Every August during Santa Fe’s famous Indian Market season, Santa Fe Art Auction hosts its American Indian: Classic to Contemporary sale. This dynamic auction features a diverse array of Native American treasures, both historic and contemporary, including paintings, pottery, sculpture, basketry, textiles, katsinam and more.
Kevin Red Star (Crow), Bear Claw and Willow, acrylic and graphite on canvas, 32 x 42”
“I’d like to highlight personal favorites, Kevin Red Star and Margarete Bagshaw, as outstanding contemporary American Native artists who have been fundamental to the change in our perception of Native American art,” says Gillian Blitch, president and CEO of Santa Fe Art Auction. “Bagshaw, of course, was a proud inheritor of the legacies of her mother, Helen Hardin, whose work also appears in this sale, and her grandmother, Pablita Velarde, also featured in this sale. This painting speaks to her deep knowledge of her Native heritage and its modernist articulation in an exuberantly abstracted form. Bagshaw was, of course, a founder of the New Mexico Women’s Foundation.” Painted in 1999, Bagshaw’s abstract oil painting is estimated to fetch between $3,000 and $5,000.
Margarete Bagshaw (Santa Clara, 1964-2015), Untitled, 1999, oil on canvas, 23½ x 495⁄8” Estimate: $3/5,000
“Kevin Red Star is renowned for conscientiously intertwining his Crow legacy in a contemporary expression exemplified by [this painting of a Crow couple],” Blitch adds. The acrylic piece, titled Bear Claw and Willow, has a presale estimate of $4,000 to $8,000.
Blitch continues, “[Red Star] was an early student at IAIA where he studied under Charles Loloma among others. One of the great privileges of this auction house was to bring one of his earliest paintings to market a few years ago that Loloma had retained in his personal collection for the duration of his life.”
Lucy M. Lewis (Acoma, 1898-1992), Wedding Vase, fired clay, pigments, 8½ x 7½” Estimate: $2/3,000
The 2024 sale also features several important pottery collections, including a fine Wedding Vase (est. $2/3,000) by celebrated Acoma artist Lucy Lewis and works by highly collectible potters like Fannie Nampeyo and Les Namingha. Also in the sale is a marvelous historic polychrome Zia pueblo jar from around 1940 estimated at $2,000 to $3,000, as well as contemporary figurative works by Kathleen Wall, and husband and wife team Lisa Holt and Harlan Reano.
Lisa Holt (Cochiti) and Harlan Reano (Santo Domingo/Kewa), Singing Clown, fired clay, pigments, 18 x 9 x 4½” Estimate: $2/3,000
Another anticipated highlight of the upcoming auction includes a pair of watercolors by renowned Kiowa artist Stephen Mopope titled Kiowa Husband and Wife, which holds a market estimate of $3,500 to $7,500.
August 13-14, 2024
American Indian: Classic to Contemporary
Santa Fe Art Auction 932 Railfan Road
Santa Fe, NM 87505
(505) 954-5858, www.santafeartauction.com
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