Rotary Finds An Artistic Way To Raise Funds For Alexandria Room Kitchen

By Shannon Hicks

After 40 years of benefit pancake breakfast events, the Rotary Club of Newtown decided to try something new to raise some money this year. Last Thursday evening, Rotary Club members joined with Ross Galleries, a professional auction firm based in Holbrook, NY, and hosted an art auction in Edmond Town Hall’s Alexandria Room. It was a suitable location for the auction, as the club is working to raise money for the renovation of the town hall’s kitchen, which is in a state of much-needed repairs and updating.

“We’ve been putting on pancake breakfasts for 40 years, and suddenly we’re being told we are out of code,” said Paul Dohrenwend, a Rotary member and the organizer of the event, in his welcoming remarks.

“We’d like to be a catalyst for renovating the kitchen here,” he continued. “Lots of groups use this room, yes, but it’s always been for catered events. We like to be able to cook here, too, and we would certainly like to have a nicer facility for everyone to use.”

In all, Rotary Club of Newtown earned a few thousand dollars its efforts, between ticket sales and commissions from artwork sold. Mr Dohrenwend said this week that in addition to the funds collected from the art auction itself, a few private donations earmarked specifically for the kitchen renovation efforts have been received by the club.

Rotary plans to set up a special account for the kitchen renovation project — a general account, not necessarily a Rotary account — into which anyone or any organization can donate funds.

“It will be such that others can contribute,” Mr Dohrenwend said this week. “What we’re hoping is that other service organizations will get on the bandwagon and work towards this. You get 20 or 30 service organizations, each donating even a small amount, and that’s going to go a long way. It looks like it’s going to be a long-term effort.”

Rotary earned 20 percent of anything that sold for up to $8,000 at Thursday night’s auction; anything that sold above $8,001 would have earned a larger percentage for the club’s fundraising efforts. As it was, the highest price paid for a work of art Thursday evening was $750, which was the opening — and selling — bid for “Spring Gate,” an original lithograph by Thomas Kinkade, pencil signed and numbered by the artist. Known as “The Father of Light,” for the way he is able to present luminous colors in his works, Kinkade sells his works exclusively through Ross Galleries.

There was no buyer’s premium charged, only Connecticut sales tax on each lot. Selling prices averaged in the low hundreds, and the majority of the lots sold uncontested, at their opening bid, causing auctioneer Jeanne Malone to jokingly scold the group with, “Do you all understand that this is an auction? You aren’t going to lose any friends here by bidding against each other.”

Ms Malone was a good auctioneer for the Newtown event. She brought her enthusiasm for selling to the floor and held the crowd’s attention the full two hours of the sale.

Works were offered in catalogue order, which numbered nearly 150 lots. The catalogue itself had 140 listed lots, but Ms Malone and her crew had a few unlisted lots, including Ted Williams signed baseballs, to add to the sale throughout the evening.

A total of 69 lots were passed on, including the preview piece, a pencil signed, limited edition serigraph on hand wrapped canvas by the Russian artist Viktor Shvaiko called “Plaza del Correo Viejo.” The large piece was featured on an easel in front of the Alexandria Room’s stage during the preview, with a spotlight on the painting. It had an opening bid of $1,250, which was too rich for the crowd that evening.

Also passed on were three of the lithographs by LeRoy Neiman: “F.X. McCrory’s Whiskey Bar,” “NBA All-Star Game” and “Arnie in the Rain” (although a fourth Neiman work, a lithograph called “Stock Market,” sold for $375 later in the sale). The photograph “Shot Heard Round the World” was also passed, as were most lots having anything to do with sports. The Newtown crowd was interested more in fine arts and decorative pieces than works that were sports related.

Familiar artists did well, however. An offset lithograph of Andrew Wyeth’s “Master Bedroom,” which Ms Malone called “the most popular Wyeth work ever done,” sold for $150. Paul Landry’s “New England Classic,” a pencil signed and numbered lithograph, sold for $250, and a Norman Rockwell original lithograph, “Mysterious Malady,” was purchased for $200.

A Claude Monet piece brought one of the highest prices of the evening. A limited edition artagraph on canvas, “Luncheon,” sold for $600. On the lighter end of the scale, Vincent Van Gogh’s “Café Terrace,” an offset print and also a very familiar scene, went out at $45. Pieces by Chagall, Rembrandt, Warren Kimble, and Ansel Adams also found new homes.

“The show went very, very well,” auctioneer Jeanne Anne Malone said this week from her office in Holbrook. “You have to understand, this was the first time we were in Newtown, so this was a brand-new thing. But we had about 69 people show up, although nearly 80 tickets had been sold. The weather kept some people home, but I was very pleased with the show.” A strong thunderstorm passed through Newtown less than an hour before the auction’s preview began, and many in attendance agreed with Ms Malone’s assessment that the weather kept many people home that night.

Ross Galleries conducts over 500 auctions a year. One of the largest auction houses in the country, Ross’ auctioneers travel continuously from Maine to Georgia. Ms Malone has been doing sales for 11 years.

“Many of the groups we work with, I go back annually. We build the shows up together,” Ms Malone said. “I would think that next year’s crowd should have at least 120 or 125 people, easy.”

And don’t worry about putting away the maple syrup just yet. The auction may have helped Rotary raise some funds towards the Alexandria Room kitchen renovation, but that doesn’t mean the club is going to stop putting on its popular pancake events any time soon.