Rob Price
Gutbrain Records
rob + gutbrain.com = email

2010 June 02 • Wednesday

About a week and a half ago Illustration House had their latest art auction. If I had the money, I would have participated in it. I managed to visit their gallery to see some of the work in real life.

I might have bid on this small oil painting by Robert Stanley. It became the cover for one of the paperback editions of Anthony Boucher's Rocket to the Morgue.

I haven't read the book but apparently it's a mystery novel with science-fiction writers as several of the characters. According to this website the characters are based on writers such as Robert Heinlein and L. Ron Hubbard. I'd like to read it.

Apparently nobody bought it. Maybe I should have bid on it.

I also liked this painting by Tom Adams, another paperback book cover, Brand 99 by Wayne D. Overholser.

That one went for $862.

I found these two Arthur Sarnoff paintings to be startling and vivid. I enjoyed them in the gallery but I don't think I'd want them hanging in my home.

In the same category is this Alwin Schmidt oil painting for a calendar, presumaby one with a fire safety theme.

Nobody bought those either.

You can see all the pieces in the auction on the Illustration House website. You can also look at the catalogues for previous auctions.

I like this work by E. McKnight Kauffer, whose beautiful paintings embellish my copy of Green Mansions, for a pre-Helvetica American Airlines ad.

This Clinton Pettee Motor Age cover is also quite nice.

That date of August 7, 1913, ended up being changed to August 28, 1913, for publication.

My favorite piece from the previous auctions is this oil painting by Paul Stahr for the December 17, 1932, issue of Argosy.

That was included in an auction a year ago. Illustration House's website doesn't seem to say what the purchase price was, but it was estimated to go for $6,000–8,000. "The owner purchased this painting in a Manhasset, New York auction in 1967 for $4."