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A new generation of collectors — much like today’s major collectors of illustration art — is gravitating toward the characters and visual language they grew up with. Just as Steven Spielberg collected Norman Rockwell for his connection to American storytelling, younger collectors are drawn to cartoon-like figures, super-heroes, and iconic characters such as Hello Kitty.

Japanese artist Yoshitomo Nara leads this movement, but his prices place him beyond reach for many. The genre, however, is expanding with other artists creating emotionally layered, symbolically rich work beneath seemingly innocent features.

One artist capturing our attention is Spanish painter Edgar Plans. His “Animal Heroes” blend playful forms with themes of social justice, community, and shared humanity. We see this entire movement as one that will continue to evolve, solidify, and earn its place in art history — with strong long-term potential.

Singier’s Portrait Flammand is a fascinating blend of homage and satire. Referencing Flemish Golden Age portraiture, the work carries regal formality mixed with playful exaggeration, particularly through the bright orange, almost pumpkin-like head. The result is a piece with humor, gravity, and striking presence.

European postwar abstraction continues to offer remarkable value compared to its American counterparts. Movements such as Tachisme, Lyrical Abstraction, Abstract-Creation, and the Group Informel produced exceptional works by artists like Simon Hantaï, Pierre Soulages, and Serge Poliakoff — all of whom are gaining stronger recognition among American collectors.

Within this landscape, Singier’s Portrait Flammand feels like a sleeper — a work with historical resonance, visual wit, and staying power.

Jane Austen’s narratives remain timeless, and similarly, 19th-century art continues to captivate viewers with its emotional depth and craftsmanship. A newly acquired painting by Frank Russell Green, an American artist active in England, evokes scenes familiar from Pride and Prejudice, Emma, and Sense and Sensibility. Each brushstroke reveals an artist of exceptional technical ability, despite the limited historical record about him.

The 19th century provides an abundance of depictions of women — in domestic spaces, at leisure, and in moments of emotional intimacy. This offers a compelling contrast with contemporary art, where motherhood is rarely explored. In the work of Francis Day and Lydia Field Emmet, motherhood appears as a sacred, serene subject. Male and female artists alike treated it as central to the human story. Today, while figurative painting has resurged, it is worth asking whether themes of motherhood will reemerge in contemporary practice.

We want to spotlight Lynn Davis’s monumental iceberg photographs created between 2000 and 2004. Two decades later, these works carry new layers of meaning as global conversations around climate and environmental change evolve.

Whether one interprets them through the lens of climate change or the natural transformation of the Arctic, the imagery remains powerful, serene, and conceptually rich. The series has begun to reappear on the secondary market, and we believe it will have an enduring place in the history of photography. The combination of aesthetic force and environmental resonance ensures continued relevance and inquiry.

Taylor Graham has long championed undervalued artists in the secondary market — and recent results affirm this instinct. Just before Thanksgiving, a single Vasa tower sold for a record $78,740 at a regional California auction. Interestingly, the piece was not in ideal condition, suggesting that eager bidders competed without full expertise, something we caution collectors against.

Vasa Mihich, whose work in acrylic resin began in the 1970s, was one of the most skilled artists working in this medium, aligned with the Light and Space movement. His brilliantly engineered, light-responsive forms feel increasingly contemporary in today’s design-forward interiors. We believe no comparable resin work will be produced again at this level, underscoring the lasting value of his pieces.

This is excellent news for collectors who have already acquired his work — and encouraging for the future trajectory of Mihich’s market.

Women of inspiration have existed throughout all time periods, and behind each one is a story that continues to impress today. Their lives, choices, and proactiveness often leave behind institutions and legacies that endure.

Sarah Todd Bulkley and her husband, Jonathan, were involved in many philanthropic and social endeavors. He was president of the East Side House Settlement, one of New York’s oldest organizations helping the poor, which still exists today. Sarah was vice president of the New York Y.W.C.A. and active in the Girls Service League in New York.

She served as president of the Garden Club of America from 1932 to 1935, traveling throughout the United States and Asia to promote the club’s aims. In the 1930s, Japanese Prince Fumimaro Konoye visited Mrs. Bulkley at her home, Rippowam, in Ridgefield, Connecticut. Later, she traveled to Japan on behalf of the Garden Club, where the Prince entertained her. Konoye went on to become Prime Minister of Japan but resigned shortly before Pearl Harbor. In 1945, he was closely involved in efforts to stop the war.

In the suburbs, Sarah Bulkley was also a charter member of the Ridgefield Garden Club, serving as its president in the 1920s. She inspired her daughter, Sarah Bulkley Randolph, to become one of the founders of the Ridgefield Boys’ Club. Jonathan O. Bulkley was a wealthy paper merchant and owner of Bulkley Dunton Co., today the largest paper distribution company in North America.

The Bulkleys set about doing justice to their Ridgefield, Connecticut property by giving serious attention to the creation of gardens designed by Ellen Biddle Shipman, a pioneering woman landscape architect. She designed both public and private gardens throughout the East, including those for Henry Ford and Thomas Edison’s wife, as well as the acclaimed Sarah P. Duke Gardens at Duke University.

This is where Edward McCartan enters the story.

Diana, the goddess of the hunt, first appeared as a subject in McCartan’s sculpture in 1923. The earliest rendition, titled Diana (The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York), depicts the goddess controlling a leashed hound. Diana of 1924, at Brookgreen Gardens in Pawley’s Island, South Carolina, produced the following year, portrays the goddess in a more passive state, with her hand resting on the head of a fawn. This work was a direct precursor to our Garden Figure. This marble was designed to overlook the elaborate pool and garden, serving as the focal point for sculpture on the property.

The sculpture graced the cover of Country Life in March 1934.

Jonathan and Sarah also built a mansion at 600 Park Avenue in Manhattan, now considered one of the city’s architectural treasures. The house was designed by James Gamble Rogers, whose many major projects included a dozen buildings at Yale and others at universities, as well as hospitals such as Presbyterian and Memorial Sloan Kettering in New York.

The number of monumental marbles produced during the Deco era is small, making Garden Figure a significant work from the golden age for sculpture in America.

This work was, in essence, an homage to John Glenn, the first American to orbit the Earth in 1962. It was featured in Pomodoro’s significant solo exhibition of 1963, held at the Palais des Beaux-Arts in Brussels.

Omaggio al Cosmonauta n. 2 represents a pivotal moment in Arnaldo Pomodoro’s artistic development in the early 1960s. The title translates to “Homage to the Cosmonauts,” referring to the Russian term for space travelers, or, as Pomodoro likely intended, “sailors of the universe.” Created in 1962, when the artist was in his mid-thirties, the sculpture reflects his fascination with the tension between a perfect exterior form and a fractured interior space. At this stage in his career, Pomodoro was deeply engaged in technical experimentation with bronze and drawn to themes of modernity, scientific progress, and futuristic aesthetics, inspired by the excitement surrounding the space race. This is an important work within the context of his career, created at a time when he was striving to engage with more serious subject matter.

Now, over 60 years later, its relevance remains alive, as the Artemis expedition has renewed interest in the history of space travel, its current purpose, and the optimism of near-future goals in space exploration.

This is an exciting time for the artist, as the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art has announced a landmark Jacob Hashimoto installation titled Giant Arc, set to open to the public on August 22, 2026. It will be the largest installation of his career. He also has a notable installation at Nashville International Airport, titled The Scalable Rampart of Time. We foresee that the artist will continue to be in demand, as his works inspire and elevate the public. We also believe that his work, in a revolutionary way, continues an earlier thread in American art of Asian influences that, over time, have complemented evolving artistic trends.

Hashimoto’s practice stands out for its ability to merge craft traditions with contemporary installation on a monumental scale. Drawing from Japanese kite-making and modular construction, he creates immersive environments that challenge spatial perception and invite contemplation. His work bridges cultural histories while remaining forward-looking, reinforcing his importance within global contemporary art discourse and ensuring his continued institutional and critical recognition.

A muse and source of inspiration, Dr. Necia Harkless became a longtime friend of Sam Gilliam; they met during the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. They also shared a common background, having lived, studied, and worked at various times in Louisville, Kentucky. Dr. Harkness’s academic focus on music history and theory, as well as African-Nubian history, found fertile ground in Gilliam’s work. The inscription on this piece, “thanks for the inspiration,” written some 33 years after the March on Washington, speaks to their decades-long exchange and relationship. It also sheds light on the artwork as a gift from the artist to her many years later.

Symphony at the Apollo, Harlem by Sam Gilliam emerges from a pivotal moment in both American history and the artist’s own practice, belonging to one of the most innovative bodies of work in postwar American art: his groundbreaking drape paintings. Created from unstretched, painted canvas, these works move beyond the flat plane of the wall, instead suspended, looped, or anchored in sculptural configurations that shift with each installation.

Norman Bluhm’s life and work stand as one of the purest, most textbook examples of why action painting emerged in the postwar era. During World War II, Bluhm served in the United States Air Force as a B-26 bomber pilot and flew 44 missions over North Africa and Europe, most notably the mission over Romania that destroyed the Nazis’ last major oil supply—at the cost of approximately 75% of American bomber crews. Upon his return home, Bluhm chose not to resume his architectural studies and instead pursued art at the Accademia di Belle Arti in Florence, Italy, as well as at the École des Beaux-Arts and the Académie de la Grande Chaumière in Paris. Throughout the 1940s and 1950s, he lived in Paris.

Sioux, painted in 1961, stands as a visceral tribute to the essence of action painting, as it feels “compelled into existence.” Bluhm reflected on this period in an interview, stating: “Well, I think the fifties and sixties had a lot to do with the anger, the energy of that time, the postwar energy of even America, so to speak, and this kind of endeavor to make something that was American, greater than most people would accept.”
This painting was exhibited in Art from American Embassies: Mexico at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, in 1965, and later traveled to the Museo de Arte Moderno in Mexico City.

A central figure in the Abstract Expressionist movement that coursed through New York City in the 1950s, Perle Fine was an independent-minded and exceptionally talented artist who committed her life to the pursuit of abstraction. She exhibited extensively, participating in numerous major solo and group shows at iconic venues such as the Art of This Century Gallery, Nierendorf Gallery, the famed Betty Parsons Gallery, and the Tanager Gallery, among others.

Fine was one of the few women invited to join The Club, an intellectual group at the center of the art world at the time, whose members included Franz Kline, Jackson Pollock, and Willem de Kooning. She is particularly remembered for her ability to create compelling visual rhythms using seemingly unlikely elements such as geometric forms, simple lines, and restrained compositions.

Potentially the artist’s entry to the National Academy of Design’s 1875 exhibition of painting, Spring Tide stands as an exceptional and striking example of his work. Richards was a step above many of his American contemporaries in his technical training as an academic artist. The quality and expression of light in this painting are unparalleled.

Viewership of works like this in museums is rising, particularly among younger audiences. They are often acutely impressed by the technical mastery, the commitment to depicting nature without human presence, and the understanding that works of this kind are unlikely to be produced again. The environmental sensitivity and pure appreciation of nature captured by this artist hold renewed meaning for upcoming generations.

By placing the beanstalk in the center of the canvas, Brown suggests that we continue to aspire in our desires toward an upward accumulation of riches, and that there is no end to the cycle of risk and reward in consumerist America. Further suggesting an imbalance in priorities, this “path” has disrupted the tranquil suburban neighborhood, toppling homes and causing distress to those who live within.

While much of Brown’s work is rooted in the depiction of suburban landscapes, it is not a celebration of suburban life. Rather, it is a critique and commentary on the conformist and consumer-driven nature of suburban America, suggesting that beneath the seemingly ordinary suburban façade lie isolation, alienation, and existential questioning.

It is compelling to trace how some artists, such as Edward Hopper, leave a visual and thematic thread, which later artists unwittingly re-engage with renewed originality. The educational depth and value in sharing this narrative, Brown’s perspective from the 1980s through to our current environment and into the future, is significant.

Exhibitions
Exhibition Rouen, 1839
Loterie des Amis des Arts
Refuse au Salon de 1838 (possibly)

 

Chaumière Sous Bois is one of the earliest works by Díaz to enter the market and demonstrates the serious role that the Barbizon aesthetic would come to play in his practice. He employs advanced techniques associated with Dutch Old Master painters, particularly in the deep, rich glazing used in the wooded area on the left. The sense of light is equally nuanced and clearly influenced by earlier painting traditions. As his work progresses, a shift can be seen toward a less translucent approach in the rendering of skies.

It is no surprise that Pierre Miquel noted this painting was inspired by Díaz’s trip to Holland in 1838. The figures are clearly derived from sketches made during this journey. A common approach at the time, artists produced numerous preparatory studies of individual elements, later combining them into a final composition. Miquel also notes Díaz’s interest in 17th-century Dutch engravings, which helps explain the ease and formality of this composition. Once understood, these influences clarify the structure and balance of the work.

Painted on cradled panel, this may be a significant early work by the artist and one of his strongest from this period, foreshadowing developments that would define his later career. Its exhibition history, including Exhibition Rouen, 1839, Loterie des Amis des Arts, and its rejection from the Salon of 1838, may further underscore the artist’s own complex relationship to this work.

In 1886, Puigaudeau made his first visit to the quiet seaside village of Pont-Aven. There he booked a room at Gloanec’s, a popular hotel for artists on a budget. It so happened that Paul Gauguin was also making his first visit and staying at the same hotel. Puigaudeau, along with a small number of aspiring artists, was in a wholly unique position of observing and working collectively to create a new movement in a remote area of France. Inspired by their contact with Gauguin, a number of these artists developed a radical direction in painting.

 

Puigaudeau adopted some of the tenets of this new mode, including a heightened palette and vigorous brushwork reminiscent of Pointillism. He had a passion for the subtleties of light in all its forms and a particular affinity for moonlit landscapes, while his sunlit seascapes radiate a suffusion of light. In a letter to his cousin, Alphonse de Châteaubriant, he described this approach as “renewing the identity” of the subject matter.

Sadly, while Puigaudeau perhaps more than any other artist explored ideas connected to mysticism and Symbolism, he has not been given sufficient credit for his contribution to this period and his focused exploration of these ideas. A major work like this would restore and widen the perspective of this important painter’s contribution. Gauguin, Degas, Rysselberghe, Ensor, and Bernard all figure within this broader context. Degas affectionately referred to Puigaudeau as the “Hermit of Kervaudu,” yet he is rarely seen alongside his contemporaries.

Nude by River’s Edge is dated 1908 and was given to Carlota Saint Gaudens, presumably that same year. Carlota was the wife of Homer Saint Gaudens, the son of Augustus Saint Gaudens. Augustus was one of America’s most important sculptors, and Kenyon Cox was one of his closest friends. The two formed a friendship in their early years in Paris around 1884, when Cox wrote an article for Century Magazine on the sculptor. Cox quickly came to feel the utmost regard for Saint Gaudens and revered him as a kind of “harbinger of the second Renaissance.” Cox was so pleased with the portrait he made of Augustus that he exhibited it at the Society of American Artists in 1888. Saint Gaudens appreciated the portrait and returned the favor in 1889 by creating a likeness of Cox in an oblong bronze medallion. In 1904, the portrait of Augustus was destroyed in a fire in the sculptor’s studio. In 1908, Cox created another version of it as a memorial to Augustus, the year after the sculptor’s death.

There are no formal records explaining why Kenyon gave the painting to Carlota. It is known that Carlota married Homer around 1905 and spent her summers with him in Cornish, New Hampshire. Augustus had established himself in Cornish many years earlier and spent his summers there with his family. Cox was friendly with both Homer and Carlota. Carlota was noted for her statuesque figure, blond hair, and high spirits, and Augustus was both pleased and fond of her. It is possible to speculate that Cox gave the painting as a gift after Augustus’s death as a gesture of generosity. It is also possible that Carlota purchased it, as Cox was often in need of money and lived hand to mouth.

It is further possible that the woman in the painting is Cox’s wife, Louise, as there is a resemblance. Whatever the circumstances under which the work came into Carlota’s possession, it remains likely that it was given out of fondness. Cox was not the most outwardly sociable or amiable of men; he had only a small circle of close friends, and Augustus was among the most important to him. Cox was one of the speakers at Saint Gaudens’s funeral.

Exhibitions: Musee du Prieure, 1981
Musee du Pont-Aven June 30 - October 2001

Literature: Le Paul, Judy "Gauguin and the Impressionists at Pont Aven".  Abbeville Press, New York, 1987, illus. page 37

Gustave Loiseau was one such French painter drawn to the atmosphere of the quaint village of Pont-Aven, arriving there for the first time on May 11, 1890. Here, his style and reputation as one of the foremost Impressionists of the time flourished, as he befriended and was influenced by such great painters as Paul Gauguin and Maxime Maufra. Throughout his life, he traveled extensively but would always return to Pont-Aven. During the 1920s, Loiseau created a series of paintings of the village of Pont-Aven, with The Hôtel Julia, Pont-Aven being the most significant of these works.

These paintings are characterized by Divisionist brushwork and a palette of cool blues and creams, tempered with dabs of orange. This work brings to life of the village, where the Hôtel des Voyageurs was the heart of Pont-Aven. It is an excellent example of his experimental brushwork and a historic record of where these artists gathered, spoke, and painted during this important period.

Exhibitions Featuring Twilight: 
Macbeth Galleries, New York 1917
National Academy of Design, 1917
Albright Art Gallery, Buffalo, 1918

Hawthorne was one of America’s great teachers of art, along with William M. Chase and Hans Hofmann. Both of these artists had relationships with Hawthorne, and while they differed in some of their techniques and ideas, all three were important to the evolution and understanding of American art. Hawthorne established his school of painting in Provincetown. He taught classes both outdoors and indoors and was a beloved professor as well as a highly individual thinker and painter.

Twilight is an iconic and compelling portrait of Julia Morrow, who was a pupil of Hawthorne. She later married and became Mrs. Cornelius DeForest. Many art critics and collectors feel that portraiture was where he excelled. A significant note about Hawthorne is the admiration he held for the portraits of Frans Hals. For 1917, this work stands among the strongest figurative works being produced at the time.

By the 1960s, Washington, D.C. born Gene Davis had become a central figure of the Washington Color School, whose members included Kenneth Noland, Howard Mehring and Morris Louis.  Their 1965 exhibition, The Washington Color Painters, at the now-defunct Washington Gallery of Modern Art, and which traveled to the Walker Art Center, solidified the style as Washington’s signature art movement.

Though he himself was not a musician, Davis referred to the repetition of colored intervals as being akin to musical rhythm. He suggested that when looking at his paintings, one begins by “simply glancing at the work, selecting a specific color and taking the time to see how it operates across the painting. Enter the painting through the door of a single color, and then you can understand what the painting is all about.”

A work such as Solar Diary is a refined and sophisticated composition that now stands as a classic in the lexicon of contemporary art.

Powers portrays the young William Austin Wadsworth aged 15 in a military vest. The Wadsworth Family enjoyed a history of esteemed and decorated service in the Revolutionary War as well as in the War of 1812. Originally commissioned by his father William Wolcott Wadsworth (1810-1852), no one at the time could have foreseen the father’s untimely death in 1852, a mere eight years after inheriting the family seat in 1844 and six short years after marrying Emmeline Austin.

The success of his realistic bust of Andrew Jackson in 1835 brought Powers numerous commissions from such well-known figures as John Quincy Adams, Daniel Webster, John Marshall, John Calhoun and in our example William Austin Wadsworth. His father, William Wolcott Wadsworth, was a descendent of the largest and wealthiest landowners in the pioneering community of the Genesee Valley in Western New York State. Wadsworth would not live to see the bust he commissioned of his young son. The bust can be dated to 1862 by means of a letter that the widow Emmeline Austin Wadsworth sent to Powers in which she asked that the marble replica of her son be completed as quickly as possible.

William Wolcott Wadsworth (1810-1852) was the second son of James Wadsworth and heir to “The Homestead”, the seat of the family estate in Geneseo, New York from 
where our marble bust originated. His father James and Uncle William settled in Geneseo, New York in 1790. The two brothers were the nephews and agents for the landowner and Revolutionary War Commissionaire Colonel Jeremiah Wadsworth in Connecticut. 

The two brothers had a significant impact on Geneseo, holding elected positions, and establishing a community that employed soil conservation, stock breeding, and advanced agricultural methods and public education. William Austin Wadsworth, now the young heir apparent, would go on to study chemistry at the University of Berlin after having graduated from Harvard University. He would then serve as a major in the Quartermaster Corps during the Spanish-American War. In 1901 he married Elizabeth Greene Perkins and returned to the large estate in Geneseo, New York which he inherited from his father.