Thursday, May 31, 2012

Lloyd Moylan "Untitled (Sycamores)"/Photo courtesy of private collector

This month’s ART FIND by Western artist Lloyd Moylan is one of my favorite entries yet. When our Santa Barbara, CA reader submitted the painting, it was interesting to discover that she is related to the artist. McMichael has had the painting in her family for many years. She inherited it from her mother who acquired it from her aunt -- who happened to be Moylan’s sister-in-law. The artist likely gave her the painting around the time of his death in 1963. She has never had it appraised.

Lloyd Moylan (1893 - 1963) was born in St. Paul, Minnesota. As a young man, he studied at the Minneapolis Art Institute and the Broadmore Art Academy in Colorado Springs. Eventually made his way to New York where he attended the Art Students League. From 1929 to 1931, Moylan taught at the Broadmore Academy and later became a curator for the Museum of Navajo Ceremonial Art in Santa Fe, New Mexico. His work is held in the collections of the Museum of New Mexico and the Penrose Public Library.

This untitled painting of horses and riders is representative of Moylan’s style and subject-matter. The artist is best known for his depictions of Southwestern desert scenes, landscapes, and images of Native American subjects. Moylan traveled throughout Arizona, New Mexico, California, and Colorado.

Moylan’s signature use of saturated color and his expressive, loose brushstrokes appear to be informed by the European post-Impressionists and Fauvists. In some of Moylan’s other work he explored modernist techniques such a cubism -- breaking objects into rudimentary planes of space.

The art market for Moylan’s work has a wide range of pricing which, like in every art appraisal, is based on age, condition, rarity, artistic merit, technical workmanship, current trends and rarity of an artist’s work. Moylan’s paintings have sold for up to $5,750 at auction. In the gallery market his paintings are currently for sale between $5,000-$10,000 depending on the medium, size, subject, and date.

This painting appears in good condition and at 30” x 20” in size -- is quite large for Moylan’s work. Painted in the artist’s signature style, subject, and palette, this painting would be desirable to many collectors of his work. An art appraiser would also factor in that the painting has not been on the market for many years, thereby increasing its appeal to art collectors. These are all factors art appraisers evaluate when valuing an artwork.

If this painting was to be sold in at a gallery in the California area, it would be estimated to have an appraised retail value between $7,000-$9,000. A treasure indeed!

Monday, May 21, 2012

Henrietta Shore  "Jean Charlot" circa 1927/ Photo courtesy: LACMA
I recently completed an art appraisal of a Henrietta Mary Shore (1880 - 1963) painting for a Santa Barbara, CA art collector. Shore was an innovative painter of her time, often compared to Georgia O'Keeffe.

Henrietta Shore was born in Toronto, Canada and moved to New York City -- where she began her studies at The Art Students League. She learned the technique and style of American realist painting as a student of Kenneth Hayes Miller, Robert Henri, and William Merritt Chase. Shore was one of the founding members of the New York Society of Women Artists. Shore also attended the Heatherly Art School in London as a pupil of the great John Singer Sargent. Shore began exploring modernist techniques of the period. Her foreshortened, magnified botanical studies became known as Abstract Realism.

In 1913, Shore moved to Los Angeles and helped establish the Los Angeles Society of Modern Artists. She was part of a school of West Coast modernist artists who explored new concepts of modernism while maintaining realist subject-matter. Shore won a silver medal at the 1915 Pan-American Exposition in San Diego. She and fellow artist Helena Dunlap had a two-woman exhibition at the Los Angeles County Museum.

Henrietta Shore had earned a strong reputation as an artist and in the late 1920s a retrospective of her work was held at the Worcester Art Museum in Massachusetts. In 1924, she was among twenty-five women chosen to represent American women in Paris. She also traveled to Mexico where she painted portraits of artists Jose Orozco and Jean Charlot.

After returning to California, Shore met photographer Edward Weston, who completed a series of photographs based on Shore’s work. Shore eventually settled in Carmel, CA and continued to paint. During the Great Depression, Shore worked for the Treasury Relief Art Project and completed murals at the Monterey post office and another at the Santa Cruz post office.