Gerald Harvey Jones’ When Cowboys Don't Change, 1993 sold for $516,500, surpassing the previous world record for a painting by the artist and claiming top lot honors in Heritage Auctions’ American Art Auction on November 8, 2018 in Dallas, Texas. With 11 lots bringing six-figure results, the total for the auction, which boasted a sell-through rate of 90.32 percent by value, climbed to $4,010,875.
“We witnessed feverish and competitive bidding across categories, especially in the arenas of Western Art and Golden Age Illustration,” Heritage Auctions’ Director of American Art Aviva Lehmann said. “We had multiple bidders on each of our top lots and are thrilled with the results. Not only were records set, but we found wonderful new homes for terrific material.”
Legendary American artist Norman Rockwell produced three of the auction’s top 11 lots, including Girl with Black Eye (The Shiner), The Saturday Evening Post cover study, which sold for $275,000. This signed oil on photographic paper laid on panel is an example of Rockwell challenging traditional gender roles by showing a girl on the receiving end of a black eye. Rockwell reportedly added elements to the painting, including the black eye as well as the principal and secretary conferring in the background on how to handle the situation, after the original painting.
Rockwell’s She Said It for a Lifetime (Man Receiving Gift Watch) realized $250,000. The image was created as an Elgin Watch Company advertisement that appeared first in the June 1926 edition of Ladies Home Journal, and then in The Saturday Evening Post Magazine’s July 17, 1926 edition. This oil-on-canvas painting comes from the Collection of Bradley and Susan Schuchat, who have earmarked the proceeds for two scholarships, in the name of their late daughter, Diane.
Multiple bidders boosted the sale price for Joseph Christian Leyendecker's Drum Major, the cover illustration for The Saturday Evening Post’s September 24, 1921 edition, to $193,750. The painting was one of 322 illustrations Leyendecker completed for the magazine. Numerous bidders also drove the final price for Jessie Willcox Smith’s Among the Poppies, The Child in a Garden, an interior illustration for the December 1903 edition of Scribner’s Magazine, to more than twice its preauction estimate when it finished at $137,500.
Glenna Goodacre’s The Rescue also drew multiple bids before closing at $137,500. The Texan sculptor’s monumental bronze captures the pure innocence and joy of youthful days, depicting two children climbing a tree to save a cat while their two peers instruct from below. Goodacre’s legacy of her public sculptures established her as one of the most prized sculptors of the American West. Her art appears in public, private, municipal and museum collections throughout the U.S.
Other top lots included Olaf Wieghorst’s Beef Herd which sold for $125,000, Birger Sandzén’s Sunset (circa 1923) for $118,750, Jessie Willcox Smith’s Five O'clock Tea, The Child in a Garden, Scribner’s Magazine interior illustration (December 1903) for $112,500, Walter Ufer’s At Ease (1926) for $106,250, and Rockwell’s Hope It’s a New Plymouth, a Chrysler Corporation advertisement for $106,250.
