Fine Art Auction & Appraisal Business Launches in Valhalla

Westchester Fine Art Auctioneers and Appraiser’s founders Michael F. Meyer and Frederick “Rick” Rock announce that their inaugural art auction will be held on October 12th at the historic Hammond House in Eastview, near Valhalla, NY.

The auction will be offering over 200 works of art as well as a selection of vintage frames sold in three sessions beginning at 12 p.m. The sale represents a cross-section of paintings, drawings and sculpture from old masters to contemporary works of art. Fine examples of Hudson River School artists include a large view of the Hudson River from Peekskill by regional artist Frank Anderson painted in 1887, as well as works by contemporaries William Henry Bartlett, William Louis Sonntag, Shepard Alonzo Mount, William Huston, Joseph Antonio Hekking, James Renwick Brevoort and James D. Smillie. The sale also includes a western landscape oil study on paper by Albert Bierstadt.

Other examples of American artists featured at the auction are genre painters Louis Lang, Tompkins H. Matteson, Henry Bacon, William Verplanck Birney, Milton J. Burns and George C. Lambdin. Also included are works by Elihu Vedder, William Starbuck Macy, Arthur Hoeber, Franz Josef Bolinger, Alexander Wyant, Thomas Birch, Gilbert Munger and Joseph Henry Sharp. American Folk painters of the 18th and 19th centuries represented include colonial portraitist Nathaniel Emmons of Boston, African American artist Joshua Johnson, as well as Thomas Chambers and James Bard.

Featured European artists include an important Danish landscape painting by Ferdinand Richardt and a collection of over 300 Napoleonic scenes drawn by 19th century French history painter Henri Félix Emmanuel Philippoteaux. Also represented are examples by Carl Wilhelm Bauerle, Ladislaus Bakalowicz, Mstislav Doboujinsky and Albertus Verhoesen. Old Master artists include works attributed to Francisco Goya, Hubert Robert, Jacob Van Ruisdael, Johann Melchior Roos and Jean-Jacques Caffieri.

Modern masters of the 20th century include Pierre Auguste Renoir, Edmond Francois Aman-Jean, Augustus John, Richard Emil Miller, John Sloan, Jerome Myers, Eugene Savage, Guy Pene du Bois, Tobias Musicant, Charles Webster Hawthorne, Frederick Judd Waugh, and A. B. Davies.

The auction will take place at the Hammond House, a historic landmark built circa 1719, located about 30 miles north of Manhattan, between Tarrytown and Valhalla, NY. The house was once a colonial tenant farmhouse on the Phillipsburg Manor. In 1995 Mr. Rock bought the structure saving it from destruction. Considered by him to be his “greatest purchase ever”, it is now a federally protected landmark, valued not only for its age and colonial architecture but because of its place in American history as a safe-haven for George Washington and his troops. The house’s owner, Col. James Hammond, was taken prisoner by British troops who had learned of Washington’s activities at the house and planned his capture. Hammond heroically escaped from a prison boat stationed in the East River nearly eighteen months later.

Mr. Rock, collaborating with fellow art dealer and collector Michael F. Meyer, founded Westchester Fine Art Auctioneers & Appraisers, Inc. in 2014 with the intention of conducting two quality fine art auction sales each year. They had both considered creating an auction house together for many years and felt that the time was finally right to join forces and bring their dream to light. Mike, a graduate of SUNY Purchase, with a BA in Art History, has been buying and selling paintings for nearly two decades. In the late 90s he worked in the painting department at William Doyle Auction Galleries in New York City. In 2002 he started Kaaterskill Falls Fine Art, later becoming Meyer Fine Art, Inc. Rick had worked with several auction galleries over the years including Copake Country Auction, in the 1980s. The principal auctioneer of this sale will be, long time friend and business associate, Seth Fallon, of Copake Auction, Inc.

The Inaugural event will be held at 12 noon on Sunday, October 12th, 2014. Three days of previews will begin Thursday, October 9th, noon to 6 p.m. and will continue on Friday and Saturday from 12-6 p.m. An Art Dealer & Collector Swap Meet will be held during the day on Thursday. A Gala Preview Party will be held Thursday evening from 6-9 p.m. Hammond House is located in Eastview on Grasslands Rd. (Rte.100-C) in Westchester County, NY between the Sprain and Sawmill Parkways. For more information about the auction sale visit www.westchesterfineart.com