Auction Action In Buford, Ga.
BUFORD, GA.- Steve Slotin did another $1.5 million in his November 13-14 Self-Taught Art Masterpiece sale. The situation begs some clarity – the auctioneer’s Masterpiece sale last November grossed about the same number. At that time he told us, “This was by far one of our best sales in our 30 years of doing auctions,” and if we were to quote him again after this go-around, we’d sound like a broken record. He’s flying high.
There is no denying the thundering momentum that Southern Folk Art is experiencing in this moment.
“These artists were the fabric of America,” Slotin said. “At the time they didn’t get any attention. No recognition, representation or any help. But it does seem like things are turning, that these artists are getting recognized and I think people are responding extremely positively to what we’ve been offering. I think they love seeing this part of America. Over time, this will be thought of as the golden age of American art.”
Bill Traylor, Alabama’s patron saint of self-taught art, was behind the sale’s leading lot as his untitled work depicting a woman holding an umbrella went out at $182,500. The drawing had been featured in Jeffrey Wolf’s documentary Bill Traylor: Chasing Ghosts and came by descent from the collection of artist and collector Elyse Saperstein. Slotin sold Saperstein’s collection in the early 2000s, though this work passed to her sister, from where it was consigned.
The woman in blue skirt and striped blouse peers upward at her umbrella, a dog by her side and a geometric basket appearing almost unrelated in the top of the work. The graphite and colored pencil drawing appeared on the back of a cardstock advertisement for Phillip Morris cigarettes, the back lithographed with an image of a…
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Source https://www.antiquesandthearts.com/as-interest-in-southern-folk-art-swells-bidders-buy-in-buford/
