News-Antique.com - Nov 30,-0001 - FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
December 21, 2006
AUCTION GALLERY OF THE PALM BEACHES
Sale December 4, 2006
West Palm Beach, FL
The three previous sales at Auction Gallery of the Palm Beaches in West Palm Beach, FL produced some eye opening surprises, primarily centered around Oriental art and porcelain. The December sale produced some surprises too for owner Brian Kogan but they were not about Oriental art. They were about Western art and a Palm Beach art gallery consignor.
Just prior to the sale over 160 lots were withdrawn after questions arose about the consignor’s right to sell the items. Preferring to stay on the conservative side Kogan withdrew all the lots related to the consignor until the questions can be resolved. The sale still featured a healthy inventory with over 300 lots on the bill of fare from a variety of estates in the South Florida area and several items from the Albert Peter Thomas Rochelle estate.
Unusual furniture sold surprisingly well in a sale focused on art. A 19 leg bronzed resin over steel dining table base, 103in by 60in, with an oval glass top, the “Stalagmite” table by American Paul Evans, circa 1974, sold over estimate at $5,175 including the fifteen buyer’s premium. An Evans glass top bronzed coffee table reached $4,025 and a four piece collection of coffee tables and end tables, tiled in polished chrome and brass, sold for $2,750, soaring over its $500/700 estimate.
The real excitement of the sale was reserved for three works by Indian born artist Avanash Chandra (1931-1991). He left India for England at age 25 in 1956 and within ten years the BBC had produced a documentary about him, the V&A bought his work and he had became the first Indian painter to have work displayed at the Tate Gallery, London. He moved his studio to New York in 1967 and by the time of his death in 1991 had held thirty two individual shows. When the Chandra works crossed the blocks five phone operators in the Gallery had their hands full with bidders. The first lot was an abstract composition with figures, watercolor on paper, 21 by 28in, signed “Avanash ’60.” It sold on the phone to a New York bidder for $7,475. The second lot was a Jamaica landscape, oil on unframed canvas, 22¼ by 50in. Inscribed “Avanash Chandra, London, 1986” it sold over estimate on the phone to a different New York bidder for $19,550. The third lot was the charm. It was an abstract composition, oil on canvas, signed and dated “83” on the lower left. The 35¾ by 47½in unframed work went to the New York buyer of the earlier abstract for a sale high of $43,700, well above the $20,000/$25,000 estimate.
Two Salvador Dali works sold solidly within estimate. The “Grasshopper Child” etching, signed in pencil numbered 65/100, circa 1935, sold on an absentee bid of $9,200 and four color lithographs entitled “Visions Surrealiste” in a purple silk folio case. Each litho was signed
