Creekside Art Gallery Blog

What is happening?  Is the NYC market strong or suffering?   Are there crowds at the auctions and shows and gallery openings?  There are a lot of us who didn’t make it to New York City this month.  Some are watching the auction sales via the internet, others are getting some word-of-mouth feedback from those of you who are there. 

Christie’s and Sotheby’s, Doyle, Outsider Art Fair, Winter Antique Show, Antiques at the Armory, TAAS American Antiques Show, and the many galleries are a mecca every January.  What has been happening?

Harri Pohjanlahti

2009/01/14 at 5:27pm

Hello from Finland. Good Luck now. I will start informing people here about Creekside Blog. Would you want the history of OLD Finnish tackle or tackle in general? I am now just finished helping Graham Turner who is writing a Collector Guide about tackle of the United Kingdom. I have a lot of items; also I do have wide area from USA, as well.

This IS now an excellent way to build the network!!
Best Regards Harri Pohjanlahti alias HARZU

Dave Malys
Submitted on 2009/01/15 at 10:41pm

I especially like Lake Chautauqua Ice Fishing decoys from Western New York. I have several good and better examples that are for sale, as well as looking to acquire more good examples for my own collection, Let me know if you have interest either way.

Ron Swanson
4:30 pm January 14, 2009

I am a fly fisherman and I like and collect trophy fish carvings. Am completing a book about them titled FISH MODELS, PLAQUES & EFFIGIES. I’m happy to blog with anyone about them.

Jim Wierzba
January 20, 2009

I look forward to a forum on fish carvings and fish spearing decoys as I collect both.  My tastes vary and always interested in discussing with others. Jim

Sotheby’s is selling about twenty lots (#248-#268) of decoys on Saturday January 24th in their annual January Americana auction.  [Sotheby's 212.606.7414 Bid Department]

Included is a very rare, early (ca 1900), and dramatic high-neck Illinois Pintail Hen; a Gus Wilson preening Hen Eider; a very rare Pair of high-neck Walter Dawson Mallards (only one dozen known); a one-of-a-kind Phillippe Sirois flying Mallard drake (purchased directly from Sirois); a pair of full-bodied Chauncey Wheeler wall plaques; shorebirds by Verity, Lincoln, Mason, Crowell and Boyd and others;  a Gus Moak hollow Canvasback drake; a pair of Hector Whittington flying Mallards; and several Crowell miniatures including three exceptional one-third size Canada Geese with three different head gestures.  Three beautiful and folky sculptural bird carvings by Frank Finney are also offered. 

Veteran collector, author and decoy expert Ronald J. Gard is the man to contact regarding decoy consignments to Sotheby’s. [Contact 214.350.2229 or 214.912.2580]

The week-long BARRETT-JACKSON COLLECTOR CAR EVENT in Scottsdale AZ has just concluded.   We’ve been watching. Is the U.S. economy, as most of us know it, affecting COLLECTOR CAR sale prices at this event? How do you think the annual New York City antique auctions and shows just starting will be affected by the U.S. economy?

Regarding decoys, which do you think is more important, PAINT or FORM ?

Fishing lures, spear fishing decoys, and trophy fish wood carvings are related collecting areas but wide ranging.   You are invited to participate in an open forum on FISH!  If you wish a specific Forum or Topic just email Kangas@CreeksideArtGallery.com

ONE BAD CAT - The Reverend Albert Wagner Story, the award winning film documentary by Thomas G. Miller and Tesseract Films of California premiered early in 2008.    It won Best Documentary at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival and the Roxanne T. Mueller Audience Choice Award for Best Film at the Cleveland International Film Festival. One Bad Cat toured U.S. film festivals from coast to coast for the past year.

Ovation TV, the cable network devoted to the arts, featuring programming on visual arts, theater, opera, music and dance, purchased ONE BAD CAT  and will  premiere the film on cable television Sunday February 1st and Thursday February 5th, 2009.

Two paintings by the Reverend Albert Wagner are included in the upcoming exhibition and catalog entitled Each In Their Own Voice:   African-American Artists in Cleveland 1970-2005.  

"Last Days with Albert" and "Moses and the Ten Commandments"  are two superb works by Wagner chosen to represent him along with the works of 23 other prominent African-American artists active in Cleveland during that time period.  This exhibition is a sequel to the previous Yet Still We Rise: African American Art in Cleveland 1920-1970.  

The exhibition will be held at the prestigious Cleveland State University Art Gallery, 2307 Chester Avenue, Cleveland, Ohio January 23-March 7, 2009.   Gallery information  216-687-2103.

Before he passed on, Albert Wagner donated his seminal painting "Flee from Egypt"  to the Permanent Collection of the American Visionary Art Museum in Baltimore, Maryland.  "Flee from Egypt" was painted early in Reverend Albert’s career; and it remains his largest and most recognized canvas.  His portrait of Moses, with arms raised and outstretched, is the dominating central figure in Flee’s composition, populated with thousands of individuals who believe they are traveling to the Promised Land as they perilously cross the Red Sea that Moses has just parted. 

Albert’s daughter, Reverend Bonita Wagner Johnson, shares the story of Albert’s first brush strokes on the canvas of Flee.  He chose a large brush and dipped into his rich blue paint stroking broadly across the huge canvas.  Following that initial moment and before their eyes that first brush stroke turned from blue to red.

A major Gus Wilson retrospective exhibition of his diverse carvings is in the  preliminary planning stages. The exhibit is being organized by Gene Kangas and John Dinan in conjunction with a Maine museum. The exact place and time is yet to be determined. Your participation is welcomed. Please email either Kangas or Dinan digital photos of Gus Wilson’s decoys as well as his bird and animal carvings in your collection. The organizers are especially interested in learning of previously unpublished and undocumented examples as a first step in surveying the range of images created by Gus Wilson during his lengthy career. Contact Gene Kangas at Kangas@CreeksideArtGallery.com or John Dinan at captdinan@yahoo.com.

"F for FAKE" is a film hosted by Orson Wells (Ovation Cable programing January 2009) on the career of the infamous  El Mir, the peerless counterfeiter of great artists’ paintings.  In the film, El Mir questioned the "expertise of the experts" since time after time no "expert" could tell the authentic from the  El Mir.

FACT:  One of the early forgers of artistic works was, Michelangelo himself.  Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni^[1] (March 6, 1475 – February 18, 1564), commonly known as Michelangelo, was an Italian Renaissance painter, sculptor, architect, poet and engineer. (Wikipedia) 

THE PROBLEM WITH FAKES: Collectors and museum personnel have mutual interests in identifying fakes and misrepresentations.  Have any of you had experiences that you would like to share with others in an exchange of information of these topics? How do fakes affect authentic artifacts? Do fakes influence the monetary value of an entire field? How can fakes be detected? These problems are not recent. They have been going on for hundreds of years in all aspects of life – from currency to designer goods to antiques.

For example, when a significant number of fake Oscar Peterson fish decoys entered the collecting community quite a number of years ago, collector confidence in the veracity of all vintage fish decoys was shaken. Prices plummeted. Various people lost significant amounts of money. Criminal fraud was perpetrated. As a result, it has taken years for the field to begin recovering. How can real Oscar Peterson fish decoys be differentiated from fakes? 

How can fakes or misrepresentations be identified?

In your experience, how dangerous are fakes?

FOLK ART.  For the vast majority of time that humans have been on Earth, they have left evidence of their amazing creativity.  The rich arts and crafts of early humans continue to tell us much about their evolving lives. Prehistoric cave paintings and stone monuments, bone carved implements and children’s toys are some of this creativity still in evidence today.  Early tools invented by man over 2,000 years ago include fish and duck hunting decoys.  The usage of these sometimes artistic hunting devices has been handed down through the generations.

More recently institutions were established which began teaching the fundamentals of ART. Always questioning "what is art?"  As a result, academics also began distinguishing between Fine Art with a capital "A"  and the  more recently defined Folk Art.  In simplistic terms, Folk Art refers to the creative efforts of people lacking formal art education.  And more recently further distinctions or classifications have been argued that suggest sub-dividing Folk Art into numerous segregated categories such as "grass roots," "outsider," "art brut," and "intuitive" art.  At any rate, the Folk Arts in its many forms and considerations generates loads of casual conversations as well as serious dialog.

Creekside Art Gallery has specialized for decades in both Fine Art work, as Gene is a practicing artist and retired art professor, and Folk Art in our collecting, research, and writing.  Gene Kangas’ public sculptures, functional woodturning and wood sculpture, and his various Digital Print Series are highlighted at CreeksideArtGallery.com.   Our love of the FOLK ARTS run through the entire site CreeksideArtGallery.com. 

We started collecting wood molds over fifteen years ago when we first saw them at the Bouckville Antiques Fair in mid New York State, and later at Brimfield and in New York City.  We have never stopped.  There are images that appeal to most every person, some fit right into existing types of collections, many are holiday oriented, and some very special ones are knock-out sculptures that transcend the everyday appeal of the  takaan. AND, they are very affordable.

 FORUM is an invitation for anyone and everyone to initiate or participate in an open discussion of topics related to collecting interests.  Don’t hesitate to bring up a question or thought….don’t hesitate to respond to one.  Thanks!

KANGAS ARTICLES & BOOKS.  Gene and Linda Kangas have written over 160 Articles and a dozen Books and Exhibition Catalogs during the past 35 years.    We are archiving complete articles including photographs and excerpted book and catalog texts with photographs to Creekside Art Gallery Blog.   Each can be downloaded and printed out for your convenience.  Please come back to look for more on a monthly basis!

Subjects include Waterfowl Decoys, American Historic and Contemporary Folk Art, International Folk Art, Biographies of Artists and Collectors, and Contemporary and Antique Woodturning including 19th and 20th century Peaseware.

Books & Catalogs Available for Purchase:  We are happy to personalize autographed books and catalogs; most are also available discounted in multiples.

Want your book, article or catalog written?  Contact us at  Creekside Art Gallery.