From the Brink: The L.D. ‘Brink’ Brinkman Collection
Bonhams offers bidders impressive works from the L.D. ‘Brink’ Brinkman Collection February 8 in Los Angeles.
Masterpieces from one of the most important private Western art collections in the country will hit the auction block in Los Angeles on February 8, when Bonhams will be giving bidders a chance to own pieces from collector L.D. “Brink” Brinkman.
The larger-than-life Texan, who supported Western art for much of his life, was an entrepreneur and philanthropist out of Kerrville, Texas. He had a number of successful ventures including in flooring distribution, a chain of pizza restaurants, breeding Brangus cattle and other businesses. He died in 2015. Brinkman’s collection is notable for both the historic works and artwork from contemporary Western painters, including many artists who he bought from directly, artists such as Howard Terpning, Joe Beeler and Olaf Wieghorst, all of whom he counted as friends.
“We’re just overwhelmed at the quality and the size of the collection. In total we will likely have roughly 400 items, which makes this a massive undertaking for a single-owner sale,” says Scot Levitt, director of fine arts at Bonhams in Los Angeles and San Francisco. “What really comes out is the story of the collector. He was a classic Texas gentleman— with his cowboy hat and cowboy boots and cigar—and very generous. He became very fond of the Taos Founders, as well as [Frederic] Remington and [Charles M.] Russell, and later the Cowboy Artists of America.” A highlight of the sale includes E. Martin Hennings’ The Taos Twins, featuring a pair of mustachioed men next to a covered wagon and two mules. The work, executed around 1924, features the same two figures in Henning’s The Twins,
which is on permanent display at the Eiteljorg Museum in Indianapolis. According to Robert Rankin White’s 1978 book
The Lithographs and Etchings of E. Martin Hennings, the men rode through Taos in 1923. “In that year two brothers, 65 years old and twins, rode through Taos on a horse-drawn wagon,” White wrote. “Hennings recognized the pictorial possibilities which these two gentlemen offered and hired them to pose for him for six weeks. From this association came several paintings.” The work, acquired by Brinkman in 1983 for $240,000, is estimated at $500,000 to $700,000.
A major Terpning, Coffee Coolers Meet the Hostiles,
will also be available. The work was purchased from the
Western Heritage Sale in Plano, Texas, in 1982, the year it was painted. It is estimated at $600,000 to $800,000, which could put the work within Terpning’s top 10 auction records—his top lot sold for $1.9 million in 2012. In a note on the back of the painting, Terpning helps explain the title of the piece: “The ‘Coffee Coolers’ was a name that the hostile Sioux from the north gave to their tribesmen who chose to live around the white man agency and seek their favor and presents, and scout for them. In the month of yellowing grass,
some coffee coolers rode up to the north and met some of the hostile Sioux on the rolling plains and smoked the pipe and counciled [sic] with them and tried to convince them to bring their band down to the agency and live in peace. Two hostile Indians on the right are riding cavalry horses.”
Later, in an undated letter to Brinkman, Terpning elaborated on the subject of the work and added to his description. “Indians who would not live on reservations but resisted confinement were called hostiles. They in turn called the Indians who lived on reservations and around the white man ‘coffee coolers’ because they liked the white man’s coffee & sugar and all the warm blankets and other goods that the white man passed out. As long as they stayed on the reservation, they were called ‘good’ Indians,” the artist wrote. “From time to time they would be sent out to hostile territory to try and talk to the resisting people into coming back to the reservation. Many ranks remained independent until forced onto reservations at gunpoint. This scene shows some ‘good’ Indians approaching some hostile and offering the pipe so they may sit down and smoke and perhaps be induced to return to the reservation with them.”
Another highlight in the February sale is Albert Bierstadt’s Mount St. Helens, Columbia River, Oregon, estimated at $500,000 to $700,000. The work is noteworthy because the view of Mount St. Helens is no longer possible—the volcano erupted in 1980, forever altering the shape of the mountain. Strangely enough, Brinkman likely purchased the work in a Sotheby’s sale on April 25, 1980, a month shy of the May 18 eruption.
Bidders will also be treated to Eanger Irving Couse’s 1934 oil Pictographs, estimated at $120,000 to $160,000. The work will be included in a forthcoming catalogue raisonné of the artist’s work written by Couse’s granddaughter, Virginia Couse Leavitt.
“In his 1934 painting titled Pictographs Couse depicts his model Jerry Mirabal seated cross legged at the base of a rock cliff. Numerous ancient images appear on the rock surface behind him. Jerry is shown chiseling a new image into the surface and he appears much like one of the petroglyphs himself. In describing this subject Couse wrote, ‘The Rocky Mountain region abounds in pictographs cut into the rocks by the ancient Indians representing figures of men & animals & symbols of natural phenomenon. Having no written language the Indians depicted their deeds & legends by pictorial representation on skin or the rocks .... ’” Couse Leavitt writes in an essay. “Couse had painted numerous pictograph subjects earlier. This 1934 painting, however, differs dramatically from previous paintings due to its elongated format. It was painted specifically for the American Lithographic Co. (ALCO) to use on their calendar. In 1914 ALCO began publishing Couse paintings for the Santa Fe Railway calendars, but in 1916 it also began using Couse paintings on its own calendar series… Pictographs, painted in 1934, is an outstanding example.” Other works include Gerard Curtis Delano’s Menominee Hunter, an exceptional work of a Native American figure in a canoe with a dog, estimated at $150,000 to $250,000; William Herbert “Buck” Dunton’s dramatic campfire scene Camp of Bear Hunters, estimated at $60,000 to $80,000; John Clymer’s Aspen Trail, expected to sell for $100,000 to $150,000; and Joe Beeler’s action-filled Saluting the Comanchero Trade, estimated at $40,000 to $60,000. Beeler was not only a friend of the collector, he was his father-in-law after Brinkman married Tracy Beeler, his fifth of seven wives.
Robert Lougheed’s 1970 oil Scattering the Bell Riders will be available with an estimate of $100,000 to $150,000. If it sells almost anywhere within those estimates it will break a artist auction record of $100,800. In Don Hedgpeth’s book on Lougheed, Follow the Sun, the artist comments on the painting: “It is a powerful image—a wagon boss and 10 cowboys [on] horseback on a high mesa in the early morning magic of a New Mexico sunrise. You can feel the chill in the air and hear the cold whisper of wind in the surrounding sage. Saddles creek and spur
rowels rattle and ring to the rhythm of the stomp and snort of fresh horses eager to be away to the work they were born for.”
In addition to the Couse and Dunton images, Taos and the Taos Society of Artists will be represented by Oscar E. Berninghaus’ San Antonio Chapel, Taos, estimated at $120,000 to $160,000. “In San Antonio Chapel, Taos, Berninghaus captures the distinct atmosphere of the village during the winter through his adept impressionistic technique,” writes S.H. Mcgarry in the book Honoring the Western Tradition: The L.D. “Brink” Brinkman Collection. “…Berninghaus found a wealth of subjects and artistic inspiration in Taos. San Antonio Chapel, Taos exhibits the artist’s keen ability to convey the impression he felt of this unique place during a cold, wintry moment. The present work serves as a prime example of the artist’s belief that, ‘The painter must first see his picture as paint—as color—as form—and not as a landscape or figure. He must see with an inner eye, then paint with feeling, not with seeing.’”
In addition to Western paintings and bronzes, the auction will also feature Native American objects and other items.
Levitt says the collection, and also the corporate mansion in Texas some of it comes out of, says a lot about Brinkman, but also about Texans. “It really reflects how proud Texans are of where they live. Kerrville is basically San Antonio Hill Country—it has a very distinct look. They are a proud people there, cattle people. They have their farms and ranches and they truly give you a sense of the West,” Levitt says. “And Brinkman was the same way. When you look at his art you see lots of cowboys, some Indians, a lot of ranchers, cowpokes, people out on the range…they give you a feeling of a bygone era. There is a nostalgia there for the time of the cowboy.”