LOS ANGELES, CA.- The first California & Western Paintings and Sculpture auction this year will highlight works depicting California's glorious landscape from mountain peaks to the justly famous coast. Held in Bonhams Los Angeles and simulcast in San Francisco's sale room on April 8th, the popularity of this series of auctions conducted every year continues its rise as a regional collecting category with an increasingly national audience.

Bonhams is thrilled to offer another significant work by impressionist Plein Air painter, Granville Redmond. "Annandale Wildflowers" (est. $250,000-350,000) is a spectacular example of Redmond's quintessential style, drawing on the contours and colors of the California landscape. In this piece, he illuminates the scene with pointillist dabs of flowers and washes of shadows. The muted tones in the distance where the mountains touch the sky at the horizon blur the boundaries of earth and atmosphere. Art critics of his day likened his style to that of Claude Monet and Camille Pissarro. Between 1910 and 1917, Redmond became well known for painting sweeping Californian terrains covered with vibrant wildflowers, especially California's state flower, the golden poppy.

Bonhams is privileged to offer another prominent work by one of California's premier early impressionists E. Charlton Fortune. Her work entitled "Hall of Flowers" (est. $250,000-350,000) was directly inspired by the creative activity surrounding the opening of the Panama-Pacific International Exposition in 1915, and Fortune painted this vivid masterwork at the pinnacle of her artistic career. The spontaneous application of brilliant red, magenta and pink color creates the impression of sunny vibrant flowers, which directly draws the viewer's attention to the lady with a parasol who is resting on the stone ledge and enjoying the idyllic day. The observer's eye then continues to be led up to the grand entrance of the spectacular architecture created specifically for the exposition.

A notable section of the sale will feature 41 works from the Collection of Alexandra and Sidney Sheldon. Bidders will have a unique opportunity to claim their next Granville Redmond, Percy Gray, William Wendt, Maurice Braun, Edgar Payne, Joseph Kleitsch or Guy Rose from this distinguished collection. Guy Rose's work, "Lifting Fog, Carmel Dunes, 1920" (est. $150,000-250,000) is arguably the highlight of the Sheldon works on offer. In this work Rose captures the tonal subtleties of the classic foggy Carmel coastline. His first visit to Carmel was the summer of 1918, and he was completely delighted by the landscape. Carmel then became one of the focal points of his mature years as a painter. He and his wife, Ethel Rose, spent the next three summers there whereupon Rose produced many of his best-known works. His association with the French master Claude Monet is also well documented, and one can detect many similarities in style and approach between the two artists.

Exquisitely executed works of notable provenance are also on offer, such as William Frederick Ritschel's "Vikings in the Glow of the Midnight Sun" (est. $70,000-100,000) and John Marshall Gamble's "Trail's End, 1929" (est. $20,000-30,000).

Fine Art Director at Bonhams, Aaron Bastian exclaims, "The department is thrilled to have such a breadth of material from the canon of California and Western painters with exquisite examples across a broad spectrum of estimates. Collectors from the novice to the seasoned will certainly find something to please the eye."

Previews will be on March 28 to 30 in San Francisco as well as April 4 to 7 in Los Angeles, and the auction takes place on April 8.