Want a Picasso? Lincoln’s Kiechel Fine Arts auctioning prints during online sale
Thursday afternoon, a pair of Picasso prints will go up at auction. Not at Sotheby’s, Christie’s or Phillips, but at Kiechel Auctions, the auction spinoff of Kiechel Fine Arts.
The auction, which will be conducted online with phone bidding, is the fifth for the Lincoln gallery that, two years ago, became one of the first galleries in the country to create a digital auction. This pulled the gallery from the standard art market practice of initial gallery sales and secondary sales through auction houses like, at the high end, Sotheby’s and Christie’s.
“They’ve been successful,” said gallery owner and director Buck Kiechel. “Each auction gets better as far as the art goes and the eyes on the site.”
In March 2023, the first Kiechel Auction demonstrated it could drive the market for the gallery’s inventory, nationally known for mid-20th-century Regionalism and for consigned artwork from estates and collectors.
That auction put up 63 lots of artwork, 55 of which sold. There are 115 lots set for Thursday’s auction, with many comprised of prints from the gallery’s Regionalist staples — Thomas Hart Benton, John Steuart Curry and Roger Medearis — along with some regional artists like Keith Jacobshagen, Robert Weaver and Omahan Augustus William Dunbier.
But there are also the two Picassos, a Robert Indiana print and a series of works by Jack Levine, all from estates.
“I like being able to do Robert Indiana, Picasso, Jack Levine, some of these national, international artists along with our regional artists simply because it brings more eyes to the site,” Keichel said. “There are people out there looking for Picassos, not necessarily Augustus Dunbier. That will get them here.”
It’s unlikely that there will be any auction records set Thursday.
The opening bid for many of the lots is $200 to $500. The top estimate is for “Fraidy Cat,” a circa 1980 painting by the David City-born Dale Nichols, the auction’s featured artist with nine works for sale.
The most interesting Nichols piece, and the most illustrative of the art market, is “Back Yards,” a 1937 painting that has a far different layout of architectural features than his usual barns and farmhouse depictions.
Purchased at a Sotheby’s auction several years ago, it is being sent back on the secondary market by the collection, this time via Kiechel, which will receive a commission if the painting is sold.
The Picasso prints will be far less expensive, with estimates of $2,000 to $3,000 for the 1957 lithograph “La Danse des Faunes” and $3,000 to $5,000 for 1937’s aquatint “Portrait of Vollard, II.”
“See that printed black signature on ‘La Danse’?” Kiechel asked during a walkthrough of the gallery’s second floor where the Picassos are hanging. “Now look at the portrait, that red signature down below, his hand signature, makes it better, much more desirable and valuable.”
A good share of the art that is being offered for auction is hanging on the second floor of the gallery at 1208 O St. The remainder of the lots, mostly unframed prints, can be viewed by request.
It’s being shown at the gallery largely for potential buyers from Lincoln to be able to see the work before they make a bid in much the same fashion as the large houses put the top objects from their auctions on view before the sale.
“We had a lot of bidders from Nebraska and Lincoln in the last auction,” Kiechel said. “But in the last auction, the 89 lots all sold out of state, a number to dealers from around the country and a handful to collectors from other countries.”
The auction, set to begin at 1 p.m. Thursday, is conducted lot by lot online at kiechelart.com, on the Kiechel Auction iPhone app, by phone and on several established auction sites.
So there won’t be any paddles raised by bidders Thursday. And the hammer will be digital. But the Picassos, Nichols, Bentons and Levines will almost surely be sold by the Lincoln gallery that’s brought an auction element to the art sales business.