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Heritage May 16 - 18 Comic Art Signature Auction - Chicago
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Started by Matches_Malone,

764 posts in this topic

Mmehdy

Mmehdy

Posted
Posted (edited)

Two great Carl Barks paintings coming to the market...Uncle Scrooge barks cover to the Uncle Scrooge  Mcduck classic hardcover  book, and this paintings is outstanding as I have seen it in real life and was at the auction when it sold from Kirby Cofer.  Second is the oversized " Menace out of the Myths "  which is a another stunner in real life. There is a third oil called the The Wadfather.

Edited by Mmehdy
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exitmusicblue

exitmusicblue

Posted
Posted
6 hours ago, Mickey7 said:

Auction is in Chicago, so I'm tempted to attend the live bidding for the first time.  Does anyone know if you win an item with a floor bid (say a $2,000 item), can you pay for it right there and take it home with you? 

 

Curious, too!

Time to take a look at exactly what's available at present.  :cloud9:  Not that I'm bidding on anything... the Fritz in my sig will tide me over for a long while.

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batman_fan

batman_fan

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This is one of the more interesting auctions in recent times fo me.

Batman, Wonder Woman, and Superman 1, all unrestored

Amazing group of Marvel Mystery

Amazing group of Captain America

A little Neal Adams

Amazing group of Peanuts dailies and one Sunday

Jim Aparo Batman cover

GA Batman panel page

Romita early Mary Jane panel page

3 decent Watchman pages

Avengers 3 page

Several nice Byrne pages

Ton of DC covers and splashes

X--men double splash

Barry Smith Conan cover

Oh yeah and two Frazetta painting and some sketches.

 

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glendgold

glendgold

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6 hours ago, exitmusicblue said:

Almost there to launch...

If Egyptian Queen does go for 5 mil or thereabouts, I'm starting a thread in General.  A true victory for all comics lovers, whether OA collectors or not.

How so?

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glendgold

glendgold

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6 minutes ago, exitmusicblue said:

Was used as both an Eerie and a Creepy cover.  

No, I know what it was used for -- I mean how is it a victory if it goes for $5 million?  It would be astounding and generate a lot of think pieces, but I'm trying to wrap my head around "victory."  (Not being snarky -- genuinely curious what you mean.) 

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exitmusicblue

exitmusicblue

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23 minutes ago, glendgold said:

No, I know what it was used for -- I mean how is it a victory if it goes for $5 million?  It would be astounding and generate a lot of think pieces, but I'm trying to wrap my head around "victory."  (Not being snarky -- genuinely curious what you mean.) 

All good.  For generations, fine art collectors have turned up their noses to comic art.  5 mil beats a lot of fine art. : )

Frazetta is the standard-bearer for "time to take us seriously.  Very seriously."  Always has been, and continues to be today.

 

Edited by exitmusicblue
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delekkerste

delekkerste

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42 minutes ago, exitmusicblue said:

All good.  For generations, fine art collectors have turned up their noses to comic art.  5 mil beats a lot of fine art. : )

Frazetta is the standard-bearer for "time to take us seriously.  Very seriously."  

I think mainstream art collectors will continue to view Frazetta's art as kitschy, adolescent, spray painted-on-side-of-van art, no matter what price that EQ and other top examples fetch (and count me in the camp that EQ does $5 million-handle MINIMUM - by hook or by crook).  This art is for us and not for outsiders.  That there are some wealthy collectors with quirky tastes (e.g., George Lucas, Mark Parker, Halperin, etc.) and who are willing to pay up for this stuff doesn't speak to mainstream acceptance so much as these few guys "get it" like we get it.  They are not representative of the larger art world by any stretch of the imagination. 

Anyway, even if these Fritz oils are the highest priced art in our little corner of the art world, I would not want them to be the "standard bearer" for this hobby.  Even though they graced a number of Warren magazine covers, they are hardly representative of what our hobby is all about in terms of being a pen & ink, sequential storytelling medium, and I don't think they will ever be taken as seriously by outsiders as much as classic strip art, early Marvel Silver Age art, classic underground and indie art, or the best of the highbrow "graphic novel" art from the 1980s are viewed. 2c 

Edited by delekkerste
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exitmusicblue

exitmusicblue

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1 minute ago, delekkerste said:

I think mainstream art collectors will continue to view Frazetta's art as kitschy, adolescent, spray painted-on-side-of-van art, no matter what price that EQ and other top examples fetch (and count me in the camp that EQ does $5 million-handle MINIMUM - by hook or by crook).  This art is for us and not for outsiders.  That there are some wealthy collectors with quirky tastes (e.g., George Lucas, Mark Parker, Halperin, etc.) and who are willing to pay up for this stuff doesn't speak to mainstream acceptance so much as these few guys "get it" like we get it.  They are not representative of the larger art world by any stretch of the imagination. 

Anyway, even if these Fritz oils are the highest priced art in our little corner of the art world, I would not want them to be the "standard bearer" for this hobby.  Eeven though they graced a number of Warren magazine covers, they are hardly representative of what our hobby is all about in terms of being a pen & ink, sequential storytelling medium, and I don't think they will ever be taken as seriously by outsiders as much as classic strip art, early Marvel Silver Age art, classic underground and indie art, or the best of the highbrow "graphic novel" art from the 1980s are viewed. 2c 

Welp, we needn't go too mainstream and/or sell out.  And if anything, Fritz inspired untold numbers of comic artists.  The documentary was an eye-opener for me... it's something else hearing Wrightson, Adams, John Buscema, Jusko etc. lave praise and adoration upon the master.  Would highly recommend it to anyone who's yet to see it.

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zhamlau

zhamlau

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I think we might be looking at this all wrong. 

When you see these 7-10 figure fine art sales, you have to realize there are less then a thousand folks/entities in total who are doing the buying and selling of this stuff. That’s hardly representative of the general public. It’s the Uber rich passing a few pieces back and forth like a game of Monopoly. Nothing at all wrong with that, but it’s hardly a group of people whose respect we should be craving. 

The media and society in general are fascinated with huge displays of wealth, granted, but that doesn’t mean most people are serious about or have any great respect or reverence for these billionaires and wanna-be’s playing this game. We talk about it because it’s ridiculous sums of money, it’s gaudy and honestly a little insane. It’s like watching that old show “Cribs” on some level. You didn’t really respect and admire it, you watched to see how neat the “toys” were and laugh at the waste of it. It would be fun to have that disposable for sure but very few folks watched it with awe and great reverence and respect. It’s fun watching folks blow money on stupid $#|t.

I don’t think it’s a sign of “we made it” if this frazetta sells for 5 million, even if it gets some social media likes and a few sound bites in that days news cycle. Getting gawker respect means little to nothing for us or our hobby. It’s not something that makes or breaks us. It just means we got a little of the “look what some insufficiently_thoughtful_persons with money did” smirking talking head time. We are fine without it IMO.

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Bronty

Bronty

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Frazetta is interesting because he's one of the few (the only? ) whose prices are basically unaffected by the character, title, publisher, first appearance, back turned, in costume or not, type concerns.   

He's priced more like Rockwell and such, or even fine artists, where for the most part you don't really care about what magazine cover the work was on, you simply want it to have the elements he's known for (babe, barbarian, BBC,  etc).    

The auctions will be fun to watch.    That's where it ends.

While I agree with Gene that it won't mean anything to fine art types, those illustration vs fine art walls are breaking down some, glacially though the pace may be.    Rockwells gaining acceptance, prices for quality illustration going up, auction houses (not just heritage but also christies/sotheby's) sometimes including illustration art, the whole street art thing with pop culture motifs being part of contemporary art, a lame repaint of the Simpsons getting $15m, Illustration museums (George Lucas) being built, there's something there.    Its just tough to say exactly what is happening.    One thing's for sure, whatever change is occurring, its at the edges only.   A blurring of the lines rather than the disappearance of those lines.

 

 

Edited by Bronty
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pemart1966

pemart1966

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Nice to see all of the vintage Murphy Anderson art.  Is this it or is the estate doing as the Outcault estate is doing and releasing it bit by bit?

Speaking of Outcault, there appears to be a lot of his Buster Brown stuff being released.  I hope someone with the wherewithal is taking high res photos of the Buster Brown original art for release in book form...  :wishluck:

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exitmusicblue

exitmusicblue

Posted
Posted (edited)
1 hour ago, Bronty said:

Frazetta is interesting because he's one of the few (the only? ) whose prices are basically unaffected by the character, title, publisher, first appearance, back turned, in costume or not, type concerns.   

He's priced more like Rockwell and such, or even fine artists, where for the most part you don't really care about what magazine cover the work was on, you simply want it to have the elements he's known for (babe, barbarian, BBC,  etc).    

The auctions will be fun to watch.    That's where it ends.

While I agree with Gene that it won't mean anything to fine art types, those illustration vs fine art walls are breaking down some, glacially though the pace may be.    Rockwells gaining acceptance, prices for quality illustration going up, auction houses (not just heritage but also christies/sotheby's) sometimes including illustration art, the whole street art thing with pop culture motifs being part of contemporary art, a lame repaint of the Simpsons getting $15m, Illustration museums (George Lucas) being built, there's something there.    Its just tough to say exactly what is happening.    One thing's for sure, whatever change is occurring, its at the edges only.   A blurring of the lines rather than the disappearance of those lines.

 

 

Visited Carmel-by-the-Sea over the weekend, and at one point walked through the gallery of a local oil painter who'd won many awards.  I was struck by how much some of his landscapes evoked Frazetta's work (e.g., Moon's Rapture) for me, and when I mentioned this, the artist immediately replied that he was a big admirer.

He noted his personal preference to draw at dawn and dusk, as his surroundings in the Monterey Peninsula would take on an almost magical quality around those hours.  And he added that the early Peninsula artists who inspired him would stray from hyper-realism and add what they'd feel to a scene (sounded like something Fritz would say). 

Even as some ivory towers persist, new generations of collectors and artists continue to evolve with respect to tastes and influences.  I'm glad fine arts and comics circles alike never stand still; we owe it to past pioneers to keep pushing boundaries.  That's how artistic eras progress.

As a 35-year-old collector who returned to comics several years ago, it took me a little while to gravitate toward the old masters of the craft (while reassessing the artists whom I grew up with, often with a newfound appreciation).  Paraphasing Painting with Fire -- quality is never forgotten.

 

Edited by exitmusicblue
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