29 Oct Auction Block: The West’s Greatest Hits

Two signature Western art events celebrated record-breaking totals amid September shows and sales in a sign that the rise of the genre’s popularity has yet to set. It was difficult to assess market strength tied to any one medium or any one style, as a full range of media, movements and subjects showed equal appeal.

Certainly, nostalgia was in the air – Norman Rockwell, Charlie Russell, and G. Harvey sold high at the Jackson Hole Art Auction – and hyper-realistic portraits of wildlife and sculptures with punny titles prompted enthusiastic response. A pair of paintings by Krystii Melaine were among those at the apex of that trend. Those two pictures received awards in two separate venues, the 44th Annual Buffalo Bill Art Show & Sale and the Eiteljorg Quest for the West Art Show and Sale. As for the attributes of the art, artists, buyers, sellers and all-round art admirers, it was the usual heady mix: truth, beauty, and goodness.

44th Annual Buffalo Bill Art Show & Sale

September 19-20
Total: $1.4 million+

Two auctions in as many days sent the total for sales soaring at the yearly event organized by the Cody Country Chamber of Commerce that draws overflow crowds to the Wyoming town founded by the legendary western performer Buffalo Bill Cody. 

Crow Indians Small War Party, a painting by Kevin Red Star, led sales at $57,500 with fees at Friday night’s live auction in an expansive party tent erected outside the Buffalo Bill Center of the West. It was a modest price for a large-scale acrylic featuring the stylized figures of Native Americans with spears, war horses, and facial expressions underscoring the unity of three riders with one purpose.

Kevin Red Star, Crow Indians Small War Party | Acrylic | 60 x 48 inches | Sold: $57,500

Santiago Michalek’s A Matter of Utmost Urgency, sailed to $48,875 to become that event’s second top seller. The oil, winner of the Spirit of the Buffalo Bill Art Show & Sale Award sponsored by The Collier Group, depicts a Pony Express rider racing to deliver a satchel to the conductor of a locomotive in motion. Guardian of the Wilderness, an oil on linen by Krystii Melaine that took the People’s Choice Award – selected by visitors to the Buffalo Bill Center – brought $29,900 to take third place among high-selling artworks. The sale price exceeded the $12,000 price the stirring and detailed portrait of a wolf had been projected to fetch.

Award-winning pieces were prized at the live event and John Potter’s We Three Chiefs was no exception to that happy rule. The oil that shows Native American leaders casting their gaze on a tipi camp erected on land where Cody now stands brought $14,950 against an estimate of $10,000. The painting took the Two-Dimensional Award sponsored by Mercedes-Benz of Billings.

Krystii Melaine, Guardian of the Wilderness | Oil on Linen | 30 x 24 inches | Sold: $29,900

Twenty-nine artists had 90 minutes on Saturday morning to create original works in a Quick Draw that saw all 29 pieces sold. Editions of bronzes produced by sculptors for the Quick Draw invoked such high demand that 52 multiples by just five artists were commissioned. Dustin Payne’s freshly fashioned mule, which he playfully entitled My Daddy Was an Ass, sold 18 copies for $1,380 each, including fees.

The yearly event in Cody supports established and emerging artists, with proceeds benefitting artists, the Buffalo Bill Center, the local Chamber of Commerce, and arts groups.

19th Annual Jackson Hole Art Auction

September 13
Total: $13.5 million

The Jackson Hole Art Auction set a sales record at $13.5 million, the highest since the sale began roughly two decades ago. The oldies proved to be the very goodies at auction, with Norman Rockwell’s Courting Couple at Midnight realizing $900,000 with fees to take the No. 1 slot. The original behind the cover image for the March 22, 1919 edition of  Saturday Evening Post had been estimated to go for $500,000-$700,000.

Charlie Russell, Start of the Roundup | Watercolor on Paper | 14.5 x 20.5 inches | Sold: $720,000

Bidding for a sweeping horizontal painting, Pronghorn Antelope by wildlife art giant Carl Rungius pushed the price to $780,000, more than twice its expected high estimate of $300,000. Telephone, live, and electronic bids poured in at the Center of the Arts in Jackson, Wyoming, for a watercolor on paper by legendary Western artist Charlie Russell. Start of the Roundup, a small-sized piece, brought a hefty $720,000 compared to pre-sale estimates of $180,000-$250,000. The work is remarkable for the degree of action and expression packed into a scene that shows a central group of cowboys in lively conversation as stragglers approach at full gallop. The amounts for the Rungius and Russell are reassuring signs that the appeal of works by wildlife and Western art masters never wears thin.

Norman Rockwell, Courting Couple at Midnight | Oil on Canvas Laid on Board | 24 x 19 inches | Sold: $900,000

And the trend didn’t stop there. Nostalgia, led by Rockwell, was in the air. Three paintings by G. Harvey far exceeded expectations, including When Cowboys Move On, which went for $600,000, three times its high, pre-sale estimate.

Two pictures by Eanger Irving Couse, co-founder of the Taos Society of Artists, climbed beyond projected amounts, suggesting the lasting hold of an early 20th century art movement that set style and subject standards for depicting the places and the people of the American Southwest. The Hunter went for $390,000, exceeding the expected range from $150,000 to $250,000, and Two Brothers Hunting fetched $168,000 against an estimate of $70,000-$100,000.

Carl Rungius, Pronghorn Antelope | Oil on Canvas | 29.25 x 46 inches | Sold: $780,000

Works by contemporary Western artists were by no means neglected, either in stirring responses or attracting bids. Mark Maggiori’s High Noon sold for a weighty $240,000 compared to pre-sale expectations ranging from $75,000 to $125,000, while a bronze by Rod Kagan, Abstract Totem, sailed past the high estimate of $10,000 to bring $51,000.

38th Annual Western Visions Art Show & Sale

September 11
Total: $520,000+

The National Museum of Wildlife Art in Jackson Hole brought 18 new artists into the fold for its annual art showcase and sale even as the 2025 event ushered in many thousands more dollars through purchases than were seen in 2024.

For the second year in a row, artist Joe Kronenberg garnered the People’s Choice Award (two-dimensional works), this time with As One They Roam, an outsized oil on board featuring a pack of Western gray wolves padding through a forest. The piece is stunning for its detail, or hyperrealism, but also for evoking a sense of awe at the sheer muscular elegance of the rugged creatures.

It was purchased for $23,850, among top sellers for works at Western Visions. Camouflaged by T. Allen Lawson gained the museum’s purchase award and is to be added to the institution’s permanent collection. The oil on linen, bought for $10,500, is a work of art for its pallete alone, a masterpiece of beige, brown, and gray in which a rock backdrop is barely distinguishable from the central image of a coyote.

T. Allen Lawson, Camouflaged | Oil on Linen | 14 x 16 inches | Sold: $10,500 | National Museum of Wildlife Art Purchase Award

For playfulness, it was hard to beat Sandy Scott’s Yonder is Jackson Hole, a bronze grizzly that makes a cheeky reference to the sign on Teton Pass that introduces the storied Wyoming town: “Howdy, stranger, yonder is Jackson Hole, the last of the Old West.” The bronze received 1,300 popular votes to win the People’s Choice Award (sculpture). It successfully withstood the serious competition posed by 170 other artworks to gain the $500, among other benefits provided by the sponsoring magazine – yours truly, Western Art & Architecture. Three editions of the sculpture sold, at $2,800 each.

Sandy Scott, Yonder is Jackson Hole | Bronze | 11 x 14 x 10 inches | People’s Choice Award in Sculpture

Sally Vannoy’s breath-taking oil, The Wonder of It All was purchased for $22,900 in yet another indication of appreciation for realism in wildlife art. The picture shows a ledge from which a mountain goat and kid survey surrounding peaks and forested valley below treeline. The painting received the Artistic Excellence Award.

Gunnar Tryggmo, A King Size Bed | Watercolor on Paper | 12.5 x 37.5 inches | Red Smith Award

Other honors included the Red Smith Award given to Gunnar Tryggmo for A King Size Bed, a delightful watercolor on paper of a moose in a day bed of brush and grasses. Madison Webb, director of Western Visions, said the 2025 event brought humor, mastery, and charm in artworks and its hallmark camaraderie among artists, museum visitors, collectors, and art admirers. “It was a wonderful occasion – the mixing of wonderful art with wonderful people,” she said.

Eiteljorg Quest for the West Art Show and Sale

September 5-6
Total: $1.3 million+

Quest for the West, the annual show and sale tied to the Eiteljorg Museum in Indianapolis, hit a record $1.3 million in art sales as the event marked its 20th anniversary.

Two signature weekend sales saw the bulk of proceeds, with a format that featured fixed prices and luck-of-the-draw buyers. Hundreds gathered to ogle the creations of 48 Western artists, with more than 113 artworks snapped up at the event’s centerpiece sale on September 6 and 42 at the miniature sale the day before.

Sean Michael Chavez, Rebeldes Look (Noches) | Oil on Canvas | 40 x 30 inches | Harrison Eiteljorg Purchase Award

A banquet on Sept. 6 saw a nocturne by Sean Michael Chavez, Rebeldes Look (Noches) receive the Harrison Eiteljorg Purchase Award. The large-scale painting added to the museum’s collections depicts a crouching figure in three-quarters profile, gun at the ready as both dismounted rider and his horse eye an approaching threat. Chavez shows talented use of geometric forms and tonal values.

Krystii Melaine, Silent Sentinel | Oil on Linen | 12 x 12 inches | Miniature Art Show Patrons’ Choice Award

Artist of Distinction Award went to Tim Cherry for the bronze Danger from Above and other works. The tabletop piece, with an edition size of 18, combines the powerful pairing of an outsize raptor in flight with a mouse, snugly curled up in his burrow. below. Cherry has skillfully defied expectations by expressing the power and dignity of nature simultaneously through creatures great and small.

Dave Santillanes, Treasure | Oil | 12 x 18 inches | Henry Farny Award for Best Painting

Cyrus Dallin Best Sculpture Award went to Pati Stajcar for her wood carving of a snail, Slow Roll. Both the subject and the title speak of the large draw of a small creature.

Dave Santillanes garnered two honors, the Henry Farny Award for Best Painting (Treasure) and the Victor Higgins Award of Distinction (best overall body of work presented at the show). Treasure is an apt name for a cloud-swept coastal scene that depicts a child bending to reach a found treasure on the beach.

Tim Cherry, Danger from Above | Bronze and Steel | 11 x 27 x 5 inches | Artist of Distinction Award

Other artworks that gained formal recognition are: David Griffin, The Art of Wandering, Artists’ Choice Award; P.A. Nisbet, Land of Shadows, Patrons’ Choice Award; Krystii Melaine, Silent Sentinel, Miniature Art Show Patrons’ Choice Award.

Laura Zuckerman is a freelance writer whose work has appeared in magazines such as Cowboys & Indians and Country Living.