American Art’s Rising Stock

A $37-million auction of American art Thursday at Sotheby’s set records for 40 artists, more than doubled the previous total for a sale of American art and reassured aficionados that the health of the art market is not entirely dependent upon foreign money.

While previous sales in New York’s fall auction season have indicated that the stock market crash had a relatively minor effect on the art market, they also have emphasized the market’s international complexion. Experts say that this week’s auctions of American work--collected almost exclusively by Americans--are the first test of U.S. buyers.

Noting that the sale total of $37,258,925 fell safely within the the pre-sale estimate of $28 million to $45 million (set months before the stock market plummeted), Sotheby’s officials were euphoric.

“Anyone who thinks the middle of the market is soft didn’t watch this sale,” said a beaming Michael Ainslie, Sotheby’s president and chief executive officer, in an interview in his office. “Yes, people are being more selective, but things that don’t sell generally are not fresh on the market,” he added.

Asked if a loss of faith in stocks actually may have helped the art market, Ainslie said: “Well, we are seeing money coming into our market from other investments.”

Peter Rathbone, head of Sotheby’s department of American art, characterized Thursday’s auction as “the most extensive and successful sale ever” of American art and “the best group of 20th-Century art” assembled in

one sale since the 1973 auction of the Edith G. Halpert collection.

Though works for sale came from dozens of collections, the auction derived its luster from two major holdings: 10 paintings by Georgia O’Keeffe from the estate of her sister, Anita O’Keeffe Young, and 69 works liquidated from the Andrew Crispo Gallery by order of the IRS. Crispo currently is serving a seven-year prison sentence for evading taxes on income of $4 million in 1985.

Anita O’Keeffe, who was four years younger than Georgia and married Robert R. Young, chairman of the New York Central and C&O; railroads, acquired 10 of her sister’s nature paintings (from 1924 to 1954) and displayed them in her sumptuous dwellings. She left her estate to the Robert R. Young Foundation, which supports religious, educational and medical projects.

While the O’Keeffe paintings attracted widespread interest, Gerald Peters, a dealer from Santa Fe who knew the painter during the last 10 years of her life, snapped up all but one of them. Time after time, Peters simply held up his paddle, number 568, until the competition stopped bidding.

Standing to one side of the crowded sales room, he bought “Black Hollyhock With Blue Larkspur” for $1.98 million (including the 10% buyer’s commission), setting a record for the artist, and four other flower paintings: “Petunia No. 2” for $550,000, “Jimson Weed” for $990,000, “Two Jimson Weeds” for $1.21 million and “Bleeding Heart,” $242,000.

Peters also purchased four O’Keeffe paintings of leaves and trees, ranging from $330,000 to $660,000. Though all the prices met or exceeded pre-sale estimates, Peters told The Times: “I think they were a great bargain. I would have paid much more privately. This was a stupendous opportunity to buy a collection of great American art. There’s no other like it in private hands. The quality is sublime.”

The only O’Keeffe from the Young Foundation not bought by Peters went to his friend, San Francisco dealer Peter Fairbanks, who paid $770,000 (more than twice the pre-sale estimate of $250,000 to $350,000) for “The Red Maple at Lake George.”

Fairbanks said he had his heart set on the magnified “Red Maple” leaf because of the painting’s strong aesthetic quality and its relationship to photography. Like Peters, Fairbanks said he got “a very good value.” Stating that American “artists like O’Keeffe who are important to modern art go beyond national boundaries,” he said their works have been undervalued but are sure to find a larger market in the future.

“If I had paid $770,000 for an Impressionist painting, I would have a piece of rubbish,” he said.

All the news at Sotheby’s was not good, however. Fifteen percent of the lots offered did not sell, including a Mary Cassatt pastel expected to bring between $900,000 and $1.2 million and a Gilbert Stuart portrait of George Washington estimated to fetch from $500,000 to $700,000.

Some observers clucked their approval when “greedy” sellers were foiled, but for every work that failed to meet its reserve price, several others surpassed pre-sale estimates.

The most costly item, from the Crispo Gallery, was Edward Hopper’s painting, “Captain Upton’s House,” sold to a New York dealer for a record $2.31 million. Two other Hoppers from Crispo also did well: “Hotel Window,” sold to Malcolm Forbes for $1.32 million, and “Dauphinee House,” bought by a New York dealer for $687,500.

An anonymous Japanese dealer, the only foreign buyer listed in post-sale reports, bought O’Keeffe’s “At the Rodeo, New Mexico” from the Crispo Gallery collection for $1.43 million.

The Whitney Museum of American Art put Martin Johnson Heade’s painting, “Two Fighting Hummingbirds With Two Orchids,” up for sale, gaining $1.93 million and setting a record for the artist.

Other records established include those for John Frederick Kensett ($616,000), Raphaelle Peale ($495,000), Preston Dickinson ($374,000) and Stuart Davis ($220,000 for a painting called “Anchors” that sold for $20,000 14 years ago in the Halpert auction).

Still other works astonished observers by far outstripping their estimates or commanding big prices for tiny dimensions. Paintings by Arthur Dove, for example, repeatedly brought from two to six times their estimates, while a 4-by-6 1/2-inch oil from the studio of George Caleb Bingham fetched $30,000.