THE BIG BOOM IN WESTERN ART

Left: "King of the Wild Bunch." Bronze, sculptor Dick Sloviaczek. Cast by Noggle Bronze Works. Courtesy La Galeria, Phoenix.

Bronzes are generally regarded as the best investment for the collector of Western art. How does one know a good bronze? And which sculptors assure the best investment potential? Unless one is in the 90% tax bracket and is looking for museum pieces, there are three basic things to remember. First qualify the dealer. The best way I have found, is to ask his competitors. Second: Art appreciation is a very personal thing if you don't like, don't buy it. Third and in my opinion, the most dependable, buy only current works of living artists. The buyer can verify the number of pieces per original, and can demand and get a written authentication.

The two bronzes shown on this page have all the qualities of superior contemporary sculpture, and at whatever prices they represent today, "doubled in ten years" is not an improbable estimate.

Below: "Thanks for the Rain." Bronze, sculptor - Joe Beeler. Cast by Buffalo Bronze Works. Courtesy of the artist.

The diversity of American art on the open market in the 1970-71 season at Parke-Bernet was nothing short of a phenomenon." He admits that interest had been growing in American art over the last twelve years but that interest has now manifested itself to an extraordinary and unexpected degree. Why should it have happened in a year of recession?

"It may, I believe, show an important social change," says Márion. "Disappointment with the way things are in America today has brought new respect for the days of the country's birth and development."

European museums and individual collectors are also buying frontier art. According to dealers, the interest stems basically from the increasing popularity abroad of American Western movies. Also European painting, long the standard guideline of excellence, has been pricing itself out of the market.

Founded in 1874, the world's leading dealer in American Western art is the Kennedy Gallery at 20 East 56th Street in New York City, not far from the Plaza Hotel. Rudolf G. Wunderlich, president of the company and grandson of its founder, wears a conseratively-brimmed Western hat and boots, but his intense, heavily-lidded eyes are obviously well accustomed to the quartz light incandescence of museum halls and gallery rooms. His third floor office, overlooking the street, is as cluttered as a tack room. When visitors arrive and are seated, he goes to a display easel in a corner of the room and flips on the small light illuminating a newly acquired Charlie Russell ranch scene with all the pride and pleasure of a man who knows well the dream of artists.

The Kennedy Gallery, handling early American masters as well as Western, last year sold more six-figure paintings, those priced at $100,000 or more, than in the three previous years combined. Wunderlich attributes this to the interest revival in the romanticism and importance of America's early westward expansion to the Pacific.

"You see aspects of paintings unknown to Europeans of the day," says Wunderlich. "Never was the artist presented with such scale, grandeur and wildness as the first painters of the Old West."

The frontier was also obviously far too rough and rugged for most artists, he says. Those who went there were tough old birds, or young, thorny ones. Art supplies were difficult to obtain in the early West, and painters often had to use whatever was handy - cardboard dividers from cracker boxes, birch bark, buckskin,packing crates, mirrors and even empty gin bottles.

The pedigree of Western paintings has also captured the imagination of collectors. In Europe, an important work of art can often be traced from one titled owner or royal family to the next. Western art went quite a different route. The Kennedy Gallerytraced one of its recently-acquired Charlie Russells, The Kinder-garten.

Russell painted the study of the old Indian chief and his children as a Christmas present for his sweetheart Maggie Murphy in Great Falls, Montana, in 1893. The picture later fell into the hands of Dutch Lena, a girl in the Red Light District, and an admirer of the artist. He ignored her advances and she sold the painting to the official piano player of the District, Piano Jim. It was later sold to a Mr. Wadsworth and given by him to his aunt in Boston. It returned to the Wadsworth family and was recently sold to the Kennedy Gallery by Oliver Fairfield Wadsworth of Great Falls, Montana.

Wunderlich, asked if he foresaw a Western painting reaching the million-dollar mark in the not too distant future, replied, "Conceivably," but qualified his answer, pointing out that the value of good Western art increases about eight to ten per cent a year. This, plus continued inflationary trends in the national economy (the American dollar declined by 27 per cent in the last decade) would have decided influence. Almost all experts agree that the value of Western Americana will continue to spiral upwards, particularly as our bi-centennial year approaches. Ironically, at the time it was produced, there was little demand for Western art. Many painters had to sell their work to saloons and storekeepers for a few-dollar grubstake. Americans then were too busy buying status in a frame from Europe, at record setting figures.

The current boom, needless to say, has put an all but delirious smile on faces of long-time collectors of Western art. A particu larly big smile belongs to the owners of the posh 21 Club restau rant in New York where over the years a Remington art collection in the outer lounge has been as much a fixture of the club as is the platoon of antique hitching-post jockeys that guards the out side entranceway. With lunchtime Martinis priced at only pennies less than $2, the club is so "in" among New York socialites and celebrities that chic Manhattan regulars refer to it only as "The Numbers." Last December, during his holiday visit to New York, President Nixon had dinner there one evening with members of his family.

The collection includes 26 oils, watercolors, gouaches (opaque water-grounded paints) and bronzes, most of which were obtained during the 30s and early 40s by the club's founder, the late John Carl ("Jack") Kriendler, who, as might any protagonist in the now familiar New York lower East Side rags to riches story, fell in love with the wide open spaces the first time he saw them, and he returned often. A dude in the best sense of the word, an avid buff of all things Western, he collected guns, rifles, saddles, gear and, of course, Remingtons, paying for them at the time as little as $1,000 each. In keeping with the club's original decor, all of the works were in black and white, a stipulation still in effect today.

When Jack Kriendler died a number of years ago, the job of managing the Remington collection fell to his brother Pete Kriend ler, one of the major owners of the 21 Club and perhaps the man now most familiarly associated with its operation and manage ment. Known as "Mr. Pete" to his staff, personable and freckled, he handles the collection with the apparent same cool expertise that he shows in handling impossible last minute reservations for visiting heads of state. The most recent addition to the Remington collection is Home For Christmas (Howdy Pard), a jubilant scene of cowboys arriving home from the trail. Appraised recently at $75,000, it was acquired five years ago for considerably less. Star of the collection is Order Number Six Went Through, the vision of a beautiful Indian maiden appearing before a trail-worn, weather-beaten rider. One well-heeled dinner guest offered to buy it right off the wall one night for $80,000. Although the painting was purchased years ago at a quarter of that price, the offer was refused. It's Kriendler's favorite painting.

As did his brother, Pete Kriendler visits the West often. He is a trustee of the Buffalo Bill Historical Center in Cody, Wyom ing. Another brother with ownership in the club, Bob Kriendler, has a home in Scottsdale.

Riding shotgun on the 21 Club's Remington collection is James Graham, a recognized authority on Western art and a direc tor of the Graham Galleries on upper Madison Avenue, only a few blocks away from Parke-Bernet. "I wouldn't make a move without his advice," says Kriendler. Graham, who re-appraises the collection every few years, set its current value less than 18 months ago at $1,200,000. Like most dealers working with Ameri can masters, Graham has strong confidence in the Western surge.

His gallery has a standing $200,000 offer out for Remington's Downing the Nigh Leader, Indians stopping a stagecoach, but its owner isn't even blinking.

Another dealer, who prefers not to be named, warns that collectors should be on the lookout for frauds and should avoid paintings that may decline in value despite their subject matter, those with little merit. He recommends that anyone buying West ern art as an investment should concentrate on the three C's - Charles Frederic Remington, Charles Russell and Charles Schrey vogel. The latter Charles began his career in 1890. He was a historical artist who depicted events of an earlier day, studying frontier history and costume in books and museums but basing his background and atmosphere on actual visits to the West. His most famous work is My Bunkie, a trooper in full gallop swinging a fallen comrade up into the saddle beside him, as fellow troopers hold the Indians at bay. It hangs in New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Another boost to the Western art movement is the nation's sudden and almost overwhelming interest in the American Indian. "Little Big Man" was the rage in films last year, and "Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee" led the best-selling book list for more than six months. Greeting the 1972 New Year in New York were two impressive exhibits devoted exclusively to the American Indian. One, at the Knoedler Gallery, chose the white man viewing the red man as its theme, Indian figure studies and portraits ranging from those of George Catlin, Karl Bodmer and others who ventured into the wilderness territories in search of their subjects in the early 1830s to a glossy, Hollywood-style 1950 Collier's Magazine cover illustration rehashing Custer's Last Stand. The second was a stunning exhibit at the Whitney Museum, "Two Hundred Years of North American Indian Art," which opened to an elegant black-tie cocktail-dinner reception, jampacked with culture-minded Indians and pale-face dignitaries. Mounted by Norman Feder, tossle-haired curator of Indian and native arts at the Denver Arts Museum, who drew raves, the exhibit was largely subsidized by a grant from Philip Morris, ostensibly in appreciation of the fact that the American Indians discovered tobacco. (Philip Morris also chose to run a doublepage Charlie Russell cowboy-snow scene, in all its Christmas advertisements for Marlboro last year, conceivably because Charlie Russell was a notorious chain smoker.) than six months. Greeting the 1972 New Year in New York were two impressive exhibits devoted exclusively to the American Indian. One, at the Knoedler Gallery, chose the white man viewing the red man as its theme, Indian figure studies and portraits ranging from those of George Catlin, Karl Bodmer and others who ventured into the wilderness territories in search of their subjects in the early 1830s to a glossy, Hollywood-style 1950 Collier's Magazine cover illustration rehashing Custer's Last Stand. The second was a stunning exhibit at the Whitney Museum, "Two Hundred Years of North American Indian Art," which opened to an elegant black-tie cocktail-dinner reception, jampacked with culture-minded Indians and pale-face dignitaries. Mounted by Norman Feder, tossle-haired curator of Indian and native arts at the Denver Arts Museum, who drew raves, the exhibit was largely subsidized by a grant from Philip Morris, ostensibly in appreciation of the fact that the American Indians discovered tobacco. (Philip Morris also chose to run a doublepage Charlie Russell cowboy-snow scene, in all its Christmas advertisements for Marlboro last year, conceivably because Charlie Russell was a notorious chain smoker.)

Earlier, in November, Parke-Bernet held an unusual auction sale consisting of 310 items from the Green collection of American Indian art, including a large quantity of baskets, beaded costumes, feathered headdresses, tomahawks and necklaces. Bids were staggeringly high. A private collector from Kansas paid $6,100 for a basket made by the famous weaver of the Nevada Washo tribe, Dat-So-La-Lee. An Indian hide robe went for $4,600. A silver concho belt brought $800, and a Navajo blanket, sold at Parke-Bernet in 1963 for $100, went for $1,000. Sitting Bull's human tooth necklace brought $300. Dick Cavett and artist Andy Warhol were in the audience, but neither made a bid. The sale was unique not only for the spectacular prices, but also in the enthusiasm of the bidding. The normally-staid ParkeBernet audience, where bids are traditionally made with a casual nod or hand gesture, was noticeably aghast when Charles Greeves, an artist and private collector from Wyoming, wearing a cowboy hat, beaded buckskin jacket and Western boots, signaled his bids from the rear by calling out and flamboyantly waving his hat. He bought two handwoven baskets and a pair of moccasins.

Dear Joe, New York January 18 I'm beginning to feel like I'm filing a daily dispatch, but a one-man show for Ross Stefan just opened here tonight and I'd like to add the following paragraph after the reference to Stefan's painting being sold for $700 at the Parke-Bernet auction: A subsequent one-man show at the prestigious Grand Central Gallery in New York's Biltmore Hotel January 18-29 proved far more substantial for Stefan. The show of 16 oils was a virtual sell-out by the end of the opening-night reception. Two large paintings, When Stories Grow Longer and Get Along Little Nellie were purchased by wealthy Tucson collector Sam Campbell for $1,900 and $1,200 respectively. Said gallery director Erwin S. Barrie, "I've never seen a show of such even quality. There isn't a mediocre painting in the group." Artist Eric Sloane was among the guests. The Grand Central Gallery has been a long-time supporter of Western art. In 1926, it was selected for the Charlie Russell Memorial showing. Ron ButlerIndian Pony . . . Drawing by Jim Walston. Possessing a finely developed sense of design, keen vision and a technique communicating a warm personal feeling for his subject. Courtesy Troy's Western Gallery, Scottsdale.

The tradition goes on. The scarcity of old art from the West has encouraged a new generation of Western artists, using their own ideas, freshness and talent, working in bronze, clay, line and oil paint. The Cowboy Artists of America, a society devoted to preserving the standards set in the past for Western art, lists 31 full-time professionals in its current membership roster. But who's to say where new genius is found? And it does occasionally show itself from the rowdy, colored bronzes of Harry Jackson, who Time Magazine chose to illustrate its John Wayne cover (He did the cover statue of John Wayne, which is now located at Knott's Berry Farm in California.), to the stylistic brilliance of Arizona's Ted DeGrazia, who paints in a mineshaft of colors. "Hell, I don't know why I paint Indians," says DeGrazia. "Maybe it's because I'm not happy with all this so-called progress around me. Maybe I'm afraid the Indians are going to vanish and I want to be around to fill my eyes. It's like waiting for death. I know it's coming, so I know they'll be no more. Maybe it's because I feel good around them, and often wish I were one of them." And you stop and think for a moment, and you can almost hear Charlie Russell, or Remington, or Schreyvogel saying that. You can feel it in your bones. ☐☐☐So. . . into the inner sanctum of my library I went to search for the truth. That library has set me free of more ignorance than I care to admit. One of the crown jewels in the vault of Great American literature is a book titled "Inaugural Addresses Of The Presidents Of The United States." At one dollar and one quarter it has to be the biggest bargain in the history of the English language.

WITH RESPECT TO PRESIDENTS - Editorial continued from page 1

The first thing I learned was that regardless of what happened and was said before election day, Inauguration Day is something else. Without exception every President-elect acted as though this was his most magnificent moment when the best of his human entity came face to face with God and he saw for the first time that God was on the side of the people. I felt that no matter how brash, bold, proud or mighty he seemed before Inauguration Day each President-elect breathed an unhitherto unexperienced air of greatness into his mortal soul as he spoke his affirmation to the oath of office.I learned that these great men knew their human faults and shortcomings: "I shall often go wrong through defect of judgement. When right I shall often be thought wrong by those whose positions will not command a view of the whole ground. I ask your indulgence for my own errors, which may never be intentional and your support against the errors of others, who may condemn what they would not if seen in all its parts."

I learned that there were of those great men who spoke the truth, though they knew it might mean the end for them: "This country, with its institutions belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they grow weary of the existing Government, they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it to their

"The object of love is to serve, not to win" WOODROW WILSON

revolutionary right to dismember or overthrow it."

I learned that the minds of great men do not remain static, and the limits of the superior mind have no boundaries or horizons: "We have become a great nation, forced by the fact of its greatness into relations with the other nations of the earth, and we must behave as beseems a people with such responsibilities. Justice and generosity in a nation, as in an individual, count most when shown not by the weak but by the strong. We wish peace, but we wish the peace of righteousness. We wish it because we think it is right and not because we are afraid."

I learned from another Roosevelt a simple truth: "And so today, in this year of war, 1945, we have learned lessons at a fearful cost and we shall profit by them. We have learned that we cannot live alone, at peace; that our own well being is dependent on the well-being of other nations far away. We have learned that we must live as men, not as ostriches, nor as dogs in the manger. We have learned to be citizens of the world, members of the human community. We have learned the simple truth, as Emerson said, that 'the only way to have a friend is to be one.'"

I learned from one whose greatest height was reached as a soldier of the people: "love of truth, pride of work, devotion to country all are treasures equally precious in the lives of the most humble and of the most exalted. The men who mine coal and fire furnaces and balance ledgers and turn lathes and pick cotton and heal the sick and plant corn all serve proudly, and as profitably, for America as the statesmen who draft treaties and the legislators who enact laws."

I learned from one whose complete degree of greatness will never be measured: "To those peoples in the huts and villages across the globe struggling to break the bonds of mass misery, we pledge our best efforts to help them help themselves, for whatever period is required not because the Communists may be doing it, not because we seek their votes, but because it is right. If a free society cannot help the many who are poorer, it cannot save the few who are rich.

"And if a beachhead of cooperation may push back the jungle of suspicion, let us both join sides in creating a new endeavor, not a new balance of power, but a new world of law, where the strong are just and the weak secure and the peace secured. All this will not be finished in the first 100 days. Nor will it be finished in the first 1,000 days, nor in the life of this administration, nor perhaps in our lifetime on this planet.

BUT LET US BEGIN!"

And I learned about Richard Nixon by reading his Inaugural Address of January 20, 1968 (see page 48).

I had never read President Nixon's Inaugural Address before. The more I read it the more I began to wonder whether I write his speeches or he writes my editorials. We express ourselves so similarly that I know beyond a doubt our orbits coincide. We share many thoughts in common, and as Americans we are equals. I'm with him! He's with me!

The Cocopah story started when Ted DeGrazia and Dave Metz conceived a plan to help the poorest Indian tribe raise some twelve thousand dollars to build a "Cry House." The William Donner Foundation in New York had already contributed $10,000. The two-page appeal in our September 1971 magazine brought more than thirty thousand dollars from people throughout the world, who have the cause of the Indian people at heart. Artist DeGrazia donated a limited edition (5,000 prints) of his finest pastel painting suitable for framing. Individual contributions for each print ranged from $5.00 to $1,000. Volunteer workers under the direction of Mrs. Virginia Troster processed all mail and The Arizona Bank shared a mailing and packaging responsibility amounting to some $8,000. The Cocopah people were the sole beneficiaries of every dollar contributed. The oversubscribed monies are being used to set up a self-help arts and crafts educational program for the school age children of the tribe. The program was directed by Maurice Stans, then Secretary of The Department of Commerce (who bought four autographed prints for $100.00) as a pilot project for the Economic Development Administration (EDA), a branch of the U.S. Department of Commerce. There are too many Alphabet Agencies for me to explain how and why things get done by one agency and not by another. Dave Metz, a non-Indian is one of several EDA Research Representatives assigned to the Western Regional office of EDA in Seattle, Washington, and works within the states of Arizona and Nevada.

During my World War II army life I learned that God and the United States Government "work in mysterious ways their wonders to perform." I learned not to question how or why. It takes all the faith and courage one can call upon at times to prove it, but somewhere in this crazy bureaucratic system there are agencies and people who get things done. It's a far-from-perfect system, but it still beats anything else ever contrived on this earth, and in all truth and sincerity it is and always will be a government of the people, for the people, by the people, and in America the people means every citizen from the President to the poorest novote Cocopah. As to President Nixon's visit to the Peoples' Republic of China. God alone knows what the outcome will be. No man possesses the insight to predict the result of the historical confrontation. If the good-will be as a grain of sand in the deserts of the world, or a dew-drop in the seven seas, it will be as important as the atom which holds this planet together. It has taken me thirty years to acknowledge my first letter from The White House. In my heart I feel the time is now, and I'm sure the man I loved and knew as F.D.R. will understand and forgive me for plagiarizing his words in an open letter to President Richard Nixon.

When the Presidential airplane leaves for China accompanying you will be the most precious cargo ever airborne the hearts of all mankind. You bear with you the hope, the confidence, the gratitude and prayers of your family and your fellow-citizens. God will be with you all the way.. JOSEPH STACEY

January 17, 1972

Dear Mr. Stacey:

Your outstanding efforts to assist the Cocopah Indian Tribe by publicizing their needs in your magazine have come to my attention recently. I understand that you played a significant role in the success of the Cocopah Cry House project, and I would like to extend my warmest congratulations to you for your worthy contribution to this cause.

With my best wishes,

Sincerely,

Mr. Joe Stacey Editor Arizona Highways Magazine 2039 West Lewis Avenue Phoenix, Arizona 85009

January 17, 1972

Dear Mr. DeGrazia: Your efforts to assist the Cocopah Indian Tribe through your contributions to their Cry House-Community Building project recently came to my attention. I understand that you have volunteered the proceeds earned from the sale of your pastel, "Little Cocopah Indian Girl," to the Cocopah Indians, and I welcome this opportunity to commend you for your generous contribution to this important project.

With my best wishes for the future,

Sincerely,

Mr. Ted DeGrazia 6300 North Swan Road Tucson, Arizona 85718

EXCERPTED FROM PRESIDENT RICHARD M. NIXON'S INAUGURAL ADDRESS, JANUARY 1968

We are caught in war, wanting peace. We are torn by division, wanting unity. We see around us empty lives, wanting fulfillment. We see tasks that need doing, waiting for hands to do them.

To a crisis of the spirit, we need an answer of the spirit. And to find that answer, we need only look within our-selves.

When we listen to "the better angels of our nature," we find that they celebrate the simple things, the basic things such as goodness, decency, love, kindness.

Greatness comes in simple trappings.

The simple things are the ones most needed today if we are to surmount what divides us, and cement what unites us.

To lower our voices would be a simple thing.

We cannot learn from one another until we stop shouting at one another until we speak quietly enough so that our words can be heard as well as our voices.

For its part, government will listen. We will strive to listen in new ways to the voices of quiet anguish, the voices that speak without words, the voices of the heart to the injured voices, the anxious voices, the voices that have despaired of being heard. Those who have been left out, we will try to bring in. Those left behind, we will help to catch up.

For all of our people, we will set as our goal the decent order that makes progress possible and our lives secure.

As we reach toward our hopes, our task is to build on what has gone before not turning away from the old, but turning toward the new.

In this past third of a century, government has passed more laws, spent more money, initiated more programs, than in all our previous history.

In pursuing our goals of full employment, better housing, excellence in education; in rebuilding our cities and improving our rural areas; in protecting our environment and enhancing the quality of life; in all these and more, we will and must press urgently forward.

We shall plan now for the day when our wealth can be transferred from the destruction of war abroad to the urgent needs of our people at home.

The American dream does not come to those who fall asleep.

But we are approaching the limits of what government alone can do.

Our greatest need now is to reach beyond government, to enlist the legions of the concerned and the committed.

What has to be done, has to be done by government and people together or it will not be done at all. The lesson of past agony is that without the people we can do nothing; with the people we can do everything.

To match the magnitude of our tasks, we need the energies of our people enlisted not only in grand enterprises, but more importantly in those small, splendid efforts that make headlines in the neighborhood newspaper instead of the national journal.

With these, we can build a great cathedral of the spirit each of us raising it one stone at a time, as he reaches out to his neighbor, helping, caring, doing.