The Benefit Shop Foundation, Inc., always can be counted on to have at least one striking piece of art in its monthly Red Carpet auctions. The foundation’s next auction on Wednesday, April 18, at 10 am, boasts multiple oil paintings and artworks, several with interesting provenances. Absentee and Internet bidding is available through LiveAuctioneers.

“We have art from A to Z in this auction,” said owner and founder Pam Stone. “We have a lot of interesting artwork in this sale from L.A. to New York along with the collecting categories people know us for and expect to find here —  antiques, furniture, jewelry and all the other usuals.”
Among the standout artworks is a Georgian-era oil on canvas portrait of a fashionable woman in white by Sir William Beechey. Beechey was the official painter of portraits to the British royal family in the late 1700s and early 1800s, and best known for painting portraits of famous and fashionable people in England at that time.

“For the Benefit Shop to have something this interesting, to us it’s quite exciting,” Stone said. The portrait measures 38 by 32 inches and is in an ornately hand-carved floral filigree frame painted in a gilt hue. It comes with papers tracing its provenance, which includes the Chrysler Corporation art collection.

The fine art offerings in this auction run the gamut from the staid and elegant Beechey portrait to an energetic contemporary painting by Joe Taylor recreating the album cover of Buckwheat Zydeco’s Hey Joe and measures about 6 by 6 feet.

Taylor, a noted rock and roll album cover artist created this room-sized painting featuring dancers and cheerful colors for hanging at Tower Records’ Los Angeles store. Taylor painted billboards for rock and music legends in the 1970s-1980s. When the music store closed, it reportedly offered artworks to a select group, including the woman who owned this painting for many years, hanging it in her L.A.-home before moving to a smaller home in New York City. Taylor has written a book, Art & Music, sharing the stories behind his billboard artwork.

Also leading the parade of notable artworks across the auction block is a rare and early folk art painting by Charles Fazzino (b 1955), dated 1983. The artist is better known for his silkscreen serigraph 3D-style constructions that he turned to later. This 13-by-11-inch painting depicts people on a farm, a hot air balloon and a horse-drawn wagon filled with hay and riders. The consignor’s parents purchased the painting while Fazzino was living at home in New York with his parents.

Another striking contemporary work is an oil painting in rich and thick colorful tones of a seated woman with blue skin and ruby-red hair by Norma Solomon, born in 1942 in New York City. The contemporary stylized artwork is in the style of Matisse and comes in a gilded and carved frame, measuring 37 by 24 inches.

The monthly Red Carpet sales feature choice collections of antique, Midcentury Modern, brand furnishings, sterling, china, crystal, jewelry and fine art. With a mission of “to donate, to discover and to do good,” the foundation is a non-profit and all auction proceeds support community organizations. Consignors get a tax deduction, the buyer gets a great deal and local non-profits get much needed funds.

Rounding out this auction will be fresh-to-market vintage advertising posters.

The auction takes place at 185 Kisco Avenue, Suite 201, and online. For more information, https://www.thebenefitshop.org or 914-864-0707.