CE -- A lifetime of collecting comic related material :: My Origin Story Illustrated

My First English Watercolor, William Henry Hunt, Bird's Nest and Lilac Blossom, c. 1850 + My Thoughts on Auctions & Art Markets

Artist: William Henry Hunt (Painter)

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My First English Watercolor, William Henry Hunt, Bird's Nest and Lilac Blossom, c. 1850 + My Thoughts on Auctions & Art Markets Comic Art

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Artwork Details

Title:	My First English Watercolor, William Henry Hunt, Bird's Nest and Lilac Blossom, c. 1850 + My Thoughts on Auctions & Art Markets
Artist:	William Henry Hunt (Painter)
Media Type:	Paint - Watercolor
Art Type:	Other
For Sale Status:	NFS
Views:	159
Likes on CAF:	0 1
Comments:	1
Added to Site:	6/5/2021
Comic Art Archive:

Description

I bought this painting at Sotheby's Victorian branch in London in February 1977, during my first semester in law school. I had been collecting comic books for about 24 years by then and had moved to L.A., where I was close enough to Collectors Book Store to finally continue comic book collecting with greater intensity -- if I just had more money! If I ever had been able to focus on one area of collecting, life would have been so easy. But no, within just a few months I began a second, ultimately much more expensive collection -- watercolors by the English artist, William Henry Hunt (1790-1864). Hunt's work had been extremely renowned, popular, and expensive in the 19th century, but had not fared so well in the 20th, at least not up until 1977. With the help of my parents, I was able to buy this watercolor for a relatively modest price, even though it was a painting of bird's nest with a flower, the type of watercolor which brought him fame and fortune during his lifetime. Even so, the prices soon began to rise and, when I began to collect animation art a couple of years later and continued to buy comic books, it was very difficult to add yet a fourth serious collection, comic art. But I did my best! The fact that Collectors Book Store was auctioning more (and more expensive) animation art, comic strips originals, and comic book art with each new month, it was no wonder that I was always struggling to keep up with all the art I just had to have! While I had almost never sold comics or art to buy other art up until the late 1970s, It was inevitable that I would have to make sacrifices if I wanted to continue to buy in markets with rising prices.

Almost every Hunt watercolor I own was bought at auctions in England. After dealing with all types of auctions and art dealers over fifty years, I have a lot of opinions, most of which are very different than those I constantly hear out of the mouths of others who appear on Comic Art Fans Live broadcasts. On this day of new records being set for comic art (June 16, 2021), I feel the need to share those thoughts. This is going to be long, and I think it best to begin with my ideas on whether the current, ultra-hot comic art market will continue with ever-rising prices.

No one can be sure what the future holds, but rapidly rising prices for art are nothing new. Within the past 30 or 40 years I've seen these situations several times. In three of those, prices ultimately crashed after those who were attempting to "make a market" were unable to pull it off. Perhaps the first case that I knew of was when a speculator attempted to corner the market on Flash Gordon Sunday pages with the hope of cashing out after he managed to drive up prices. The problem was that there was no concentration of Flash originals, yet there were enough spread out among a number of owners If he was ever able to find and buy enough Sundays to influence prices before there was an nternet, he certainly wasn't able to find buyers willing to pay significantly higher prices than what Flash Gordons had been selling for. And when he began to dump his "investments," prices seemed to drop. It took several years before prices began to rise again. All-in-all, since only one title was involved, the comic strip market was totally unaffected by an attempt to manipulate prices.

The same person was involved in trying to make a market for Disney Good Housekeeping watercolors As I discussed in my Disney Publicity Art for Micky and Donald cartoons, Alexander Acevedo was the first to buy up the newly discovered artwork for the Good Housekeeping pages, he paid much too much for a type of art that had no track record. That was a bad investment, and Acevedo bailed out when it became clear that there was no market at the level he was expecting. This other speculator and another well-known, very wealthy person involved with comic books, ended up with all the art. At a time when there were virtually no interested buyers, these new speculators were asking up to $175,000 or so for a page of the watercolors. I do not know that they sold a single one. They eventually gave up trying to sell the pieces, and they were ultimately dumped in some manner. Afterwards, up until the present time, the market value of these wonderful examples of Disney art have sold for amounts as low as 2,000 and rarely more than $10,000-20,000. If the art had been allowed to sell for amounts similar to those pieces which were on the market before the speculators moved in, there would probably have been greater trust among collectors that they were actually worth the amounts being asked and the market would have had a chance to develop based on real economic principles instead of being rendered unappealing and worth far less than they should have been worth after 30 years on the market. Cont.

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About the Owner

	C E
Joined:	April 2006
Last Login:	August 2025
Country:	UNITED STATES
On CAF:	C's Want List Artworks Commented On Liked Art Site Activity on CAF

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Jeff Singh
Member Since 2004

Posted on 6/21/2021

I appreciate your very insightful thoughts and experiences with auctions. Although like-minded on much of it, other things I will need to digest more and re-evaluate my thinking. A lot of food for thought.

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