Norman Rockwell Study Sets World Record at Heritage, Reaches $1.3 Million

DALLAS, Texas (May 4, 2017) - Norman Rockwell’s Study for Triple Self Portrait, an oil study for the artist's self-described 1960 Saturday Evening Post "masterpiece", sold for $1,332,500, a new world record for an oil study by the artist Wednesday during Heritage Auctions’ American Art Auction in Dallas.

The record-setting Rockwell led a $4.5 million auction of diverse American art pieces that realized a 96 percent sell-through rate by value and saw spirited bidding across all Heritage Auctions bidding platforms.

Other top lots include Birger Sandzén’s powerful Creek at Twilight. Once relegated to a Milwaukee school’s storage room, the masterwork soared to $516,500, well above its pre-sale estimate. Net proceeds of the work will be set aside to fund college scholarships for Washington High School graduates.

Thomas Moran’s visually stunning Mountain Lion in Grand Canyon (Lair of the Mountain Lion) fetched $612,500.

“Today’s American Art auction was unbelievably exciting,” said Aviva Lehmann, Director of American Art. “We exceeded the aggregate high estimate by over one million dollars. Setting a new auction record for a Rockwell study, combined with the number of active bidders for the Sandzén that reached a final sale price as the third highest price for the artist at auction, demonstrates Heritage Auctions’ solid strength across all categories of American art.”

Other highlights include:

Hermann Ottomar Herzog’s oil painting Fishing on the Gulf Coast, Florida sold for $150,000 well above its $30,000-50,000 pre-auction estimate.

Samuel Colman’s Autumn Landscape, 1864 achieved $137,500.

Milton Avery’s landscape Rippled Rock and Rippled Sea, 1938 realized $106,250.

Rockwell Kent’s Greenland (Spring) sold for $87,500.

Heritage Auctions is the largest fine art and collectibles auction house founded in the United States, and the world’s largest collectibles auctioneer. Heritage maintains offices in New York, Dallas, Beverly Hills, San Francisco, Chicago, Palm Beach, Paris, Geneva, Amsterdam and Hong Kong.

The Internet’s most popular auction-house website, HA.com, has over one million registered bidder-members, and searchable free archives of four million past auction records with prices realized, descriptions and enlargeable photos.