About a week ago I was browsing through the catalog for Manor Auctions Florida Art Auction that was held on August 20 (last Saturday ) and posted the link on my Facebook page, I hope you visited the site if you follow the Highwayman artists.
What got my attention as I looked at the art being offered for sale was the realization that a few of the living Highwaymen were pushing the envelope and attempting to break out of the traditional Florida landscape mode and to that I say “Amen!” Most Highwaymen art (as well as most Florida art) is stalled in landscape and it will be interesting to see what these few can do if they give their muse free rein.
I was drafting a new post based on my observations about this second order Highwayman phenomenon but when I logged in to the auction site to check the sales results I discovered that someone must have hacked in to my draft files.The artists who were experimenting with the new look sold very well. That suggested to me that they were on the right track, at least artistically. I had set my budget for bidding at one hundred dollars apiece for the new style paintings figuring I could steal them because no one else would like them. Wrong !
Admittedly these are not the Harold Newton’s or Alfred Hair’s of the Highwayman group. Those top tier artists have their reward. It’s time to move away from Backus.
Chico Wheeler stole the show and set the pace for what may come with sixty of his paintings being sold, 16x20 or larger, with a high of four hundred and low of eighty dollars.His sales total for the day was eleven thousand dollars. The ones I wanted went over my budget.
Keep an eye on Chico, Willie Daniels and Rodney Demps.
Two pieces of Robert Butler art, giclee reproductions, went for $45.00 each which was a very good buy for non collectors who just want a good piece of Florida art. One was titled The Story Teller, atypical subject matter for Butler who although known for landscape called himself “A historian with a brush.”