Sublime Selections
Grogan & Company’s Fall Auction returns this November with a vast selection of American fine art
More than 175 works of fine art, most of which come from esteemed American artists, will be available at Grogan & Company’s annual Fall Auction, taking place this year on November 17. In addition, the sale will include a range of curated jewelry, silver and decorative arts. Leading the fine art portion is a special section featuring 40 works by artists who all share a common connection to the Maine coastline, titled A Maine Perspective: the Collection of a New England Gentleman.
“I’m looking forward to auctioneering to a room full of our enthusiastic local buyers.we were impressed by the competitive bidding we saw from the standing room only crowd at our Spring Auction,” says Georgina C. winthrop, fine art director at Grogan & Company. “almost all of the top fine art lots in the auction sold to private buyers, most of whom attended the sale in person, and I expect to see a similar turnout for the selection of American fine art works in The Fall Auction. I think the range of works on offer in the sale speaks to the current market trends we are seeing among private buyers.”
Be on the lookout for a grouping of four John Marin watercolors in the upcoming sale, something Winthrop says is particularly exciting from an art historical perspective. “viewing them
in concert with each other wonderfully demonstrates how [Marin] developed as an artist between 1915 to 1945,” she says. One of these paintings, Boat and Gull, 1945, is estimated to sell between $20,000 and $40,000.
Another highlight is The Citadel of Cairo, Evening, an oil by Robert Swain Gifford painted in 1871 (est. $8/12,000).“I’m particularly taken by Robert Swain Gifford’s The Citadel of Cairo. The work is one that I’ve returned to again and again as it has hung in the gallery, each time noticing something new.the deftly painted figures in the foreground, the exact rendering of the architecture and the impressive blending of colors in the evening sky all demonstrate what a talented artist Gifford was.the fact that the painting has been in Gifford’s family since it was painted makes it that much more compelling,” says Winthrop.
Fog Bank—an oil by Wolf Kahn estimated at $50,000 to $70,000— is expected to be another top lot in the November sale. “wolf Kahn’s Fog Bank is utterly sublime. there is such depth to Kahn’s color work, and the longer you look at the painting, the more colors you begin to see.an unending array of pinks, blues, yellows and oranges have been melded together to create a work that viewers are instantly drawn to,” says Winthrop. “interestingly, Kahn worked on this painting from 1997 to 2006, building up these colors over the course of a decade.”
The Fall Auction will be held at noon at Grogan & Company’s auction gallery in historic Beacon Hill.