Art Benefit Famous Artists’ Lesser-Known Works Auctioned Off To Assist Jerusalem Hospital
It was an auction by numbers, drawn out for the crowd by a patient art auctioneer who colored outside the lines only with her jokes.
About 150 people came to the Sunday afternoon auction at Temple Beth Shalom on the South Hill.
Auctioneer Cheryl Parker explained art, auctions and bidding protocol.
“Please do not touch the nose or the ears or wink at me,” she told the audience. “I don’t know what that means, and I’m married.”
People browsed, hoped for bargains and dreamed of fine art.
The auction, sponsored by Hadassah, a Jewish women’s organization, benefited the Hadassah Medical Center in Jerusalem.
“We just bought a house and it’s empty,” said Henry Lin, who came with his wife, Linda Partoll. “We’d like to put something on the walls.”
The couple could choose from lesser-known works by Salvador Dali, Pablo Picasso, Joan Miro, Marc Chagall and Rembrandt van Rijn and works by modern artists. All were originals with certificates of authenticity.
The Picasso was a sketch consisting of a large circle and four tiny slashes for facial features.
“That’s a Picasso?” asked Rebecca Fitzgerald, who teaches Sunday school at the synagogue. “I could do that. That looks like something I give to second-grade kids and say, ‘Draw this.”’
Sure, but then bidding wouldn’t start at $700 and the work wouldn’t be appraised at $3,200, like Picasso’s doodle.
The rest of the art wasn’t cheap either. The bidding for most pieces started at $300 to $500.
“I was hoping to find something inexpensive to buy, but I don’t think it’s going to happen,” said Audrey LaRue, who studied the paintings on the wall. “I came with a $100 budget.”
The food at the auction was its own work of art: mounds of skewered fresh fruit and pasta; piles of jalapenos stuffed with cream cheese.
“It should be interesting,” said art aficionado Mike Golden. “We’ll see if anyone gets into a fistfight over the prices.”
Hardly. This wasn’t a punching crowd. Raised hands were tentative, and only a few people traded bids. Auctioneer Parker’s voice was like a train, starting at a slow chug and picking up speed. But before she would start speaking too fast, nobody would bid.
The first six pieces either received silence or only one hand. Finally, a piece by Jean-Claude Picot attracted more than one bidder. It started at $266, sold for $325.
“That’s the way an auction is done, by the way,” Parker told the crowd. “We’re supposed to go back and forth and back and forth.”
A piece by Anatole Krasnyansky came up, starting at $300. “We’re now approaching the cost of the Plexiglas,” Parker chided. The painting finally sold for $350.
Park West Galleries, based in Michigan, supplied the art. The 70 pieces sold for a total of $24,000, and the Spokane Hadassah chapter’s share was 10 percent. That money will be turned over to the Hadassah hospital in Jerusalem.
“They’re overflowing with victims of the most recent terrorist attacks in Israel,” said Rebecca Lee, co-president of the Spokane chapter. “And while we’re thousands of miles away, we’re still helping them.”
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