Nye and Company’s first auction of the 2015 season is now live with over 800 lots posted to www.igavelauctions.com through February 10th, 2015. This diverse sale includes a wide array of fine and decorative arts from the greater Metropolitan area, but certain rarities stand-out from the overall strong group and are worth mentioning in detail. The galleries, located at 20 Beach Street, in Bloomfield, N.J., are artfully arranged and open for viewing from now until the sale closes, including Sunday, the 8th from noon to 4pm. Among the highlights are:

The Walker Collection

The Walker art collection was amassed over 50 years by a Franco-American family who lived in Paris, London and New York at various times. The unifying vision for the collection came from Patricia Walker, who had been a promising art student studying at the The Arts Student League in New York with Hans Hoffman and with Fernand Leger in Paris. Reared in a conventional Irish Catholic family and educated by nuns at The Convent of the Sacred Heart and Manhattanville College, she went on to become a rebellious, outspoken modernist in her mid-20s. As the Walker family moved back and forth between Paris, London and New York, she sought out the contemporary art scene in these capitol cities, attending thousands of art gallery openings over the years and bought moderately priced art that she liked. The collection includes a lot of sculptures, paintings both small and large, prints and various idiosyncratic objets. Many of the sculptures are British, the work of such artists as Paul Mount and Robert Adams, who were gifted but lesser known contemporaries of Henry Moore and Babara Hepworth. In the late 1980s, the Walkers returned to New York for the final time, where Patricia immersed herself once again in the contemporary art scene and now focused her attention on moderately priced American artists and sculptors, including John Grillo and Jack Youngerman. She continued to attend art gallery openings and to add to the collection up until her mid-eighties. Always on the cutting edge of fashion, she was featured in The New York Times styles section three times, two of those times in her 70s and 80s. She remained rebellious, outspoken and curious about modern art until her death.

The Duskin Collection

Ken Duskin was one of the most famous and influential commercial art directors on Madison Avenue during The Golden Age of Advertising in the 1960’s. He was the original Don Draper and a giant among the madmen. By twenty-nine years old Ken was the hottest young art director in New York. He drove a jaguar, smoked French cigarettes and had a keen sense of fashion and design. Ken worked at Doyle Dane and Bernbach, which was then, the largest and most famous Ad agency in the world. He was a protégé of Bill Bernbach. While there, Ken did some of the most famous ads of his time, The Volkswagen Circus commercials, Porsche, Hubert Humphries’s 1968 Presidential campaign, Nelson Rockefeller’s re-election as Governor of NY and General Electric to name a few. Ken eventually left DD&B where he went on to pursue a career as a commercial director and photographer. After some years Ken went back into the Advertising world and joined Kenyen and Eckhart , which is now The Bozell ad agency as a creative director. While there, Ken took over the Chrysler account re-energizing the brand with both Ricardo Montelbon and Lee Iococca, taking the company out of bankruptcy and saving tens of thousands of jobs. Ken finished out his career there working closely with Lee Iococca until Ken’s retirement. He was a legend in the field and of all the Madmen… one of the greatest.

Numerous pieces of sterling silver by Tiffany, Gorham, Black, Starr and Frost among others are included in the auction. Some of the more interesting pieces are an Art Nouveau centerpiece bowl commemorating a twenty-fifth wedding anniversary and accompanying spoon still in its original presentation box. Other pieces from this private New York City collection comprise serving spoons, flatware and other holloware.

A beautifully executed late 18th century portrait of handsomely dressed woman may depict Martha Washington. Coming from a private Pennsylvania collection, though unsigned, the work is thought to possibly have been done by noted artist, Rembrandt Peale. There’s also a Folk Art portrait of famed Major League baseball player Pete Rose, done by, F. M. Brown, the Philadelphia Phillies team trainer. Another work, attributed to possibly Wladyslaw Szerner depicts Cossacks galloping on horseback. There are maritime scenes, landscapes, still life paintings and other attractive works. Numerous paintings and prints are being offered, including one of Chagall’s Metropolitan Opera series.   There is American, English and Continental furniture from the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries, including several pieces of mid-century modern. Most of the rugs are from the first-half of the 20th century.  

About Nye and Company

In early 2010, Nye and Company relocated to Bloomfield, New Jersey making them more easily accessible to New York City. Our location moments off major interstate arties (Garden State Parkway, New Jersey Turnpike, Routes 80, 280, 287) and State Routes 3, 46 and 23, is easily found by the large-format banners on the façade.   For further information, please contact: John Nye, Nye and Company Auctioneers / Appraisers 20 Beach Street, Bloomfield, New Jersey 07003 p: (973) 984-6900 / f: (973) 743-0493/ john@nyeandcompany.com, www.nyeandcompany.com