SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA.-Old Master, Modern and Contemporary Prints and Fine Photographs are to be offered Monday, April 19, 2004 at Bonhams & Butterfields in San Francisco featuring property from estates and private collections from edgy and provocative photographs to rare etchings and European, American and Latin American prints by blue chip artists.
Previews open in San Francisco today continuing through the weekend, the illustrated auction catalog is online for review and purchase at www.bonhams.com/us. Department director Judith Eurich said, "The Spring sale offers a diverse selection of works at various price points for all levels of collectors - the condition of many of the lots is very good with much in pristine condition."
The Spring auction opens with selections of fine American prints including Gustave Baumann landscape woodcuts from the early 20th century such as Pine and Aspen, 1920, signed, dated and titled with the artist’s hand-in-heart inkstamp (est. $4/6,000). Four circa 1830s Native American images after Karl Bodmer are offered from the Brentwood, California estate of J. Watson Webb and from various owners comes a large collection of lithographs by Benton Murdoch Spruance. Spruance’s dream-like imagery, printed in the 1930s, features elongated human forms and several sports-related prints valued between $600 and $1,500. A complete Beatrice Wood portfolio Bed Stories, 1986, comprises 22 signed, hand-painted etchings in their original red box, estimated at $5,000 to $7,000. Also offered within this section of the sale are works by Whistler, Joseph Henry Sharp, Currier & Ives, and natural history images after John James Audubon.
Etchings of flora and fauna continue within the sale’s Old Master section including a series of Mark Catesby works which documented species found in Carolina, Florida and the Bahama Islands, completed between 1731 and 1743. Pairs of hand-colored lithographs by John Gould & H.C. Richter feature birds of Great Britain. The section includes Rembrandt and Piranesi prints such as Rembrandt’s The Presentation in the Temple, 1640, estimated at $1,500 to $2,000.
A vibrant Latin American print section features Rufino Tamayo lithographs and mixographs such as Hombre con Baston printed in Barcelona in 1980 (est. $4/5,000), and Sandias con Manzana, 1985 (est. $6/8,000), both printed on handmade paper, signed, dated and numbered. Several Francisco Zúñiga prints with estimates between $1,200 and $2,000 are to be offered as well as the complete portfolio Siqueiros, the 1969 David Alfaro Siqueiros grouping of ten prints, estimated at $3,500 to $4,500.
European prints feature property from several private California collections with Chagall’s The Red Circle, 1966, expected to bring as much as $25,000 and the complete portfolio by Salvador Dalí Imaginations and Objects of the Future, 1975-76, comprising ten drypoint etchings combined with lithography, silkscreen and collage, printed on Japanese paper and offered in their original wooden box (est. $6/8,000). A nice selection of Matisse prints features Grande Liseuse, 1923, numbered 6/12 (est. $10/15,000). A dozen Joan Miró lots feature works as early as 1959 and as recent as 1977, the year in which Joan Miró Lithographe III was published, including the complete suite of eight lithographs printed in Paris (est. $15/20,000). Picassso prints include the soft-ground etching Fumeur, 1964 (est. $5/7,000), and terre de faience pitchers, dishes and wall plaques from a Midwest collection and other consignors. An interesting lot is a Pablo Picasso 23 carat gold medallion Trefle (Clover), 1973, with the artist’s inscribed signature, numbered 8/20, stamped by the goldsmith Pierre Hugo and accompanied by a letter of authentication (est. $6/8,000).
The Contemporary print section features art by Jonathan Borosky with his collage and silkscreen Hammering Man, 1990, at $10,000 to $12,000. Richard Diebenkorn, Alexander Calder and Sam Francis prints are to be offered as is Richard Estes’ photorealistic silkscreen Holland Hotel, 1984, signed in gold ink and numbered 34/100 (est. $10/15,000). Included are Haring and Hockney prints, Lichtenstein lithographs and the original package of Roy Lichtenstein’s Paper Plates, a set of ten silkscreened paper plates published by Bert Stern and including the artist’s stamp (est. $1,200/1,800). Seven Andy Warhol lots include Jacqueline Kennedy II, 1966, the auction catalog’s cover illustration, estimated at $7,000 to $9,000. Bidders will be expected to pay $2,000 to $3,000 each for two lots comprising William Wegman’s Royal Flush series. The complete sets of Diamonds and Spades, 1998, each feature five photolithograpghs of the artist’s costumed Weimeraners, each signed and numbered 37/40.
Fine Photographs are to be offered in the afternoon on April 19 featuring edgy images from the Mims Collection, an assemblage of photographs amassed within the last decade by a gentleman who collected "images of subjects I’d thought about but wouldn’t be likely to shoot myself -- striking images that both attract your gaze and inspire you to turn away." These lots include several Jock Sturges gelatin silver prints, Robert Maplethorpe’s Self-Portrait from the 1978 X Portfolio (est. $3/4,000), Sarah Moon’s and Joel-Peter Witkin’s unique perspectives and the provocative Andres Serrano Budapest (Prostitute and Client), 1994, a cibachrome print signed, numbered and estimated at $5,000 to $7,000. From the Mims Collection, but less likely to upset the FCC are: a print by Andre Kertész, The Fork, Paris, 1928/later (est. $5/7,000), a pair of Cindy Sherman 1980’s images and the striking dye-destruction print Fox Games, 1989, by Sandy Skoglund (est. $12/18,000).
An important highlight of the section is Professor Rudolf Koppitz’s Bewegundsstudie (Movement Study), 1926, a brown-toned bromoil print on parchment-like paper signed and stamped. Koppitz was one of the most innovative of European photographers in the early 20th century, this photograph is expected to bring $40,000 to $60,000. The photographs section includes works by Manuel Alvarez Bravo, Ansel Adams, Paul Caponigro and Diane Arbus; romantic European scenes through the lenses of Edouard Boubat, Cartier-Bresson and others; and a wonderful assortment of nudes including Clifford Baker males and females shot by Imogene Cunningham, Francesco Scavullo and Lucien Clergue, among others. Two volumes (16 &17) of small photogravures from The North American Indian, 1905-1925, by Edward S. Curtis are numbered 112 of 272 and expected to bring as much as $19,000.
Portraiture includes celebrities such as Whoopi Goldberg immersed in a bathtub of milk by Annie Leibovitz (est. $3/5,000) as well as Leibovitz shots of the new California ’Governator’ on horseback and Steve Martin in a painted suit posing in Beverly Hills in 1981 (est. $4/6,000). Yousuf Karsh images of Churchill and George Bernard Shaw, Albert Einstein by Philippe Halsman and Greta Garbo by Arnold Genthe will hang during preview alongside portraits of Frida Kahlo by Fritz Henle, Dalí by Marc Lacroix and Fidel Castro by Korda as well as Malcolm X, James Dean and Steve McQueen prints by Roy Schatt (estimates for each portrait between $1,000 and $3,000). Several lots of Brett Weston photos will be offered, including his 15-piece portfolio Baja California (est. $8/12,000) and his father in focus, the Portrait of Edward Weston, 1940, expected to bring $1,000 to $1,500.
