WorthPoint’s Industry Partners are offering some remarkable collectibles in March auctions, including mid-century furnishings, antique and contemporary glass, work by women artists, and historical artifacts from the estate of an animation legend.
Few mid-century lighting designs are as renowned as the Akari light sculptures made by Isamu Noguchi. The name Akari, translating to “light” and “lightness” in Japanese, captures the ethereal, weightless quality of these lights achieved with washi paper from a mulberry tree’s inner bark and bamboo ribbing.
As part of its Angular View auction on March 8, Public Sale of Hudson, New York, is offering several Akari light sculptures, including Lot 78 in style 16A, which has a creased paper ovoid body.
The Japanese-American architect, artist, and designer created these inventive forms during a 1951 visit to Gifu, Japan. Gifu is known for its production of paper umbrellas and foldable lanterns called chochin, which have illuminated boats, businesses, shrines, and streets for centuries.
Noguchi experimented with his Akari lights, making them in styles ranging from classic spherical pendant lights to unstructured standing lanterns on bent legs. With their timeless design and warm glow, his paper lanterns remain desirable to collectors more than half a century after he created them.
WorthPoint’s database shows that in the last three years, most of these sculptural lights have been selling between $1,000 and $12,350.
The medieval stained glass Louis Comfort Tiffany saw while visiting London in the 1860s inspired him to improve the quality of American glass, and he began experimenting with colors, forms, and techniques.
One of the types of glass he developed after establishing Tiffany Studios in 1885 was Favrile. Taken from the Old English word “fabrile,” which means handmade, Favrile glass was meant to capture the qualities of medieval glass through a delicate iridescent surface.
During its Art Glass Auction on March 12, Jaremos Art Glass Specialists of Flower Mound, Texas, is offering a handful of these Favrile glass vases, including Lot 180, a red globe-form decorated with a black and yellow hooked feather.
With its innovative textures, vibrant colors, and varied sculptural forms, Tiffany Favrile glass set itself apart from other art glass, and it won a grand prize at the 1900 Paris Exposition.
Favrile glass is still admired and prized by collectors today for its eye-catching iridescent surfaces, which come in a variety of colors and shading nuances.
According to WorthPoint’s Price Guide, most Tiffany Favrile vases have been selling over the past three years between $1,000 and $94,500.
Coinciding with March being Women’s History Month, Eldred’s of East Dennis, Massachusetts, is celebrating women artists of the 19th and 20th centuries during its 5th annual Women in the Arts auction on March 19. A part of the proceeds will benefit WE CAN, a women’s empowerment group on Cape Cod.
One of the auction’s highlights is Lot 5124, an oil-on-board painting, Taos New Mexico, by Ila Mae McAfee. McAfee (1897-1995), also known as Ila McAfee Turner, was an American painter, illustrator, muralist, and author. Born in a Colorado ranching community, McAfee learned the ranching life from an early age and was surrounded by the rugged landscape of the American West, which inspired much of her work.
After studying art in Los Angeles and New York, she settled in Taos, New Mexico, and became well-known for her portraits of the Pueblo people and paintings of horses, the New Mexico landscape, and Western themes.
Over the past three years, McAfee’s paintings have been selling between $100 and $2,880.
During his illustrious career as an animator, director, and puppeteer, Bob Clampett (1913-1984) helped push animation to great comic heights. He is best known for his work on Warner Bros.’ Looney Tunes animated series, where he created Tweety Bird and was instrumental in the development of Daffy Duck and Porky Pig; his Emmy-winning puppet show Time for Beany, one of the first pop culture phenomenons that even Albert Einstein was reportedly a fan of; and his animated series Beany and Cecil.
Clampett was also a collector, preserving countless pieces of artwork and books that inspired him as a child, rare photographs of Walt Disney, and his own work from throughout his career.
On March 22 and 23, Van Eaton Galleries & Auctions in Studio City, California, is presenting The Bob Clampett Auction, featuring hundreds of treasures from his collection. One of the pieces that will be offered on day two of the sale is Lot 788, an original 1962 production cel from the opening title sequence to Beany and Cecil.
Clampett’s animated series about Beany, a precocious boy in a propeller cap, and his pet sea serpent named Cecil ran for 26 episodes on ABC and ranks among the most beloved cartoons of the baby-boom era.
Many Beany and Cecil collectibles have been sold between $10 and $1,200 over the past three years. Original art is the most valuable, like this signed drawing and photo that Van Eaton Galleries sold in 2022 for $1,149.
Adina K. Francis has been a writer and editor in the antiques and collectibles field for more than twenty years. She has a bit of an obsession with the Victorians and thinks that dogs are one of life’s greatest gifts.
WorthPoint—Discover. Value. Preserve.
Credit: Source link
