Dozens of original artworks and other personal effects from the estate of John Douglas Patrick (1863-1937), who studied in France and achieved worldwide acclaim by being one of the first Americans ever to be awarded a medal by the Paris Salon in 1889 for his seminal work Brutality, will be sold in an online auction Monday, January 15th, at 7 pm Central.
The auction is being conducted by KC Auction & Appraisal Company, based in Kansas City. The catalog is scheduled to be published and open for pre-bidding on New Year’s Day, January 1st, at the website www.kcauctioncompany.com. There will be no live, phone or absentee (left) bidding. It’s an absolute auction; everything sells to the highest bidder, regardless of final price.
The auction will exclusively feature artworks by Patrick, plus other items from his estate. The balance of his body of work and personal effects will be sold over the course of several more auctions, folded into general fine art and antique auctions planned throughout 2018 by KC Auction & Appraisal Company. All 500-600 of his artworks have been stored away for decades.
The artworks in the January sale cover a wide range of styles. Patrick was a classically trained figural painter who also created wonderful plein air (outdoor) works depicting fields, orchards, trees and other nature-related subjects. His drawings and portraits are mostly classical in nature.
John Douglas Patrick was born to Scottish immigrants in Hopewell, Pa., but he moved with his family to a farm outside Lenexa, Kansas, near Kansas City, when he was still young. He showed a proficiency for drawing and painting early on and went on to attend the St. Louis School of Art for four years. Then he left in 1885, to study at the prestigious Academie Julian in Paris, France.
His talent was recognized by the faculty and he had paintings accepted for the Paris Salon, the annual exhibition, in the late 1880s. He made his mark with Brutality, an impressive, powerful work. Depicting a man abusing a horse to get it to do his bidding, the 11 foot 6 inch by 9 foot 6 inch oil on canvas is Patrick’s statement that animals should be treated with dignity and respect.
Patrick returned to the U.S. for family reasons in the 1890s and spent two years teaching art at a school he founded in St. Louis. During this period his reputation as a respected artist was further cemented when some of his work was featured in the Kansas pavilion at the 1894 World’s Fair. In 1900, he returned to the Lenexa-Kansas City area and remained there for the rest of his life.
In 1907, Patrick was hired as one of the first teachers at the newly-formed Fine Arts Institute (later re-named the Kansas City Art Institute) in Kansas City. According to family lore, Patrick taught for free the first year, to help the school save money and attract enrollment. He was paid starting the following year until his retirement in 1936. The school held a retrospective of his work in December 1936; in January 1937, just one month later, Patrick passed away at age 74.
For more information about KC Auction & Appraisal Company and the internet-only Part 1 auction of the estate of artist John Douglas Patrick, please visit www.kcauctioncompany.com
