TransitionsRichard J. Schwartz has been elected chair of the National Museum of American Art Commission, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC, effective January 1, 1997. The commission was established in 1921 as an advisory board for the museum.TidbitsThe California Art Club has sent out a call for artists to help save historic homes in Pasadena, South Pasadena and Los Angeles, CA. Artists are being asked to set up their easels and paint April 7-19 in neighborhoods that lie in the path of a proposed eight-lane freeway, thereby raising awareness of the need to save homes and trees in some of the oldest areas of Southern California. Call 818.583.9009 or 818.441.7785 for more information.Robert Berdahl, president of the University of Texas at Austin, in February announced three major donations totaling $27 million for the construction of a new art museum on the university’s campus. The Jack S. Blanton Museum of Art will allow the university’s collections of 20th-century American art, contemporary Latin American art and prints and drawings to be exhibited under one roof for the first time.
Cookie, a 9-foot-tall bronze by Eric Kaposta, was dedicated in February at the Houston Livestock Show & Rodeo, TX. The sculpture, which pays tribute to camp cooks, is sited outside the HLS&R offices at the Astrohall.The Mountain Oyster Club Art Show in Tucson, AZ, which ran through January, sold 173 artworks for a total of $191,771. Robert “Shoofly” Shufelt won the Olaf Wieghorst Memorial Award for best of show.The Leanin’ Tree Museum of Western Art, Boulder, CO, has acquired two new bronze sculptures: Diamonds & Denim, a cowgirl by California artist and Cowboy Artists of America member Mehl Lawson, and A Glance to the Past by Dan Garrett of Cheyenne, WY.Show ResultsAmerican & California Paintings and Sculpture, Butterfield & ButterfieldLos Angeles/San Francisco, CA, Dec. 1996Overall sales: $2,120,980Top lots:Frederic Remington, Bringing in a Deserter (The Deserter Caught), oil, 18 x 28, $112,500Charles Christian Nahl, Joaquin Murieta: The Vaquero, oil, 18 x 24, $101,500Leon Gaspard, Flight From Vitebsk, oil, 21 x 21, $85,000Anna Mary Robertson “Grandma” Moses, The Old Oaken Bucket, oil, 24 x 32, $68,500Edgar Payne, Riders in Canyon de Chelley, oil, 28 x 34, $43,125Grace Carpenter Hudson, Garland Mitchell, oil, 20 x 16, $34,500Albert Herter, Resting Red-Haired Beauty, oil, 30 x 40, $28,750George Kennedy Brandiff, Studio, Laguna Beach, oil, 24 x 28, $26,450Henry Percy Gray, Monterey Sand Dunes, watercolor, 16 x 21, $25,875Maynard Dixon, Zabriskie Point, Death Valley, Dec. 1939, oil, 10 x 14, $21,850Native American, Pre-Columbian, African, Oceanic & Other Tribal Works of Art, Butterfield & Butterfield San Francisco, CA, Dec. 1996Overall sales: $514,023
Top lots:Scees Bryant, Washo “Degikup” Basket, h83/4, $79,500Acoma Polychrome Parrot Jar, h10, $10,925Commanche Man’s Shirt, $12,650Navajo Transitional Chief’s Blanket, 58 x 79, $6,900
Featured in April 1997
The post MIlestones April 1997 appeared first on Southwest Art Magazine.