Chicago - The September fine art auctions at Leslie Hindman Auctioneers begin with an American and European Art auction September 27, followed by Post War and Contemporary Art and Fine Prints auctions on September 28. Leading the American and European Art auction are paintings by important American artists, including Winslow Homer’s 1867 Coming Through the Rye. It will be offered from a private collection with a $400,000 – 600,000 presale estimate. The painting is one of two that are titled Coming Through the Rye, both completed by Winslow Homer in France in 1867. The version being offered by Leslie Hindman Auctioneers is the more finished of the two and is thus more likely the one shown in early exhibitions, including a reception held at the Tenth Street Studio Building on March 27, 1873. The painting sold a few months later at an auction held at the Somerville Art Gallery that year. The other version is now in the permanent collection at the Figge Art Museum in Davenport, Iowa.
The Winslow Homer title “Coming Through the Rye” is drawn from a poem by Robert Burns, describing a woman who is captured by a lover while coming through a field of rye. But while Burns’ poem is somewhat bawdy, Homer’s woman holds her hands in a defensive posture, as if protecting her virginity, and her eyes are downcast, as if avoiding social contact. Nonetheless, the title makes explicit a romantic undercurrent to the painting, which was surely a large part of its appeal to 19th century viewers.
Offered from the same private collection as the Winslow Homer is a 1903 painting by Childe Hassam titled Nude. It has a presale estimate of $80,000 – 120,000 and will be included in the forthcoming catalogue raisonné of the artist’s work prepared by Kathleen M. Burnside and Stuart P. Feld.
Among other American highlights are John Marshall Gamble’s Spring Morning, 1921, estimated at $70,000 – 90,000, and two paintings by Daniel Ridgway Knight: An Idle Moment, estimated at $50,000 – 70,000, and Captivite, 1874, estimated at $40,000 – 60,000. Also available will be a painting by Elizabeth Jane Gardner Bouguereau, Cornelia and her Jewels, 1870, that has a presale estimate of $30,000 – 50,000. Works by Jean Dufy, John Stobart, Fernando Cueto Amorsolo, Le Pho, Eastman Johnson and Maximilien Luce, among many others, will be offered in the American and European Art auction.
Following the American and European Art auction will be the September 28 Post War and Contemporary Art auction and Fine Prints evening sale. Highlights of the Post War and Contemporary Art auction include a 1988 Fernando Botero bronze, Woman Dancer. It has a presale estimate of $200,000 – 300,000 and will be offered from a private collection. Jean Dubuffet’s Site avec 3 personnages from the artist’s Psycho-sites series will be offered with a presale estimate of $100,000 – 150,000. The sale includes an untitled work by Theodoros Stamos and George Rickey’s 1964 Seven Rotors Five Cylinders, both estimated at $60,000 – 80,000.
The Fine Prints evening auction includes a 1978 Joan Miro, Mambo, with a presale estimate of $30,000 – 50,000, a 1959 Pablo Picasso, Femme Couchée et Homme à la Guitare, estimated at $20,000 – 30,000 and a Henri Matisse, Odalisque au Coffret Rouge, estimated at $20,000 – 30,000. Examples by Andy Warhol include Portraits of the Artists, 1967, ($20,000 – 30,000) and Marilyn Monroe, 1967, ($50,000 – 70,000). The Fine Prints sale includes a number of Wesselmann, Lichtenstein and Miro prints. Other highlights include prints of Barnett Newman, Joan Mitchell, Claes Oldenburg and Bridget Riley.
