Bolstering his business and bucking trends, auctioneer Stephen Gass of Trinity International Auctions and Appraisals has found a formula for success: Keep it simple.
Gass continued with the formula on March 14 with the offering of a quality line of good artworks featuring the tried and true selection of Russian paintings that the gallery has become known for, as well as American, Italian and British works. The inclusion of sculpture and a select grouping of Modernist jewelry has rounded out this auction format.
Trinity International has grown by leaps and bounds since its formation just a couple years back and Gass’s reputation has further solidified within the art collecting community both here and abroad. Scholarly passion for what he does, combined with an astute sense of business, has created a niche for the auction house. Another major shift for the auction gallery, the physical relocation of Trinity’s live auction back to its headquarters in Avon, also proved extremely successful.
Housed in a neat arts community comprising a series of attractive brownstone buildings, whose stone was mined locally many years ago, the offices are mixed among a series of artist-in-residence buildings. Once a munitions complex that produced firing caps, the auctioneer has seemingly found a spark of his own to ignite Trinity auctions.
More than 200 lots were offered in the auction, beginning with a hotly competed for selection of works by Russian/American artist David Burliuk, and ending with a blissful trio of Western genre images by little-known American artist Earl Bliss. Gass commented that he was “very pleased with the results,” with more than 50 percent of the artwork selling to an international clientele, including sales made in Greece, Egypt and Brazil, and a host of Russian artworks selling to both Russian buyers and American collectors.
The auction got off to a brisk start with Burliuk’s oil titled “Florida (Painter on the Beach)” that had been consigned from a private New Jersey collector. The lot saw spirited bidding, with it selling to a phone bidder at $9,560. The following lot, “Long Island Summer,” 1949, sold to the same buyer at $14,340, and the next lot, a modernist abstract by Burliuk, “Future Composition,” brought $16,730.
The top lot of the auction came as a Vasily Sitnikov oil on canvas, “Kremlin in a Snowstorm,” was offered. Consigned by another private New Jersey collector, the painting was from the “Monastery” series that he painted between 1960 and 1970. Typical of the most desirable paintings by the artist, it depicted golden and colorfully painted “onion” domed buildings with a host of people moving about the exterior engaged in a variety of activities. Amid the falling snow was a Christmas tree vendor, a person carrying a tree and another carrying a chair.
Several phone bidders were lined up and ready for action as the Sitnikov crossed the block and bidding was brisk with the lot opening at $55,000 and selling moments later for $80,662, going to a private collector in Texas.
Several other Burliuk paintings were offered, with a rare oil on wood with found objects, “Assemblage with Circle,” signed in three spaces on the front “Revolution/Futurism/Burliuk” leading the pack at $22,705. A second painting titled “Long Island Summer,” although earlier, circa 1940, went to a telephone bidder at $21,510, and an abstract scene titled “Futuristic Composition” realized $16,730.
Other paintings by Russian artists included a seascape titled “Violent Sea” by Constantin Westchiloff that went out at $10,755, Zinaida Serebryakova’s touching oil “Mother and Child,” brought $10,157, as did Constantin Gorbatov’s “Summer Landscape Near a Lake.”
Several Modernist pieces were offered, with “Geometric Abstraction” by Konrad Cramer, from 1957, hammering down at $5,676, while a telephone bidder claimed the El Lissitzky gouache abstract “Proun” at $5,078.
An Orientalist painting by an unknown artist, “The Encampment,” did well at $5,975, as did Italian artist Michael Cascella’s oil “Bouquet in a Blue Vase.”
Numerous sculptures were offered in the sale, with pieces by Albert Wein, NA, capturing the attention of collectors. An attractive and stylish plaster model by for the bronze “Phryne Before the Judges” brought $3,585, “Woman Dressing,” a bronze from 1961, sold at $2,151, and “Fountain of Life” realized $4,182.
Modernist jeweler Rolph Scarlett was represented in the auction with a biomorphic abstract pin that sold at $2,390, while a Modernist ring of banded agate and silver realized $2,270.
Offered late in the sale, three Earl Bliss prints, each with a Western theme, sold above the presale estimates at $597 each.
The next auction at Trinity International will be May 30. For information, 860-677-9996 or www.trinityfinearts.com .
