Jackson Hole Art Auction
Jackson Hole, WY
When an auction top 10 has two works by Carl Rungius, two works by Bob Kuhn and a work by Robert Bateman, it’s safe to say wildlife was the star of the sale, as it was on September 13 and 14 at the annual Jackson Hole Art Auction.
This year’s sale, which realized more than $5.6 million in sales with an 84 percent sellthrough rate, featured the top lot, Rungius’
Alaskan Wilderness, a magnificent work of a moose on top of a bare ridgeline with a terrific view out over the valley below it. The work was estimated at $400,000 to $600,000, and surpassed those numbers when it closed at $642,500. It is now the second-best selling piece by Rungius to come up for auction—his top lot was set in 2006 at $952,000. The other Rungius to perform strongly was Timber (est. $150/250,000), another moose scene, which sold for $105,300.
The Kuhn pieces were The Look Before the Leap (est. $100/200,000) that sold for $180,000 and Cat on the Qui Vive (est. $150/250,000), which sold for $175,500. Bateman’s piece
Elk and Aspen (est. $80/120,000) was another wildlife highlight. It sold for $81,900.
Outside of the wildlife category, Logan Maxwell Hagege’s The Rising Clouds performed very strongly, selling at $187,200, well above its high estimate of $120,000. The piece was the contemporary California painter’s secondbest auction sale, behind a work that sold for $234,000 earlier this year.
Other standouts were William R. Leigh’s
Faithful (est. $200/300,000), which sold for $175,500, and Charles M. Russell’s Christmasthemed The Three Wise Men, which sold for $169,650, just below its $200,000 low estimate.
Two works that performed especially strong were Olaf Wieghorst’s The Last March, which sold for $93,600, well above its $75,000 high estimate, and James Bama’s Trout Creek Ranch, which soared past its high estimate of $50,000, selling for $81,900.
Auction partner Roxanne Hofmann Mowery
says that attendance and participation in this year’s sale was high, and shows promising signs to continue that trend. “Attendance continues to grow as the auction is a signature of the Jackson Hole Fine Arts Festival and the two-day event is a definitive destination auction,” she says. “This year we added our own Jackson Hole Art Auction app. With this clients could bid remotely, and because of this, we saw a surge of new buyers that had not previously bid and bought at the auction. Very exciting!”