Copley Fine Art Auctions (www.copleyart.com) is excited to announce its 2014 Sporting Sale will be held on July 25 and 26 in Plymouth, Massachusetts. Copley returns to the Radisson Hotel with a cocktail reception preview on Thursday, July 24 between 5:30-7:30PM and bidding for over 550 paintings, prints, decoys, and sculpture taking place on July 25 and 26.

Previews will be held between 8:30-10:30AM on Friday and Saturday, and bidding will begin at 11AM. Decoys will cross the block on Friday, July 25, with a dealer exhibition taking place between 8:00AM-4:30PM, and paintings, prints and works on paper will be sold on Saturday, July 26.

Copley extends the momentum of the American and Sporting art worlds into this summer. The Winter Sale saw decoy records set with the McCleery Boyd Mergansers fetching $138,000 and $120,000, and painting world records fall when Ogden Pleissner’s Southern Cabin sold for $138,000, a record for a watercolor by the artist.

Copley is pleased to present a group of paintings with major historical significance during this summer’s sale. Among the notable offerings is an oil painting by Frank W. Benson (1862-1951) titled Redheads In Flight from 1916 ($300/500,000). This classic work, considered one of the finest waterfowl scenes by the noted American Impressionist and sportsman, who was known for his paintings of waterfowl scenes, marks a great opportunity for the serious collector. A watercolor by the same artist, Salmon Fishing ($25/35,000), will also cross the block.

Ogden M. Pleissner (1905-1983) will be represented with an important and iconic oil painting, The Visitors ($75/85,000). This exquisite oil painting, one of the artist’s masterworks, depicts a southern cabin scene, similar to the record-setting watercolor sold by Copley this winter. Additionally, John Frost’s Maryland Marsh ($35/55,000) is the original oil for a major print published by Eugene V. Connett’s Derrydale Press in 1936, and a bronze depiction of setters by Percival Rosseau (1859-1937), thought to be Rosseau’s only work in bronze ($24/28,000), is among the major sporting art works included in the sale.

Other significant paintings include an oil painting, The Last Shot by Frank L. Stick ($12/18,000), that was painted in 1914, appeared in a calendar in 1928 and served as the frontispiece for Michael F. Mordell’s book on the artist, Frank Stick: Splendid Painter of the Out-of-Doors, and a Francis Lee Jaques work depicting Ptarmigan in the Rockies ($4/6,000). These paintings will join an exceptional offering of classic American sporting art by artists such as Harry Curieux Adamson, Paul Desmond Brown (1893-1958), Roland Clark (1874-1957), Chet Reneson (b. 1934), Aiden Lassell Ripley (1896-1969), William J. Schaldach (1896-1982) and John Whorf (1903-1959), among many others. Sculpture by Simon Gudgeon (b. 1958), William J. Koelpin (1938-1996), and others will also be available.

The decoy portion of the sale, to be held July 25, is headlined by Maine carver Augustus Aaron “Gus” Wilson (1864-1950)’s red-breasted merganser drake with open bill ($350/450,000) and a feeding plover by Obediah Verity (1813-1901) out of the McCleery and Mackey Collections ($125/175,000). An exceptional canada goose ($80/120,000) by the Ward Brothers, Lemuel and Stephen, joins with a working canvasback decoy ($40/50,000) by Charles E. “Shang” Wheeler (1872-1949), the most famous decoy maker from Connecticut.

A rare full-bodied whale carving of a sperm whale ($6/9,000) by eminent carver Clark Voorhees (1911-1980), will cross the block, along with several of the artist’s half-whale carvings of species including a dolphin and a humpback whale ($2 /3,000 each). Additionally, decoy carvings by A. Elmer Crowell (1862-1952), August Haas (1890-1962), and Joseph W. Lincoln (1859-1938), along with many other named makers, will round out the offering of top-tier birds available this summer.

Online bidding on over 550 items will be available through invaluable.com and on copleyart.com. A full color catalog will be available three weeks before the sale. The auction will take place at the Radisson Hotel in Plymouth, MA, with a preview on Thursday, July 24 from 5:30 to 7:30PM. Bidding will commence at 11AM on Friday, July 25 for decoys and Saturday, July 26 for paintings and works on paper. For more information, a full schedule of events, or to order a catalog please send an email to info@copleyart.com, call 617.536.0030, or visit www.copleyart.com.