Sotheby’s May 18 sale of American Art will include:
- John Singer Sargent’s striking Poppies (estimate $4–6 million) was painted while Sargent was at work on Carnation Lily, Lily, Rose, one of his most important works now in the collection of the Tate Britain. In the wake of the scandal caused by his daring portrait of Madame X, Sargent departed for England from Paris. He sustained a head injury while swimming on a boat trip along the Thames, and a friend brought him to Broadway, a nearby village in the English Cotswolds, to recuperate. He began working on Carnation Lily, Lily, Rose almost immediately, painting with a newfound freedom to portray anything that inspired him. The present work is likely the only surviving depiction of the splendid poppies he observed in a garden there, and was most recently included in the museum exhibition Painting the Modern Garden: Monet to Matisse, co-organized by the Royal Academy of Arts and the Cleveland Museum of Art.
- Sargent’s Staircase in Capri (estimate $1.8–2.5 million), inspired by the artist’s travels to the Mediterranean island in the summer of 1878. The painting was first owned by Auguste Hirsch, a French artist with whom Sargent shared a studio in Paris in the late 1870s. It was later acquired by Pamela Harriman, who served as the United States Ambassador to France in the mid-1990s.
- Norman Rockwell’s remarkable 1949 Post cover Road Block (estimate $4–6 million): demonstrates the artist’s distinctive sense of humor and unparalleled gift for storytelling–two of the qualities that have incited comparisons between Rockwell’s work and filmmaking. Regarding his 1949 painting, Norman Rockwell bemoaned: “Why, oh, why do I paint such involved and complicated pictures?”
- Rockwell’s Hobo and Dog (estimate $1.5–2.5 million), sold by The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Appearing on the cover of The Post on October 18, 1924, it features one of Rockwell’s favorite models of the period: James K. Van Brunt.
- Andrew Wyeth, The Prussian (estimate $2.5–3.5 million) is one of the best works in a series of images that depict the now famous Helga Testorf.
- Thomas Wilmer Dewing, The White Birch (estimate $2–3 million) is a sumptuous landscape that he painted while staying in the artists’ colony of Cornish, New Hampshire. It comes to auction in an original frame designed by Stanford White, also boasts an impressive exhibition history, having been shown extensively across the United States, Russia and Japan.
- A Milton Avery being offered by the Art Institute of Chicago. Pink Cock (estimate $500,000–700,000), was completed in 1943, as the artist developed what is now considered his mature aesthetic. Lanky Nude (estimate $150,000–250,000), painted in 1950, represents Avery’s thoroughly modern interpretation of the traditional theme of the reclining nude. Both paintings showcase the unique manner in which Avery transforms a representational subject into an evocative, semi-abstracted arrangement of shape and color.
- Georgia O’Keeffe’s 1955 painting, Black Patio Door–Small, the only work from this important series still in private hands (estimate $500,000–700,000).