Heritage Auctions' Illustration art in Beverly Hills? Ready, set, Go!

May 3, 2010
Posted by Noah

Before I get into today's post - and letting you know that Coin Monday with JDB will be Coin Tuesday this week - I implore you to take a look at these gorgeous images of the set-up this Thursday's (May 6) Illustration Art Auction in our Beverly Hills Office.

So many amazing paintings, and me so far away here in Dallas. I don't mind telling you that I wish I was there...

Done? Good. Now that you've had a little taste of what awaits you in Beverly Hills - and if you are in L.A., and you can get to our showroom at 3478 West. Olympic Boulevard in the next couple of days, then I do indeed implore you to go check it out! - I want those of you who tuned in for John Dale's regular Coin Monday post to read on today and to check back tomorrow for JDB's weekly insight into the mind of the coin cataloger...




This Thursday's Illustration Art auction, which I wrote about here a week or two ago, is indeed going to be stellar, and is our first bit of Martignette to happen outside the elegant confines of our Slocum Street Annex here in Dallas.

I feel a little like a parent separated from their child for the first time when their kid heads to Summer Camp - okay, so I tend to personalize things a bit too much. That's a good thing, right? - so closely have I followed Martignette, and so much do I love this art.

The good thing is, though, with this art there is very little worry in my heart. Unlike with my own kid (and so it must be with most parents) I don't worry that no one will take as good a care of the artwork as I would. In fact, I would daresay - and pray - that those good Heritage folks overseeing the auction in Beverly Hills would take ten times the care that I could. For that, I am grateful.





Check out the Illustration Art catalog online, mark your favorites, and check back with Heritage Live! on Thursday, starting around 1 p.m. Central, to see where these paintings end up. The prices up until this point have been nothing short of spectacular. There seems to be no reason to believe it will slow.

We're at about the halfway point of Martignette, give or take a few hundred paintings, and as everyone thought when this amazing journey started, the world of Illustration Art collecting will never be the same again.

To leave a comment, click on the title of this post.

-Noah Fleisher

More Moran in Martignette, lest you forget...

Aug. 11, 2009

Posted by Noah

Just in case you had finally started to get over the shivers and shakes that accompanied the abrupt stoppage of steady streams of illustration art news and images that were coming out of Heritage about a month ago with the kick-off of the Martignette Estate, never fear!

As we speak, Heritage experts are hard at work getting the next grouping of Martignette's amazing collection ready for auction this October, and you can bet there are a whole mess of absolute doozies!

Yes, there will be Elvgren and Vargas and Rockwell and Leyendecker and the parade of giants you might expect of this legendary collection, but there is also a whole host of great stuff from mid-tier artists, including a painting from Earl Moran, pictured above, that is - at least in my humble opinion - absolutely one of the most stunning paintings of any era or kind I have ever seen. Period.

I don't mean to call Moran a mid-tier artist, because he was a celebrity in his day, and his paintings were a staple of Brown & Bigelow and sold millions of copies. He was also very well loved by Hollywood celebrities, was trained by some of the best teachers of the day and, famously not only painted a young Norma Jean several times, was also a good friend of the doomed starlet. In fact, the future Marilyn Monroe said that Moran often made her look better than she actually did. That is, of course, impossible, but it's a nice thing for her to say...

This Moran painting, Evening Glow, is a singular masterpiece to be sure, and will likely well exceed its early estimate of $20,000-$25,000. It is simply pure genius. Moran's mastery of subject, form and color culminate in this superb painting. You would have to search very hard, very wide to find a comparable usage of color so in-depth, so evocative and so specific to the period from which it evolved. If I had the money it would be going home with me, no doubt...

Let this be a tease to you, then, and an anodyne to salve the hurt left by the gap between Illustration Art auctions. Never fear - and I say this more for myself than for anyone - more Martignette is on its way!

To leave a comment click on the title of this post.

-Noah Fleisher

A close encounter with great children’s art

Feb. 26, 2009
Posted by Noah

Yesterday, at the invitation of David Lisot, our Director of Video, I took a lunchtime stroll up to the executive conference room where he was filming some video lot descriptions for various categories. I walked in right in the middle of filming a few choice specimens from an important California Collection of mostly children’s art from the upcoming Illustration Auction, March 12-13.

On the table were two original drawings from the Madeline series, by Austrian-born Ludwig Bemelmans. Without thinking, I immediately quoted:

“In a little house in Paris, that’s covered in vines, lived 12 little girls in two straight lines. In two straight lines they broke their bread, brushed their teeth and went to bed. They left the house at half past nine. The smallest one was Madeline.”

Lisot looked at me like I had uttered some arcane phrase from a long dead language. Todd Hignite, Consignment Director for Illustrations and Comics Art, laughed. He knew exactly what I meant. He has a two-year-old daughter. I have a three-year-old. If you have a well-read toddler girl at home, or had one, then you’ve read the great Madeline series.

I subsequently spent the rest of the day thinking about the vast amount of children’s literature and books that populate our bookshelves (and floors and cabinets and closets and cars) at home, and about those that stand out – those that I break out sparingly at my daughter’s bedtime because I personally love them so much. I have to number Madeline as chief among my current delights, and hers. And there I was yesterday, staring at two perfectly prime examples of Bemelmans’ airy, surreal drawings of Madeline and Pepito – that bad hat!

Three years ago I knew quite little of children’s literature and art, now I get weak in the knees at seeing prime examples of my favorites. Trust me, if I were in a position to bid on these paintings – and any number of others, including original Sendak and Seuss art, very rare! – from this specific collection, I would in a heartbeat; I have my daughter to thank for this appreciation. The process of observing the change in my own perspective, as I’ve come to intimately know much of this great art via hundreds of readings, has been refreshing and, dare I say it, delightful. Let it just be one more thing that I am grateful to her for.

The true greats of Children’s literature – see Sendak (In The Night Kitchen is one of my favorite books ever, of any genre. Period.) and Seuss above – don’t go cheap because they are so rare. Greatness on the level of Bemelmans, and many of the others, is relatively affordable to an average collector. Anywhere from $500 to a few thousand dollars can get you something pretty extraordinary. You just have to know what you like.

“The drawings from the first part of the 20th century, value-wise, are not up there with the big magazine guys of the times,” Todd said. “Some, of course, are very well respected and in museums. The peak period of children’s art, like Dr. Seuss, are extremely rare and expensive because they don’t really exist in private hands. In fact, Seuss and Sendak, two of the biggest, both gave their papers and archives to universities and values are quite high for the rare originals that come up.”

Space is short, as is time, so I’ll spare you the list of my favorite kids books, though I’d be happy to hear yours – just for fun – at NoahF@HA.com.

That’s all there is, there is no more.