NEW YORK, NY.- Bonhams New York presents more than 30 works from the personal collection of Dr. John Driscoll, celebrated collector, scholar and art dealer who, for nearly 30 years, has been the owner and president of Driscoll Babcock, New York’s oldest art gallery.

As part of American Art on November 18 at 2 p.m. EST, Bonhams will auction works from Driscoll’s internationally recognized collection of 20th century art.

“John Driscoll’s expertise within the field of American Art accompanied by his discerning eye and passion for acquiring only the highest quality of pictures, has resulted in a remarkable collection,” said Bonhams Director of American Art Kayla Carlsen. “We are honored to be offering these masterworks, so that others may now enjoy these carefully collected treasures.”

Driscoll is currently focused on finishing his work on the John F. Kensett Catalogue Raisonné. Over the years, he has published a number of journal articles on American art and many exhibition catalogues and book publications.

During his tenure as owner of Driscoll Babcock, he has placed iconic works with, and advised, prominent private collectors and public institutions including the Smithsonian American Art Museum, National Gallery of Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Museum of Fine Arts-Houston, Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Denver Art Museum, Detroit Institute of Arts, Cleveland Museum, Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Museum of Fine Arts Boston, among many others.

“As a dealer I’ve always bought personally for my own purposes, quality and art-historical significance,” Driscoll said. “Of course there’s always the search for the masterpiece, and I’ve been fortunate to own a few, such as Marsden Hartley’s Calla Lilies in a Vase. I’m delighted that I’ve had the opportunity to live with such great pieces on a daily basis for 20 or 30 years.”

Driscoll collection highlights include:

George Benjamin Luks (American, 1867-1933), Copley Square, Boston, estimate U.S. $300,000-$500,000
George Luks was a leading and outspoken figure in the group of artists known as The Eight, more often referred to as the Ashcan School. The group rejected the genteel subjects of the Impressionists and focused on, and were fascinated by, scenes derived from everyday life. The most memorable and recognizable Ashcan School paintings are street scenes. Copley Square, Boston is a George Luks masterwork. Its status as a street scene with a Boston subject makes it distinctly rare, a virtually unique example of a significant George Luks Ashcan School prime period street scene painting remaining in private ownership.

Charles Sheeler (1883-1965), Tulips-Suspended Forms, estimate U.S. $300,000-$500,000
Charles Sheeler is one of the central and most profoundly significant figures – as a painter, draftsman and photographer – in the development of modern art in America. In a career that spanned little more than 50 years, he created a small but iconic body of only approximately 400 works, destroying all that did not meet his exacting standards.

Tulips-Suspended Forms, is one of a six still life works on paper that Sheeler exhibited in his 1922 solo show at The Daniel Gallery, New York. The significance of these works, beyond their aesthetic success, is indicated by the list of original owners and the impressive published critical acclaim they received. Tulips-Suspended Forms, is arguably the most lavish and sensuous of the group, having been referenced as, "a lush picture, emphasizing the voluptuous contours of the Etruscan vase and the provocative red petals of the overripe tulips." [C. Troyen and E. Hirshler, Charles Sheeler: Paintings and Drawings, Boston, Massachuetts, 1987, pp. 85-86, 89] Tulips-Suspended Forms remains one of the iconic masterworks of Charles Sheeler's career and among the most important of his works remaining in private ownership.

Childe Hassam (American, 1859-1935), The Cove, Isles of Shoals, estimate U.S. $400,000-$600,000
The Isles of Shoals, and the Island of Appledore, about nine miles off the coast of New Hampshire, were for 35 years, between 1880 and 1916, a source of inspiration and refuge for the superb American Impressionist painter Childe Hassam. While Hassam’s public often preferred his figurative and city street scene paintings, the artist himself loved, and painted for his own edification, such beautifully designed compositions as The Cove, Isles of Shoals. Yet, it is a little known fact that in 1913, when the famous Armory Show introduced Picasso and Matisse and a host of other avant garde painters to American audiences, Hassam, by then in his mid-50’s, was invited to participate and showed several works in the exhibition. He was invited because the most adventurous American artists who organized the show recognized that he was a genius of pictorial design, and they often found his pictures, such as The Cove, Isles of Shoals, to be thoroughly modern compositions.

Marsden Hartley (American, 1878-1943), Calla Lilies in a Vase, estimate U.S. $300,000-$500,000
Marsden Hartley was a central figure of international consequence in the development of modern art. He was a part of the Stieglitz Group that included among others, Georgia O'Keeffe, Arthur Dove, John Marin and Charles Demuth. Hartley's interest in the Calla Lily as a subject is perhaps reflective of that of other artists, including his friends Charles Demuth and Georgia O'Keeffe, both of whom were doing serious paintings of Calla flowers in the 1920’s. Calla Lilies in a Vase, 1928, is one of several Calla Lily paintings that Hartley completed, including examples at the collections of the Montclair Art Museum, New Jersey, The Newark Museum, New Jersey, and Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Arkansas, among others. In its compositional design, color, fluent brushwork and distinctly modernist isolation of imagery, it may be considered the finest of Hartley's Calla Lily paintings.