Should be an interesting couple of days.
Posted on 04/11/2009 6:51:01 AM PDT by Utah Binger
A painter who first made his mark through unromanticized views of Western landscapes, Maynard Dixon turned his attention to stark scenes of social protest during the Great Depression.
More than 60 years after the artist's death, those struggling against the economic tide stand to benefit from Dixon's work once again. That's because of a gift to a California branch of Goodwill Industries, which has started an online bidding war for what is believed to be "Blackfoot Indian," a painting created by Dixon in 1917.
After the painting was posted for auction on Goodwill's Web site early this week, bids jumped quickly from $2,500 to $25,000. In fact, bids climbed so fast that Goodwill officials removed it from the site to authenticate the work. Once two appraisers vouched for the 9½ inch by 10 inch painting with what is believed to be Dixon's signature on the back, the artwork was placed back up for bid, which stood at $34,501 at 6 p.m. Friday. The auction is set to close April 13.
The Dixon painting, rendered in gouache on board, was donated to Goodwill as part of a larger donation, most likely an estate, said Mark Ihde, president and CEO of Goodwill Industries of Redwood Empire, in Santa Rosa, Calif. "I really do not believe the person [donating the piece] knew the value," he said.
Goodwill operates thrift stores internationally, and provides job training programs for the disabled and needy. Founded in 1902 in Boston, the nonprofit Advertisement Quantcast launched an online auction site in 1999, which has since raised more than $70 million.
The painting is believed to be part of a group commission by the Great Northern Railroad Co., which prompted Dixon to travel to a Blackfoot Indian camp near Montana's Glacier National Park, where the artist drew and painted.
A note on Goodwill's auction site states one of the California art appraisers consulted a book on Dixon published by Brigham Young University Press as part of the authentication process.
While Dixon lived most of his life in San Francisco, the painter maintained a summer home in southern Utah's Mount Carmel area, north of Kanab, a place that many critics believe inspired some of his best works. He spent considerable time during the Depression exploring Zion National Park with his then-wife, renowned American photographer Dorothea Lange. After the painter's death in 1946, Edith Hamlin, Dixon's third wife, buried his ashes near Mount Carmel.
For nearly a decade, Dixon maintained a close friendship with Herald R. Clark, prominent dean of Brigham Young University's business school, who was an early admirer and advocate of the painter's work. In 1937, Clark persuaded Dixon to sell the university 85 works spanning his artistic career. Currently, Brigham Young University maintains the largest known collection of Dixon's work.
After hearing of the online auction, Clayton Williams, owner of Salt Lake City's Williams Fine Art Gallery, researched the work himself and was contemplating a bid. "We do feel it's authentic given in terms of the signature on the back," Williams said. "We'll look and see where this goes."
As remarkable a donation as the Dixon painting is for Goodwill, nonprofit spokeswoman Charlene Sarmiento noted that similar artworks have also done the nonprofit well. The site's highest-price item is a Frank Weston Benson watercolor sold for $165,000 through the charity's Columbia-Willamette agency in Portland, Ore.
In a 1937 letter sent to Clark negotiating a sale, Dixon once told the BYU administrator that money was beside the point when it came to his art. "Your money in this instance means something very different from ten times that sum of Mr. Mellon's or Mr. Rockefeller's," Dixon wrote. " ... the fact that the pictures will function , swing the decision."
The painter's principles give even more significance to the nonprofit's unexpectedly valuable donation, Ihde believes. "I've always been a believer that things happen for a reason," he said. "To have one of his pieces benefit the people he had so much compassion for is part of his legacy."
Should be an interesting couple of days.
To all my interested friends.
You don't want to know what I paid for my "Charles Nelson Reilly-on-black velvet" painting.
It’s priceless!
Wow, I guess I’m going to have to start searching attics so I can strike it rich.
I know an art dealer who would be very good at handling this sort of find. ;)
Thank you for considering me a friend!
That’s a good picture! (no - not your tractor... covet covet covet...)
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