Marion Koogler McNay Sold at Auction Prices

Property from the Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection CHARLES DEAS (1818-1867) Winnebagos Playing

Checkers, 1842 inscribed and dated "Winnebagos Playing Checkers/ Chas Deas. / St. Louis / 1842./ from / nature" (on the reverse, prior to lining) oil on canvas 12 1/2 x 14 1/2 in. (31.7 x 37 cm) Provenance Rollin Sanford, Brooklyn, New York Leeds Sale Sanford Estate, 1859, lot 29 (as Indians Playing Games) Private Collection, California James Maroney, Inc., New York and Ira Spanierman, Inc., New York, 1983 Thyssen-Bornemisza Foundation, Lugano, Switzerland, 1984 Exhibited St. Louis, Mechanics~dq~ Institute Fair, 1842 Baltimore, The Baltimore Museum of Art; Detroit, The Detroit Institute of Arts; Denver, The Denver Art Museum; San Antonio, Marion Koogler McNay Art Institute; New York, IBM Gallery of Arts and Sciences; San Diego, San Diego Museum of Art; Palm Beach, The Society of the Four Arts, American Masters: The Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection, October 28, 1984-April 13, 1986 Fort Worth, Amon Carter Museum, American Frontier Life: Early Western Painting and Prints, 1987, no. 32 (illustrated) Literature Daily Missouri Republican, November 2, 1842, p. 2 (as The Game of Checkers or Drafts) The Crayon, December, 1859, p. 381 (as Indians Playing Games) John Francis McDermott, "Charles Deas, Painter of the Frontier," The Art Quarterly, v. 13:4, Autumn 1950, p. 301 (as The Game of Checkers or Drafts) Carol Clark, "Charles Deas," American History Illustrated, 1987, pp. 18-33, (illustrated as The Game of Checkers or Drafts) Carol Clark, entry on Charles Deas~dq~ Long Jakes, American Paintings from the Manoogian Collection, exh. cat., National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1989, p.190 Alan Axelrod, The Art of the Golden West, New York, 1990, p. 243 (illustrated) Carol Clark, entry on Charles Deas in the Dictionary of American Art, vol. 8, New York, 1999, p. 588 Carol Clark, entry on Charles Deas in Allgemeines Kunstler-Lexikon: Die Bildenden Kunstler Aller Zeiten und Volker, v. 25, Munich, p. 44 Carol Clark, "Four Oil Paintings of Indian Chiefs," in John Neal Hoover, St. Louis and the Art of the Frontier, exh. cat., St. Louis, pp. 20-21 (illustrated) This work has been requested for the Charles Deas traveling exhibition, Exotic Comfort; Deas and 1840~dq~s America, sponsored by the Amon Carter Museum of Art, Fort Worth. Texas, scheduled for 2006-2007 curated by Dr. Carol Clark. In his pioneering article on Charles Deas, John Francis McDermott wrote that, "more than any other American artist before the Civil War Deas deserves to be called the painter of the frontier" (p. 293). Born in Philadelphia in 1818, Deas aspired to an appointment to the United States Military Academy at West Point. When that appointment did not materialize, he devoted his attention to art. His first paintings were of traditional genre and literary subjects, but in 1839 he came across an exhibition of George Catlin~dq~s Indian Gallery, and decided to devote the rest of his life to depicting the American West. At the time, Charles~dq~ brother, George, an army officer, was stationed at Fort Crawford in Wisconsin. In the spring of 1840, Deas visited his brother and remained through the summer, fall, and winter, making "sketches of Indians, frontier scenery, and subjects of agreeable reminiscence and picturesque incident." In the same period, he also visited the Winnebago tribe that was headquartered at Fort Winnebago, where he painted portraits of their chiefs and warriors. Today, Deas might be described as a charismatic presence among the forts, trading posts, and tribes of the upper Midwest. He quickly gained a reputation as a colorful dresser and a bon vivant, known for his antic sense of humor. With that humor he gained the respect and trust of the native Americans, and thus gained invaluable knowledge of their customs and beliefs. By the fall of 1841, Deas had established a studio in St. Louis, which remained his headquarters for the next six years. Each summer he would set out to compile new portfolios of sketches, which became the basis for some 100 paintings, many of which are now lost. One of the few paintings that has survived from this period is Winnebagos Playing Checkers, which is dated 1842 but which is based on sketches Deas made in 1840. We would like to gratefully acknowledge the generous assistance of Dr. Carol Clark, William R. Kenan, Jr., Professor of Fine Arts and American Studies, Amherst College, Amherst, Massachusetts, in providing accurate provenance and publication records. We are grateful to Dr. Bruce Chambers for cataloguing this lot.