Folk art by Charles Dellschau hits $8,050 at Slotin sale A mixed media work by Charles A. A. Dellschau (1830-1923), sold for $8,050 at a folk art sale held February 24 by Slotin Auction in Buford, Ga. Nearly 950 lots changed hands.
News-Antique.com - Nov 30,-0001 - MIXED MEDIA FOLK ART PIECE BY CHARLES DELLSCHAU SELLS FOR
$8,050 AT SLOTIN AUCTION SALE HELD FEBRUARY 24th in BUFORD, GA.
(Buford, Ga.) - A mixed media piece by Charles A. A. Dellschau (1830-1923), sold for $8,050 at a folk art sale held February 24 by Slotin Auction. The untitled work was dated – June 15, 1920 – although the significance of that is unclear. It could be the date Dellschau, a Houston-born artist, completed the piece. Prices quoted include a 15% buyer's premium.
The sale was modest by Slotin Auction standards. Not quite 950 lots changed hands, grossing a little less than $425,000. “We had some interesting and quirky items, all of them folk art and pottery,” said Amy Slotin who, with her husband, Steve, own and operate Slotin Auction. “We've had bigger auctions, especially ones featuring self-taught masterpieces, but this was a good sale overall.”
The sale attracted around 150 in-house registered bidders (“a little light for us,” Amy said). In addition, there were several hundred absentee and phone bidders, plus an active Internet bidding component. “We had 850 registered online bidders,” Ms. Slotin said, “and more than 78,000 visitors to the website.” Sell-through, via LiveAuctioneers.com, comprised 274 buyers, grossing over $90,000.
Two elements made this auction intriguing. One was the lifetime collection of Howard Campbell, who today lives in the mountains of North Carolina and would have made it to the sale were it not for a spider bite. “I was always a collector,” Mr. Campbell said. “Once as a kid on our chicken farm in northwest Arkansas, I dragged a horse skeleton out of the woods and tried to reassemble it.”
The sale also featured items that were sold to benefit the American Folk Art Museum, and not just in part -- 100% of the total purchase price of each designated lot (including the 15% buyer's premium) went to supporting the institution's upcoming exhibitions and educational programming. “It was a huge success,” Ms. Slotin declared. “We raised about $75,000 for this very valuable museum.”
The Dellschau piece was one such benefit lot. Others included:
An untitled, undated soot-and-spit (yes, you read correctly) work on paper by James Castle (1900-1977) realized $5,750. Mr. Castle was from Garden Valley, Idaho, and preferred to work in this odd and unusual medium. Regardless, his compelling drawings have been shown around the country. The piece sold at the Slotin sale was donated to the AFAM courtesy of The James Castle Collection.
An acrylic-on-wood by the Brooklyn-born artist Aaron Birnbaum (1895-1998), titled “Fresh Bagels” (even though Mr. Birnbaum, 100 years old at the time, spelled it “Frash”) went for $4,830. “This piece, done in 1996, was the sweetheart of the sale,” Ms. Slotin remarked. “We used it as the back cover art for our catalog. And it received the second highest number of hits on eBay.”
Also, an oil-on-canvas measuring 57” x 32” by Robert St Brice, done in Haiti around 1956 and titled “Family,” garnered a top bid of $5,865; a
