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ART+AUCTION
October 2004

The annual Coeur d'Alene Art Auction of Western, wildlife and sporting art in Reno, Nevada, keeps going from strength to strength. On July 24, it set a new sale record of $18.1 million, beating its previous high of $14 million in 2001. Of the 283 lots offered, only one failed to sell, and 70 percent went over their high estimates. The top lot, Thomas Moran's Mists in the Yellowstone, from 1908 (est. $2-3 million), brought an astounding $4.9 million, reportedly paid by prominent Detroit collector Richard Manoogian.

Denver dealer Steve Good, who bid up to $4 million for the picture, says that in the wake of Sotheby's sale of Albert Bierstadt's Yosemite Valley for $7.2 million last December, "the price of the Moran was not necessarily the result of auction hysteria"--a state of mind occasionally in evidence at the Coeur d'Alene sale. "It's a large, significant subject, painted in a dramatic manner, which is something you'd want in a Romantic artist."

Good was the high bidder for the second-most expensive lot, Joseph H. Sharp's Squaw Winter, a 1910 study of Plains Indian life. Acting for a client, the dealer paid nearly $1.1 million, over a $250-450,000 estimate. He admits it was "a stiff price," but adds, "I would have paid more if I'd had to. It was simply the most important Sharp I had ever seen for sale."

So what is this tiny regional auction house's secret? "Quality art with track records at auction, good turn-of-the-century and Taos School art," says director Bob Drummond. "Every year we specialize in this small field, and we're getting great consignments, which brings huge crowds."

Excerpt from ART+AUCTION's "Marketfile," by John Dorfman.