Chelsie Olney of Copley Fine Art Auctions says thank you to everyone who made Copley’s first live-streamed auction a success.
The sale, consisting of 296 lots, was 94 percent sold by lot and realized $957,000. The auction achieved several world record prices, thanks in part to the more than 150 new bidders registered to participate in the scaled-down one-day sale. A new record was set for Charles Coffin when the O’Brien-Nelson Hollow Nantucket Curlew sold for $108,000, making it the top lot of the sale. The top painting lot was a quail hunting watercolor by Ogden M. Pleissner, which landed at $37,200. Thomas Aquinas Daly’s Electric Mountain blew past its high estimate to hammer at $16,800, setting a new world record for the artist.
The results of this auction, along with the $3.46 million Winter Sale 2020, $1.7 million in private sales, and a $270,000 hybrid single-lot private auction, have pushed Copley’s 2020 sales well over the $6 million mark just one month into the third quarter. Owner and principal Stephen B. O’Brien Jr. reports, “We created Copley Live five years ago as the decoy industry’s only app. To see exponential growth in the number of bidders using it is highly rewarding. With the industry moving in this direction, we are able to seamlessly continue handling top collections and estates in the customized fashion that our clients have come to expect.”
A small number of items will be available for post-auction sale until next Monday, August 3rd. To purchase an item, please contact our specialists at 617.536.0030 or by email at info@copleyart.com.
The Sporting Life is a celebration of gundogs and horses, hunting and fishing as expressed through the rich and exuberant paintings of Joseph Sulkowski.
Acclaimed as one of America’s premier dog and sporting artists, Sulkowski shares his personal conversation with the outdoor life in a style of Poetic Realism. Influenced and guided by the hands of the Old Masters, he creates fluid brushstrokes that imbue his canvases with a compelling blend of light, atmosphere, and spatial effects that bring his passion for the sporting life into vivid focus for the viewer.
Whether it’s still-lifes, dog paintings or scenes of hunters and anglers, Joseph Sulkowski derives his inspiration from personal contact with the natural world. He carries out his visions through a lifelong discipline to his craft in which hand-ground paints, carefully prepared oils and varnishes, and handcrafted linen canvases and gessoed panels play a vital role in the quality of each work of art.
