PBA's January 27th Auction Results
PBA Galleries' Fine Art and Photography Sale held on January 27th attracted considerable interest, with prints and lithographs performing especially well. The sale consisted of over 325 lots featuring paintings, prints, original photographs, photobooks, artists’ books, posters, decorative arts, and more. Major collections included early works by Ed Ruscha from his friend Marilyn McCorkle’s collection, a large collection of Chez Panisse posters signed by David Lance Goines that had a very good sell-through rate, and a collection of signed prints by Salvador Dali. Outstanding individual lots included a Thanksgiving Day mail art broadside sent from Ed Ruscha and Mason Williams to model Marilyn McCorkle.
Highlights included a signed Käthe Kollwitz lithograph, Le Corbusier’s Série Panurge, lovely original photographs from Nick Brandt and Peter Stackpole, and an original oil painting from Bauhaus participant Iwao Yamawaki. The bids were particularly strong for the Ed Ruscha and Mason Williams’ Thanksgiving Day 1965, an original multicolor holograph mail art broadside on orchestral score. In the words of Ruscha and Williams, a “cultural endeavour care package” sent to model and friend Marilyn McCorkle. Written in the hands of the authors and signed by them as Masie Bunny and Eddie P, the piece sold for $3,750. An original gelatin silver print of Pablo Picasso and Jean Cocteau attracted a lot of interest. It represents Cocteau playing an African xylophone type instrument, and Picasso joyfully looking on. This print of the photo, likely part of a 1958 exhibition of Duncan's Picasso photographs at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, sold for $4,062.50. Also two animal photographs by Nick Brandt each went for $3,125.
Among the remarkable lots that were offered in Sale 753, were Chez Panisse posters, designed by Berkeley artist David Lance Goines. All were signed by the author and sold well. The Chez Panisse Second Birthday, second of nearly 50 posters in the decades-long collaboration between David Lance Goines and Alice Waters, fetched a record of $1,062.50. Other Chez Panisse posters will be auctioned in the next PBA Galleries’ Art and Photography sale.
From Sandow Birk’s series In Smog and Thunder, Overview of the Carnage South of Market (The Battle of San Francisco) attracted strong bidding. One of the battles between Northern and Southern California as envisioned by California artist Sandow Birk, offering an often-caustic critique of contemporary America, sold for $1,625.
PBA Galleries holds sales of fine, rare and collectible books every two weeks. They are currently accepting consignments for Fine Art and Photography. For more information regarding upcoming sales, consignments, or auction results, please call (415) 989.2665 .
