Date: Fri 09-Jul-1999

Publication: Ant

Author: JUDIR

Quick Words:

Tepper-Tobey-Ward

Full Text:

Rare Hilda Ward Painting Turns Up At Tepper Galleries

NEW YORK CITY -- After many years of trekking to auctions held in and beyond

New York City looking for significant but affordable paintings by American

artists of the first half of the Twentieth Century, P.E. Tobey finally

stumbled on one in particular she had long hoped to find: a signature style

oil by Hilda Ward.

A student of Robert Henri and Homer Boss, Ward, along with her friend and

colleague Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney, gave patronage to needy artists and

often invited them to her family estate in Roslyn, L.I. There they were

introduced to her family as merely gentlemen callers, inasmuch as consorting

with artists was frowned upon by families of conservative social standing such

as hers.

Ward (1878-1950) never signed her name on the face of a canvas and rarely even

block printed her last name on the reverse side. Thus, some of her work fell

prey to zealous dealers who passed off her work as that of George Luks, Henri

Matisse or Alfred H. Maurer, artists who commanded higher prices.

And so recently, on the east wall of the auction house Tepper Galleries, Tobey

spotted an expressionist fauve study of a woman. Adding to its allure was the

low estimate of $100-150. However, a competitor pushed the winning bid up to

$1,000.

Reported in the Observer August 4, 1997, such an occurrence surfaced through

the Hollis Taggart Gallery where Ward's "Blue Nude" was displayed as the work

of Alfred H. Maurer. This highly touted work had been bought and sold by at

least ten various collectors and dealers by the time Tobey was able to reveal

the error.

Featured in a double column spread in The New York Times , it was Ward who

should have gotten the credit for such genius. In the same exhibition of

American Fauves, "The Clowness," on loan from the Hood Museum (displayed as

another Maurer) was also proved by Tobey to be the work of Ward.