Artkraft Strauss collection at Freeman’s
Published May 12th, 2006
On Thursday, Freeman’s will offer more than 70 lots of lighting and related objects from the Artkraft Strauss collection in conjunction with a sale of 20th-century design.
“The objects in this collection evoke a brief moment, when Times Square, the ‘Crossroads of the World,’ was defined by neon, that glorious and now almost extinct medium,” Artkraft Strauss president Tama Starr writes in a foreword to the auction catalog.
The company was responsible for such sights as the Camel cigarette sign that puffed real smoke rings and the ’90s Coke bottle that tipped its cap while emptying and filling a thousand times a day, Starr says.
Those signs are not included in the sale, which will begin at noon Thursday at Freeman’s gallery, 1808 Chestnut St. But a drawing for a Camel sign dating to 1940, the year before the puffing sign was installed, will be offered, with a presale estimate of $1,000 to $2,000. And a 55-inch-high model of the Coke bottle will go on the block with an estimate of $10,000 to $20,000.
Neon signs featured in the sale include a 1945 caricature profile of Bob Hope ($1,500-$2,500); an unmounted neon-tubing “Once Upon a Time” theater sign ($3,000-$5,000); the “T” from a 1986 Suntory Whisky sign at Two Times Square ($8,000-$12,000); and a sign depicting three neon balloons attached to a three-stripe base that dates to the 1970s ($300-$500).
Among the 261 lots of 20th-century design that will be sold are a French Puiforcat silver service for 12 in a Monaco pattern ($4,000-$6,000); a Tiffany bronze inkstand in the shape of a crab ($5,000-$7,000), and one of the Andy Warhol “souper dresses” ($200-$300).
Next Friday, Freeman’s will sell about 460 lots of fine prints beginning at 10 a.m. Featured will be works by Chagall, Dali, Durer, Icart, Rockwell Kent, Marsh, Miro, Picasso, Rembrandt, and Renoir, as well as 10 Robert Riggs circus etchings from the estate of the Philadelphia collector Robert S. Lee Sr.
Most of the artworks are expected to sell in the three-figure range, although an etching by Renoir of a couple dancing in the country has a presale estimate of $10,000 to $15,000.
Previews for both sales are noon to 5 p.m. tomorrow and 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Monday through Wednesday, as well as 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Thursday for the prints. For more information, call 215-563-9275 or go to www.freemansauction.com.
