Home | Art | Coeur d’Alene’s Art Auction Rakes in $21 Million in Sales

Coeur d’Alene’s Art Auction Rakes in $21 Million in Sales

Paper That Talks Two Ways, The Treaty Signing. Howard Terpning, (Photo: Screenshot/Fine Art Publishing)

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By John Olusegun

August 9, 2023
4:18 pm
Los Angeles, CA

The Coeur d’Alene annual art auction was held on 15th July 2023 and made record sales. The auction exceeded $21 million in sales of Western and Contemporary artworks. The event made headlines for selling several works of art at record prices, with 37 pieces selling for six figures. Most of these pieces are from Western Masters. This edition of the yearly auction saw 92 percent of the total artworks sold, exceeding the expectations of the curators. The biggest sale of the day was Howard Terpning’s ‘Paper That Talks Two Ways – The Treaty Signing,’ which sold for a record $2,360,000. The oil on canvas painting depicted a gathering of Cheyenne and Sioux as a participant expresses his distrust of the words of the peace commission that have been translated

The biggest sale of the day was Howard Terpning’s ‘Paper That Talks Two Ways – The Treaty Signing,’ which sold for a record $2,360,000. The oil on canvas painting depicted a gathering of Cheyenne and Sioux as a participant expresses his distrust of the words of the peace commission that have been translated to him. A private collector acquired the painting through a representative in the salesroom. Besides this headliner, three other Terpning works sold for six figures. ‘Traveling in Good Company’ sold at $326,700, ‘Time Stood Still’ at $242,000, while ‘Searching the Mountains’ went for $163,350.

Another notable sale of the day was Maynard Dixon’s ‘The Pony Boy.’ The piece depicts a Blackfeet boy astride a Pinto pony with a backdrop of a pony herd and distant buttes. Also, an oil on canvas bid to an auction record of $2,130,000, thrilling the crowd in the gallery.

Three other Dixon sold for six figures, showing the strength of Dixon’s market. They are ‘Migration, No. 2’, which sold for $229,000, ‘Thunder Over Shiprock’ for $121,000, and ‘Signs of Autumn,’ which made $114,950.

Other significant sales of the day include Gerard Curtis Delano’s ‘Evening,’ and William Herbert Dunton’s ‘A Race for the Chuckwagon, ’ both sold for $786,500. It was a good day for Dunton market as another of his works, ‘Two Braves,’ sold for $574,750. The total sale from Dunton’s work at the event was $1.4 million. The total for Delano’s works was $900,000.

Another strong market of the day was Philip R. Goodwin, whose works raked $1.1 million. The main sale was ‘Blazing the Trail,’ which bid to $574,750. The total was achieved with the addition of ‘The Law of the Wilderness,’ which fetched $242,000, and ‘A Dangerous Moment,’ a 24-by-33-inch oil that brought $205,7000.

Thomas Moran’s ‘The Rock of Acoma, New Mexico’ was sold at $423,500, the highest price for a Moran watercolor in the last seven years. Of contemporary pieces, Mark Maggiori’s ‘Morning Above the Canyon’ oil on canvas surpassed initial expectations of $40,000 to $60,000 and sold for $332,750 to join the lineup of lots exceeding initial evaluations.

Speaking on the record sales from the event, Mike Overby, the principal at the Coeur d’Alene Art Auction, said, “We knew going into it we had some great pieces to offer to the market, and we felt pretty confident going in. It’s always nice to see our results match our expectations, and in this case, I’d say they actually exceeded those.” Seeing the figures posted, one can’t help but agree.