Copley Fine Art Auctions To Offer Over 800 Paintings, Prints, and Decoys July 22 and 23 Copley Fine Art Auctions announces its 2010 Sporting Sale featuring American, sporting, and western paintings, works on paper, antique decoys, flyrods, reels, and more July 22 and 23 in Plymouth, MA.
News-Antique.com - Jun 25,2010 - Copley Fine Art Auctions will conduct an auction of sporting art, decoys, fishing collectibles and other related folk art on July 22nd and 23rd in Plymouth, Massachusetts. Last year’s auction grossed over $4.1 million in sales, and the 2010 sale aims to build on Copley’s fine tradition of achievement. Headlining the sale is a remarkable collection of five oil paintings by Carl Rungius put together by New England sportsman and business magnate H. Wendell Endicott. These paintings, including Humpback Grizzly ($300/500,000) and "Near Summit Lake, British Columbia" ($200/400,000), hung on the walls of his Gun Room Library at the Endicott House, now part of MIT, in Dedham, Mass. for over sixty years.
The sale will also feature the sporting art collection of the late Thomas W. Sheppard, which is one of the most important compilations of sporting art to come to the market in recent years. It is headlined by an outstanding Ogden M. Pleissner watercolor, "Early Morning" ($50/70,000), and a signature A. Lassell Ripley salmon fishing watercolor of the Miramichi River titled "The Rock in the River" ($40/60,000). The Sheppard Collection is rounded out by an excellent selection of works by contemporary sporting artists such as Brett J. Smith, including his oil painting "Duck Storm" ($8/12,000) and top-notch works from Thomas Aquinas Daly, Luke Frazier, Chet Reneson, Arthur Shilstone, and John Swan.
The July sale includes a notable collection of bird art by a number of leading British artists. Nineteen original watercolors by Archibald Thorburn will be offered, a number of which were created as illustrations for Lord Lilford’s 1897 publication "Coloured Figures of the Birds of the British Islands" will be offered ($3/6,000; $10/20,000). Other British artists are well represented, with three works by Sir Peter Scott available, in addition to a watercolor of godwits by C.F. Tunnicliffe ($8/12,000), and signature works by George E. Lodge, William Hollywood, and Colin W. Burns.
Important works from the Bowman Gray collection include an oil painting by N.C. Wyeth of the artist’s barn ($20/40,000) as well as four original works by Roland Clark, including "Dawn" ($10/20,000), a vibrant original oil that was made into a print by The Derrydale Press in 1939.
Also showcased is a fine selection of paintings by American Impressionist Frank W. Benson, including a rare watercolor of Wood Ducks ($60/90,000), which was chosen as the frontispiece for William Brewster’s book "Concord River." On offer will be the 1923 watercolor "Flying Eddy" ($60/90,000) which formerly belonged to Edward C. Storrow, a Boston cotton merchant who lent a number of his Benson watercolors to Harvard’s Fogg Museum in 1926 and exhibited "Flying Eddy" at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston in 1938. Also set to cross the block is Two Duck Hunters ($60/90,000), comparable to the original watercolor of the famous "Old Tom." Additionally, the frontispiece for Faith Andrews Bedford’s book "The Sporting Art of Frank Benson," titled "The Punter" ($60/90,000), will be up for sale. A number of etchings round out the offering of Benson works, including each
