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| Passion Investments: Art |
Native Sons
Elizabeth Harris
11/01/2006
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A small canvas of a Lake George, N.Y., scene by 19th-century
artist Franklin Anderson lacked a frame and wanted for a good cleaning.
Nonetheless, ardent collectors queued up soon after Andrew Schoelkopf put it up
for sale. Schoelkopf, cofounder of Menconi & Schoelkopf Fine Art in New
York, alerted some of the 200 Hudson River School enthusiasts with whom he
deals, and, less than two weeks later, the painting found a home. "There’s a
kind of staggering amount of interest right now," he says. "The greatest
challenge is that there are so few great objects are out there on the open
market."  | THE LIGHTING and scenery of Hudson River School paintings are
drawing new fans, who push prices skyward. Entrance to Newport Harbor by John Frederick Kensett sold for $1.25 million in 2005. (Photograph by Christie’s Images Ltd.) |
This keenness for art from the Hudson River School is pushing
up prices at galleries and auctions for the iconographic 19th-century
landscapes. New fans both in the United States and overseas are discovering
these period pieces and treating them as important objects worthy of scholarship
and exhibition. Aesthetically, collectors value the luminous light and romantic
view of nature they capture.Hudson River was the United States’ first true school of art in
both style and subject, and its rise in the 1800s corresponded with
philanthropists’ budding interest in founding museums. Many patrons placed their
Hudson River School collections with the new institutions, such as the Wadsworth
Atheneum in Hartford, Conn., and the New York Historical Society and Brooklyn
Museum of Art in New York. More than a century later, many of the best-known
works by masters Asher B. Durand, Thomas Cole and Frederic Church remain in
museum collections. On the rare occasions when paintings by these artists do enter
the public market, their prices soar. In 2005, the New York Pubic Library sold
Durand’s famous 1849 Kindred
Spirits, depicting Cole and poet William Cullen Bryant
in the Catskills, at auction for $35 million. The library parted with the piece
as part of a deacquisition strategy designed to raise capital to fund its
primary mission. "I tend to be more attracted to a spontaneous, fresh picture where the artist was painting for himself." |
Lesser-known, yet high-quality works, appear more often at
auctions and in galleries. In the past two years, paintings by some of the
leading artists sold for seven figures, often far above estimates. In May 2005,
Christie’s expected Sanford Robinson Gifford’s Fire Island Beach to fetch
$800,000 to $1.2 million; it sold for $2.14 million. In November 2005, Jasper
Francis Cropsey’s Artist Sketching on
Greenwood Lake went for nearly double its estimate of
$250,000 to $350,000 at Sotheby’s. Also that fall, Entrance to Newport Harbor by
John Frederick Kensett, estimated by Christie’s at $400,000 to $600,000,
garnered $1.25 million.Hudson River School collectors are choosy, however.
Lesser-quality paintings, even by desirable artists, command far less and hew
close to auction estimates. Christie’s auctioned George Inness’ Near Perugia last spring for
$57,600, near the peak of its estimate. Another Gifford that Christie’s sold in
2005, A Study of Rocks at Kauterskill
Clove, fell just shy of its low estimate and sold for
$28,800. The disparity between the very best and lesser paintings is
widening, an indicator that the market is rewarding quality, Schoelkopf says.
"Interest in Hudson River School, across the board, is relatively strong, but
we’re seeing a much higher premium being paid for the very best and rarest
objects," he says, estimating that prices for top-tier paintings have doubled or
tripled in the past 10 years.
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