Stair Galleries auction preview of Salander July 24, 2010 sale. A painting by Lawrence Salander sits to the right of the podium. © Photo: Lindsay Pollock

When he wasn’t busy buying, selling and hustling art, dealer Larry Salander loved to paint. Recently sentenced to six to 18 years in prison for fraud and larceny, he may now have time to indulge his hobby.

We wondered if his paintings were any good and phoned up David Cohen who runs Art Critical, a robust online art magazine.

Cohen was kind enough to glance at a few jpegs.

“Well, they don’t make my heart pound faster,” he said.

While not a fan of the work, Cohen believes they reflect someone with serious intentions. “If they give him a window with a view, he would be able to develop his landscape skills, but not with a palette knife,” said Cohen, who guessed those might be off limits behind bars.

The market for Salander’s paintings hasn’t proven to be much more enthusiastic.

A group of Salander’s paintings recently sold at Stair Galleries in Hudson, New York, to benefit the dealer’s creditors, who are on the hook for upwards of $120 million.

Suffice it to say, the art proceeds didn’t make much of a dent. Prices…

Sheldon Peck's circa 1825 portrait of a child, sold for $200,600. Image: Courtesy Northeast Auctions

By Mackie Healy, Art Market Views Contributor

Northeast Auctions annual three-day sale of early American antiques concluded this past Sunday in New Hampshire. (Read our sale preview here.)

Early American portraiture, painted wood chests and colorful tin and pearlware were among the top lots.

A sale from the estate of Baltimore collectors M. Austin and Jill Fine tallied $1.3 million, according to Art Market View’s own calculations, just over the low estimate. The sale was projected to total $1.1 million to $1.9 million.

The weekend’s results suggested the recession is still a factor, but this didn’t deter dealers and collectors from bidding aggressively when they spotted quality and value.

Sheldon Peck’s painting of a diminutive Child in a Chair was the Fine sale’s top lot, selling for $200,600 to an unnamed dealer, for a price below the $240,000 high estimate.  Pecks have fetched over $800,000 at auction. (Note: sale prices include commissions, estimates do not)

Less impressively, a highly anticipated Massachusetts William and Mary chest, estimated to sell for $150,000 to $250,000, did not receive any bids, possibly due to authenticity questions, according to a folk art dealer…

Sheldon Peck's circa 1825 portrait of a child, est. $120,000 to $240,000. Image: Courtesy Northeast Auctions

By Mackie Healy, Art Market Views Contributor

Early American antiques from the estate of Baltimore collectors M. Austin and Jill Fine are expected to be the major draw next weekend at Northeast Auctions’ three-day Americana marathon. The sales are held in Manchester, New Hampshire—where there is no sales tax—and run Aug. 6-8. The annual event includes about 1340 lots.

The 243 lots from the Fine estate will be offered on Saturday, projected to tally $1.1 million to $1.9 million. Last year about 400 people attended the Americana weekend, according to Northeast Auctions’ owner Ron Bourgeault.

Highlights include a rare Massachusetts William and Mary chest, festooned with painted leaves and delicate white birds, estimated to sell for $150,000 to $250,000.

Sheldon Peck’s circa 1825 blond Child in a Chair should also inspire bidding. The young girl, wearing a white empire-waist dress and holding a pink rose, is estimated at $120,000-$240,000.

Americana weekend will be a test of the market. The Fine collection material is rare and tagged with conservative estimates, says Connecticut folk art dealer David Schorsch.

Other quilts, tea tables and pine chests were included in…

Norman Rockwell "Rose the riveter." Photo: Crystal Bridges

Wal-Mart heiress Alice Walton’s Bentonville, Arkansas, Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art may still be under construction, but that doesn’t mean parts of the collection can’t be admired elsewhere.

The museum has loaned two major examples of illustration art by Maxfield Parrish and Norman Rockwell to the Toledo Museum of Art.

The loans are Parrish’s noctural 1908  The Lantern Bearers and Rockwell’s 1943 Rosie the Riveter.  The works will be on view in Toledo beginning Aug. 17.

Both works are familiar to American painting auction goers.

Parrish’s Lantern Bearers, depicting clowns holding lanterns on a staircase, sold for $4.3 million at Christie’s in New York in 2006. The patriotic Rosie sold for $4.95 million at Sotheby’s in 2002.

Since 2005 Crystal Bridges has loaned 68 works of art to 38 institutions, according to a museum press release. Some 34 works are currently on loan to 15 museums in the US and beyond.

Marc Chagall "Songe de Lamon et de Dryas" sold for $22,500 at Christie's July 21, 2010 Prints and Multiples sale. Image: Courtesy Christie's

By Mackie Healy, Art Market Views Contributor

A circa 1654 Rembrandt print fetched $40,000 at Christie’s in New York yesterday, surpassing the $8,000-$12,000 presale estimate. The work was the sale’s top lot.

The Entombment depicts the darkly lit cavernous interior of a tomb in one of the last episodes from the artist’s series on the life of Christ. This particular print, a lifetime impression, is from a series of four. For each print, Rembrandt inked and wiped the plate differently. The Metropolitan Museum of Art owns the second state in the series.

The print was among 370 lots offered for sale totaling $1 million., more than double the  projected $400,000 high estimate. Fifty-nine lots failed to sell. “These mid-season auctions have been doing very well,” said Emmanuel Benador of Jan Krugier Gallery. “The print market is strong.” Fifty percent of the top ten lots were purchased by trade.

Also striking: online bidding accounted for 45.66% of lots which were either sold, to or directly underbid by a Christie’s Live client, according to Christie’s.

Americans dominated the day. Nearly three-quarters of buyers were…

Andy Warhol's 1971 "Portrait of Dennis Hopper," estimated to sell for up to $1.2M at Christie's on Nov. 10. Image: Christie's via Bloomberg

Link to Bloomberg story here.

Artworks from the estate of the late actor Dennis Hopper, a self-described “gallery bum,” will be auctioned by Christie’s on Nov. 10 and 11 in New York.

The collection is studded with works by Warhol and Basquiat. The specific pieces are still being determined by the auction house, yet the group is expected to sell for more than $10 million. Hopper died of prostate cancer in May at the age of 74.

“It’s an artist’s collection, it’s not the collection of a banker or mogul. It’s the collection of a creative artist,” said Marc Porter, chairman of Christie’s Americas.

Sale highlights so far include Warhol’s 1971 Portrait of Dennis Hopper, representing the actor as a soulful cowboy in blues and grays. The 40-inch-square canvas is expected to sell for as much as $1.2 million.

Jean-Michel Basquiat’s densely filled 1987 Untitled, in acrylic, oil stick and graphite, has a high pre-sale estimate of $7 million. The painting had hung in the living room of Hopper’s Frank Gehry-designed Venice Beach, California, home.

Hopper said in a 1999 interview that he had…

By Mackie Healy, Art Market Views Contributor

Ed Jaster, a collectibles and fine art expert, has been appointed a senior vice president at Heritage Auction Galleries and is transferring to the company’s new Park Avenue location.

Heritage  is the third largest auction house in the world and the largest collectibles auctioneer. The headquarters are in Dallas, Texas, with showrooms in Houston, as well as Germany, Switzerland, Holland and France. A Beverly Hill branch opened earlier this year. The Park Avenue and 57th Street venue is slated to open in September 2010.

Jaster owned his own commercial art firm in Chicago for twenty years prior to joining Heritage in 2002. He was instrumental in helping win the Charles Martignette Estate of Illustration Art, which grossed $10 million for half of the collection alone, as well as the sale of the most expensive comic book ever offered at public auction – 8.0 Detective Comics #27, which sold for $1.07 million last year.

Art Market Views reported earlier that Tiffany Dubin had joined Heritage as director of business development for the New York office.

"Richard Avedon, self portrait, New York, ca. 1963." Photograph by Richard Avedon © The Richard Avedon Foundation

By Mackie Healy, Art Market Views, Contributor

The Richard Avedon Foundation is parting with sixty-five Avedon prints at Christie’s in Paris this fall.   The sale includes fashion photos and portraiture spanning Avedon’s entire career, estimated to gross about $6 million. This is first time the foundation has consigned to auction.

The sale will be held on November 20th to correspond with Paris Photo, the annual photography fair mounted in the Carrousel de Louvre.

The top projected lot is the largest existing print of the sinuous photo “Dovima With Elephants, Evening Dress by Dior, Cirque d’Hiver, Paris,” which hung in Avedon’s studio. It is estimated to sell for between $500,000 to $700,000.

Avedon died in 2004 at age 81.

Portraits include black and white depictions of Marilyn Monroe, Brigitte Bardot, Pablo Picasso and Francis Bacon. A set of four images of the Beatles from 1967, is estimated to fetch $300,000 – $500,000. Another set of the same prints set the auction record price for Avedon when they sold for $464,000 at Christie’s in New York in 2005.

All proceeds will go toward the creation of…

J. M. W. Turner's "Modern Rome-Campo Vaccino" sold for $44.9M at Sotheby's in London to Getty Museum. Photo: Sotheby's

By Mackie Healy, Art Market Views contributor

Los Angeles’ J. Paul Getty Museum has purchased J.M.W. Turner’s four-foot wide view of Rome for $44.9 million, a record for the artist at auction. The price was more than double the low estimate.

Turner’s 1839 painting, Modern Rome – Campo Vaccino, sold for £29.7 ($44.9 million) today at Sotheby’s in London. The estimate was  £12 – 18 million ($18.2 – $27.4 million).  London dealer Hazlitt Gooden & Fox bid on behalf of the Getty.

Sotheby’s evening old master and British painting sale totaled $80.9 million.

Only four other Turner oil paintings of comparable stature remain in private hands, according to Sotheby’s. The work is in its original plaster gilt and glazed frame and is the culmination of Turner’s focus on Rome. Modern Rome originally belonged to Turner’s  friend and patron, Hugh Monro of Novar. The work was acquired in 1878 by the 5th Earl of Rosebery and his wife, Hannah Rothschild on their honeymoon and has remained in the same family ever since.

The piece depicts the Italian landscape from the Capitoline Hill.…

Jules de Balincourt "US World Studies II" sold for record $416.984 at Christie's in London. Photo: Christie's

Christie’s contemporary sale in London totaled $68.6 million, with 84 percent of the 62 lots finding buyers. The top lot was Warhol’s 1963 Silver Liz, selling for $10.1 million to an anonymous buyer who got a famous image for a relatively low price due to the painting’s oddly mottled silk-screening.

The second priciest lot was  Jeff Koons’ 1999 painting Loopy which made $5.1 million, a record auction price for a Koons’ painting.  The buyer was Koons’ dealer, Gagosian Gallery.

Europeans dominated the buying, sweeping up 58 percent of lots, while Americans took home 30 percent. Asia didn’t seem to be a big factor, accounting for just 4 percent of lots.

Chris Ofili set a world auction record for the 1998 dung-inflected Orgena which sold for $2.8 million to an unnamed U.S. private collection. Alighiero Boetti also achieved a record for the 1989 tapestry Mappa, selling for $2.75 million.

Among younger names Jules de Balincourt kick started the sale with his own map, US World Studies II, which fetched $416,984, topping a $90,000 high estimate. A painting by Glenn Brown, a super-sized Dali, also made it onto the…