A Teco Vase-Turned-Lamp, a Chicago Modernist’s Painting Fetch Top Prices at Treadway-Toomey Auction What light through yonder Teco breaks? A handsome Teco vase designed by W.B. Mundie and fashioned into a striking lamp showcased a Prairie-style stained glass shade and sold for $28,800.
$1,500-$2,000). In its original dark finish, the single-door cabinet was flanked by leaded glass panels, which were highlighted with a striking stylized floral design in shades of blue.
A Navajo rug with a colorful, stylized diamond pattern sold for $8,400 (est. $500-$1,000).
“Arrangement #8,” an oil on canvas by Medard P. Klein, brought the second highest price of $14,400 ($15,000-$20,000) in the paintings session. The circa 1938 piece was an important early painting by this American artist who was born in 1905. Klein’s work, similar to that of Wassily Kandinsky, was greatly influenced by auditory and symphonic experiences. Klein maintained a vast collection of classical music recordings in his studio and said his paintings sought “an emotional response not greatly different from that evoked by the abstractions of music.” Klein may have been describing a condition called “synthesthesia” in which two or more of a person’s senses are blended together. The phenomenon is more common in creative people than the general population, according to Vilayanur S. Ramachandran, Ph.D., and Edward M. Hubbard, Ph.D., co-authors of “Hearing Colors, Tasting Shapes,” an article published in SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN MIND in October 2005. Some scientists believe it is a form of cross-wiring in the brain that could also explain some of the creativity of painters, poets and writers, as well as the development of abstract thought and metaphor.
(http://www.sciammind.com/article.cfm?articleID=0005FC53-DCE2-1329-9CE283414B7F0000&ref=sciam)
“Landscape,” an oil on canvas circa 1960 by Richard Mayhew, a substantial work by a most influential African-American painter with an ethereal style, sold for $12,000 (est. $10,000-$15,000). Born in 1924, Mayhew studied at the Brooklyn Museum School, Pratt Institute and the Art Students League. In describing his work, he said: “Many of my so-called landscapes are very abstract because they are free-form. I am involved with the spiritual feeling of space. Just to work with figures would be very limiting because that would identify a particular place or situation. The paintings look like landscapes, but that is not necessarily my preoccupation in painting.”
“Peasant Working in a Field,” an oil on canvas painted circa 1940 by David Burliak (1882-1967), brought $11,400 (est. $7,000-$9,000). A Russian-American artist who studied at the Kazan School of Fine Arts, as well as in Moscow, Munich, and in Paris, at the Academie des Beaux-Arts, he was an important exponent of Russian modernism. Considered radical, he was expelled from the Moscow Institute in 1911 for his philosophy. In 1922 he left Russia for the U.S. His diverse style ranged from neo-primitive paintings of peasant life to wildly colorful, cubo-futurist compositions. His work, which confronted industrialization with human creativity, remained personally based and optimistic throughout his lifetime.
“Connecticut Landscape,” an oil on board circa 1910 by Frank A. Bicknell (1866-1943), sold for $10,200 (est. $3,000-$5,000). Beginning in 1919, this American artist taught for six years at the College of Fine Arts at the Carnegie Institute of Technology in Pittsburgh.
“Indiana Dunes,” an oil on canvas circa 1920 by Frank V. Dudley, brought $11,400 (est. $5,000-$7,000). He studied at the Art Institute
