds of all paintings and sculpture sold.

Kim Wiggins, How the West Was Won – Chisum at Castle Gap | Oil on Canvas | 60 x 48 inches | Sold: $95,000 | Ann Noble Brown Prix de West Purchase Award

That’s a lot of happy artists, with perhaps the happiest of all being Kim Wiggins whose oil painting How the West Was Won – Chisum at Castle Gap, 60 x 48 in., $95,000, was selected for the Ann Noble Brown Prix de West Purchase Award. Wiggins received a $7,500 award and the Prix de West medallion, in addition to the museum purchasing the painting for its permanent collection.

Sandhill Cranes on the Great Migration | Oil, Gold, Wood, and Metal | 60 x 60 x 12 inches | Frederic Remington Painting Award

A New Mexico-based artist known for his bold, modernist vision of the West, Wiggins has built a career around paintings that blend history, symbolism, movement and color into a style all his own. And while he bucks the trend of more realistic cowboy scenes that offer a nod and a wink to those whose footsteps they tread upon, Wiggins sold all four of his paintings. “I am so incredibly honored,” he said in his acceptance speech that recalled how he’d literally gone door-to-door trying to sell his early work. “By two in the afternoon, it was so hot, and a woman opened the door and said, ‘Young man, you look like you need a glass of iced tea. Why don’t you come in and bring a couple of your paintings?’” That woman not only bought a painting for $500, but she launched the artist’s career.

Descending from the Heavens | Oil on Canvas | 48 x 52 inches | Major General and Mrs. Don D. Pittman Wildlife Award

Other 2026 Prix de West award recipients include: Andrew Peters who won the Frederic Remington Painting Award for his three-dimensional diptyche, Sandhill Cranes on the Great Migration (60 x 60 x 12 in., oil, gold, wood, metal). Ron Kingswood won the Major General and Mrs. Don D. Pittman Wildlife Award for Descending from the Heavens, (48 x 52 in., oil on canvas). Walter T. Matia won the coveted Robert Lougheed Memorial Award, as chosen by his fellow Prix de West artists; and the Wilson Hurley Memorial Award for Outstanding Landscape went to G. Russell Case for Into Red Canyon (48 x 36 in., oil).

Laura Zuckerman is an award-winning journalist whose work has appeared in everything from Christian Science Monitor to Country Living.