Saturday night fever
Auction nets about $10,000By EMILIE NELSON, Messenger staff writer
Article Photos
A Fort Dodge physician, Dr. Richard Votta, made the highest bid in the live auction at the Blanden Memorial Art Museum's Art is For Everyone auction Saturday evening - and for $800 he didn't even see what he was buying.
What Votta purchased in the final round of the live auction was a few dozen pieces of art that went unbid in the silent auction. He bought them for the surprise - to take home and discover for himself - but also to support the museum, he said.
"I'm just curious," he said. "I won't mind getting a few interesting pieces."
More than 200 people attended Saturday evening's event in the Bioscience and Health Sciences Building at Iowa Central Community College, which sold more than 300 deaccessioned and orphan art that were once part of the Blanden's collection. Near the conclusion of the live auction, 161 bid numbers had been distributed to potential buyers. The live auction featured 34 unique and diverse works of art, and several hundred silent auction and buy-it-now items.
Although it had been the center of local controversy because no list of the items for sale had been made available to the public, the auction went on as planned and raised around $10,000 for the Blanden, Blanden Charitable Foundation board member Mike Frischmeyer said.
"This is a tremendous thing the community has done tonight," Margaret Skove, the Blanden Memorial Art Museum's director, said of the support of the auction. "The turnout is good, and these items are going to homes in the community. That's what we wanted rather than having them possibly end up in another country. The items were given to us with good intent and we want to keep them in the community."
Skove said she chose the 34 items for the live auction by their potential for public appeal.
"I tried to look for items among our paintings, sculptures, furniture and 3-D items that would really stand out," she said.
Many of the live auction items sold for around $400.
Jean Johnson purchased a set of cloisonne vases created by an unknown artist for $200.
The items caught her attention because of their ornate designs.
"I collect vases," she said, "and have painted some porcelain, though we aren't sure of its date."
Another high bid item in the live auction was a hand-hammered brass ceremonial tray from the 18th century, which sold for $440 to Ben and Andrea Johnson.
The proceeds from the auction will be used for the conservation and restoration of pieces in the Blanden's collection and for the possible purchase of new art items by the Blanden Charitable Foundation to fit with the museum's existing collection, Skove said.
Contact Emilie Nelson at (515) 573-2141 or enelson@messengernews.net
|
IowaTransplant
|
|
|---|---|
|
10-12-09 7:35 PM
|
I attended and purchased a couple of items (one for work, one for a friend who likes dogs). Unless someone had a specific interest in one art genre, there wasn't much of anything of interest to the general public (ie. if someone had an interest in the Civil War, there was a vast amount of photo prints). There were only a few silent auction pieces that were watercolors; it would have been great if there had been more. Most were lithograph b/w prints, pen and ink drawings, and Blanden (art classes, I presume) Expressions. Easy to see why Blanden wanted to get rid of the pieces that were offered.
|
|
boatassembler
|
|
|
10-12-09 11:07 AM
|
Those were also valid reasons for the sale. Sounds like they did well though. Didn't go myself but have heard many good things about it.
|
|
4strings
|
|
|
10-12-09 8:46 AM
|
boatassembler - good points. I was not aware of them dumping off "not ideal" pieces. I thought it was all about not having enough room and wanting to raise money.
|
|
boatassembler
|
|
|
10-11-09 8:30 PM
|
4strings: Don't entirely agree that the people were taken advantaged of. People were told over a week ago when they first announced that the auction was taking place that the items were being sold due to the fact that many of the items were not up to Blanden ideals of quality. The people should have known this going in so it should have been a "buyer beware" sale. And I'm sure it was.Thus they would have known ahead of time that the quality of some of the artwork was inferior. Today too many people slap 2 stickls together and call it "art". Because the Blanden didn't display it should have spoke volumns.
|
|
4strings
|
|
|
10-11-09 4:53 PM
|
At least a list was provided in saturdays paper. That way someone who was interested but maybe not very art-savvy, could look up some of the artists ahead of time and do some research on their work. not a lot of time was given, but at least a few hours. I was not there, but was told that some of the items offered were "junk" that was donated - similar pieces could be found at hobby lobby, yet they listed them as "art pieces". Unless you knew antiques, and knew that they were crap, you got taken advantage of.
|
|
boatassembler
|
|
|
10-11-09 2:47 PM
|
Plus check ALL the facts. The Blanden board voted not to allow the board itself to buy any of the art. So if you are talking about the "secrets of the show" please either give us solid fact or keep your innuendo to yourself!
|
|
boatassembler
|
|
|
10-11-09 2:44 PM
|
radbear: How did we get screwed out of $4800? Just because something is valued at a certain price doesn't mean you'll get that much. That artwork belonged to the Blanden, not the citizens of Ft Dodge. If anthing we saved money because now money won't have to be spent to store it away from the public anymore.The Blanden gets SOME support from the city of Ft Dodge, but certainly not all, so we don't "own" everything the Blanden has just because of the partial support the city gives them.
|
|
radbear
|
|
|
10-11-09 2:38 PM
|
One person bought over $5,000 worth of art for $200+. That means that Fort Dodge taxpayhers got screwed out of about $4,800. Some bargain for those non-elites who were not in on the secrets of the show. That's Little Chicago for you. We are going to be the laughingstocks of the nation, too dumb and gulible to know better. Thanks, Skove, for helping out your friends at taxpayer expense.
|
|
stuart
|
|
|
10-11-09 1:16 PM
|
WOW. Great idea to do!! Man I would say some of the people got a real awesome deal on thier purchases. What portions are they going to be able to take off thier taxes? Most of the pieces of art in my home we've spent well over $400 each on, One is a commissioned piece. When dead and gone it is stipulated these works be offered of a variety of places. Recently attended the opening of the DM Art Centers Sculpture Park, very impressive, even better to me at night when it is light up. And one family donated that believe it is around 30 millions dollars, there might be a upkeep endowment involved with it also.
|
|
FDTROOPER
|
|
|
10-11-09 9:58 AM
|
This event was well run and the college setting gave everyone room to move around. This was a bargain hunters bonanza.
|