Boy and Girl at a Well by Winslow Homer
Boy and Girl on a Swing by Winslow Homer
Annie Armour Morgret
Sarah Campbell
Two previously undiscovered watercolors by a famous painter for many years resided on the walls of the longtime archivist for the University of the South.
Annie Armour said she only learned of the supreme value of that Sewanee living room art when Sewanee's art historian commented in 2010 after viewing her paintings, "I didn't know the university had Winslow Homers."
Ms. Armour said that led her to a quest for an inspection of the paintings by the Antiques Roadshow. It took many years to get on the popular TV show, but one of its experts declared indeed they were Homers in a show that aired recently.
Ms. Armour and her siblings then put the Homer paintings up for auction with Christie's. Boy and Girl at a Well (1879) sold for $113,400, including fees. The estimate had been $80,000 to $120,000. Boy and Girl on a Swing (1879) sold for $75,600, also including fees. Its estimate had been $30,000 to $50,000. The siblings had about $150,000 left over to split.
Abigail Booth Gerdts, who compiled the official catalogue of the famed painter, came out of retirement to review the works and add them to the catalogue.
Ms. Armour said the paintings have been in the family for five generations after Aucelia Harriett Bentley Burtis bought them from Wm. A. Butters and Co. at a Chicago auction. That is believed to have been in late 1879 at a time when Homer was painting in Chicago.
Ms. Armour said she remembers the paintings well on display in the family home at Memphis. Their mother passed them down prior to her death.
Ms. Armour told of a trip to Memphis, where she found one of the paintings in direct sunlight. She said, "It was in the living room. The other, fortunately, was in a much darker bedroom." She said, "I took them back to Sewanee" where she made copies that she hung in her university office. And that is where they were spotted by the art historian.
There are Chattanooga connections as well. The Hunter Museum owns two pieces from this same series of works from 1879, both of a girl on a swing - one drawing and one watercolor, Ms. Armour said she learned.
Ms. Armour's daughter, Sarah Campbell, is a Chattanooga artist. Ms. Armour said, "She did a lot of research regarding our paintings and really figured out before the Roadshow they had to be authentic, but we still couldn’t be sure. She deserves credit for her work."
In an article by ARTnews, a Christie's vice president was quoted as saying, “This is such an exciting consignment because the works had never before been published.”
The art dealer who appraised the paintings for Antiques Roadshow, Betty Krulik, told ARTnews, “The owners didn’t really even know what they had.”
Ms. Armour said she had been trying to get on Antiques Roadshow for 12 years when she finally got the call last May for a stop at Bentonville, Ark. She had the paintings carefully cleaned, then she boxed them up for the trip. They were still in their original frames.
She said of Ms. Krulik, "As soon as she saw them she knew they were Winslows. I think she was pretty shocked." She said Ms. Krulik said there was no mistaking - "You could tell by the stroke of his brush."