Fifth Auction To Benefit Permanent Collection

The Demuth Foundation’s Fifth Auction for Artists and Collectors hopes to raise funds to supplement its acquisitions budget and complete the purchase of At Marshall’s, a significant work in any consideration of the art of Charles Demuth. The 1915 watercolor of an African American nightclub, that Demuth frequented during his salad days in New York, will be displayed for the first time in Lancaster on the evening of the Foundation’s Fifth Auction for Artists and Collectors, on November 18th, at the Mulberry Art Studios. It promises to be a happy evening, beginning at 5:30 with live music, hors d’oeuvres, and a cash wine and beer bar during the open viewing of approximately one hundred works. Admission to the auction, which commences at 7 p.m., is $10 per person. Although the minimum bid on art to be offered is $100-with higher reserve prices in some cases-the auction will commence again this year with “Five Easy Pieces”: five works offered without any minimum bid. Thomas Cook, Armstrong designer and popular raconteur, will serve as master of ceremonies. Board member Theresa Melchiorre -widely experienced as an auctioneer with the Freeman Art Gallery in Philadelphia-will wield the gavel. This year’s offerings include a signed print by gothic humorist Edward Gorey, serigraphs by Charles Burchfield, Paul Klee, and Leon Kroll; a lithograph by Demuth’s friend Peggy Bacon; an 1830 Japanese woodcut; a 14th century illuminated Carthusian psalter leaf in Latin; work by late Lancaster artists David Brumbach, Sandra Fruitman, Barbara Whipple Heilman, Richard Hess, Anne Summy and Nancy Zink; an original photograph by Carl Van Vechten of opera diva Marilyn Horne; a 1920 oil landscape by Colorado painter laureate David Stirling; and a broad range of paintings and drawings by local artists. The Foundation will continue to solicit submissions for the auction until September 12th. All works to be auctioned will be on exhibition at the Foundation, November 5-14, during the museum’s regular hours, Tuesday through Saturday, 10-4, and Sunday, 1-4.