“Colorado Narrow Gauge” by Tucker Smith (American, b 1940), 1988, oil on canvas, 39¾ by 55¾ inches framed, stationed at the sale-high price of $49,560 ($20/30,000).

Review by Carly Timpson

LONE JACK, MO. — Featuring 231 lots of Modernist works in Surrealism and magical realism as well as more traditional and academic works in Impressionism, Regionalism and Abstraction, Soulis Auctions’ June 27 sale, titled Tradition. Imagination. Auction., was cataloged as a juxtaposition of “The real, the unreal, historical, Western and contemporary in oil, paper and bronze.”

Owner Dirk Soulis stated that this auction was “Much like a summertime sale with its distractions and increased competition for the buying public’s attention and dollars. Summer typically means lower in-house attendance and possibly some softening in the middle and lower end.” Still, the sale, which had a 90 percent sell-through rate, realized $565,860 and saw activity from 2,230 registered bidders vying for the diverse selections.

“Colorado Narrow Gauge” a 1988 oil on canvas by Tucker Smith, took bidders on a trip and ultimately stationed as the sale’s highest-priced lot. The painting, which was a “historically-accurate work of Western realism,” was displayed in its original America West frame and showed the Denver South Park and Pacific Railroad locomotive — identified by “D.S.P. & P.R.R.” marked on its side in yellow — crossing through snow-capped mountains. According to the auction catalog, “The locomotive is a precisely depicted Mogul Type Dawson Bailey 2-6-0 from 1875. The boxcars and caboose are painted in authentic DSP&P color scheme and lettering. Records confirm that the engine pictured here, DSP&P locomotive number 18, was acquired second-hand by the Denver South Park and Pacific in 1879.” The 39¾-by-55¾-inch framed work, departed from a North Kansas City, Mo., collection, passed its $20/30,000 estimate and parked with a new collector for $49,560.

This 1963 oil on canvas depiction of the Syrian city of Malula (Maaloula) by Louay Kayyali (Syrian, 1934-1978), 38½ by 30½ inches framed, brought $39,360 ($30/40,000).

Syrian Modernist Louay Kayyali/Kayali’s expressive depiction of buildings in the city of Malula (Maaloula) — one of his frequent subjects — descended in the family of Dr Anthony W. Zaitz, a military leader in World War II and an academic administrator. The catalog noted that Zaitz filled a “Fullbright professorship at the University of Damascus where, according to his son, he became acquainted with Louay Kayali. This painting has remained in the family since that time.” Signed “Kayali” and dated “1963” to the lower left, the work was singed, inscribed and dated again on the reverse in both English and Arabic. The 1963 cityscape was bid to $39,360, selling to an author and historian, according to Soulis.

Another Syrian Modernist, Marwan Kassab-Bachi, was represented by two watercolor face paintings. Kassab-Bachi’s biography on the Sfeir-Semler Gallery (Beirut, Lebanon and Hamburg, Germany) website notes, “In the early 70s, Marwan’s paintings started to focus solely on the human face, using a horizontal format, and painting the human visage as a landscape, in a blur of topographical features. Over the years, they morphed into what he called ‘heads,’ and he continued to paint these until the end. Abstract brushstrokes in earthly tones at first glance, they reveal themselves as multiple melancholic faces, layered one on top of the other, gazing straight at the viewer from the depth of the canvas.” One of the pieces in this sale, dated “August 75,” was a landscape face in watercolor on paper with a Veritable Papier D’Arches Torchon blindstamp and it sold to a collector for $31,200, more than two and a half times its high estimate. The other watercolor face, untitled but cataloged as “Melting Visage,” was painted in portrait and dated to 1976; it achieved $26,400.

“Lahaina Beach” by David Howard Hitchcock (American, 1861-1943), 1928, oil on canvas, 27 by 31½ inches framed, relaxed at $22,800 ($8/12,000).

Juxtaposing the dark and earthy tones of the top four results, David Howard Hitchcock’s oil on canvas landscape of “Lahaina Beach” was perhaps the brightest work to achieve a top-ten price. As the catalog stated, this “example of Hitchcock’s work skillfully projects the light and brilliance and atmosphere of a Hawaiian coast in full sun.” The signed 1928 work was in its original frame, descended three generations in an important Kansas family and sold to a collector for $22,800.

Two still lifes by David Legare (sic) were featured in this auction. Achieving $10,200 from a dealer was “Still Life With Antiquities” from 1987, which showed a focused composition of Classical objects situated on a table with a mountainous landscape in the background. The other, “Still Life with Skull & Hyacinths” showed the titular objects “depicting the ‘to be’ of fresh hyacinths with the ‘not to be’ of a human skull” and was “signed via the depiction of a trompe l’oeil technique paper tag also depicted with a high level of skill, and the appearance of impermanence,” according to the catalog. This example, done in 1987, was taken home for $7,800. Both were signed and dated on the reverse and came from a prominent Douglas County, Kan., collection.

Done in 1936, Thomas Hart Benton’s “Huck Finn,” a pencil-signed, high-contrast black and white lithograph from an edition of 100 prints published by Associated American Artists sold to a collector for $9,600. The print, which depicts Mark Twain’s characters of Huckleberry Finn and Jim fishing on the river with a steamboat in the background, was listed on the artist’s website as “Fath 12” and “Part of the Missouri State Capitol Mural Series Catalogue.”

This pencil-signed lithograph of “Huck Finn” by Thomas Hart Benton (American, 1889-1975), 1936, was published by Associated American Artists, measured 23 by 27½ inches framed and sold to a collector for $9,600 ($8/10,000).

Another lithograph, one instead printed on wallpaper, achieved $6,765. In contrast to Benton’s finely detailed literary scene, this example, Andy Warhol’s “Mao (Purple),” was a stylistic line drawing of the Chairman with a bold purple oval coloring his face. Hand-signed by the artist in felt-tip pen, the 1974 print was “Originally created as an installation element for Warhol’s 1974 retrospective at the Musee Galliera in Paris” and “was intended to cover the walls of the gallery in a repeating pattern per Warhol’s practice of turning the gallery space into immersive, consumer-like environments,” per the auction catalog.

Maria Montoya Poveka Martinez, an icon in black-on-black pottery from San Ildefonso Pueblo (New Mexico), and her son Popovi Da, earned the highest result for any three-dimensional piece in the auction. Their 13½-inch polished plate with repeating feather motifs, signed “Maria” and “Popovi,” was made in the third quarter of the Twentieth Century and was in very good condition; a collector set their table with it for $6,765, more than three times its high estimate.

In a statement on the Soulis Auction website, the firm noted “Throughout 2025, Soulis Auctions will donate a portion of proceeds from the sale of this watercolor, and all works by Birger Sandzén and the Prairie Print Makers, to the Birger Sandzén Memorial Gallery’s expansion project, Building for the Future.” The work of note was Sandzén’s 1948 “Autumn Symphony (Smoky Hill River, Kansas),” which realized $6,150. It was acquired from the artist by Adolph Pearson, a first-generation Swede and friend of the artist. Another Kansas landscape by Sandzén, “Autumn Gold,” completed in 1950, had the same provenance and brought $5,664.

“Autumn Gold, Kansas Landscape,” a 1950 watercolor by Birger Sandzén (Swedish/American, 1871-1954), 18 by 21 inches framed, was claimed for $5,664 ($5/7,000).

Regionalist landscapes were also popular, with Sydney Larson’s colorful 1956 “View of Columbia” (Missouri) racing past its $600/900 estimate to achieve $5,658. This oil on Masonite was inscribed as “A Gift to Dr H. H. Berrier / from Sydney Larson / 1962.” The catalog noted Larson studied under Thomas Hart Benton and Fred Shane and that Berrier was a professor of veterinary medicine at University of Missouri.

Fred Shane’s Regionalist scene “Distant Elevators,” done circa 1933, was “composed in multiple layers and textures from an elevated perspective” and was housed in a period frame, presumably the original. Notably, this work was double-sided, with an unidentified portrait painted on its reverse. The catalog noted that “Distant Elevators” was “exhibited at the 1934 ‘Midwestern Artists’ Exhibition’ at the Kansas City Art Institute, and at Lighton Studios in Kansas City in December of 1935.” The oil on canvas rose to $4,956.

Prices quoted include the buyer’s premium as reported by the auction house. For information, www.soulisauctions.com or 816-697-3830.