Paintings & Drawings

Belle Hoffman Paintings, ca. 1925

Appraisal: Belle Hoffman Paintings, ca. 1925

Transcript

GUEST: These are a couple pictures that my father picked up at an auction in Madison, Indiana. He loved collecting art. And he bought a collection of these by Belle Hoffman, and he didn't know anything about her, just loved the paintings. There were 13 in the group. Then he did some research and found out she was from Cleveland. Supposedly, she was a buyer for the Higbee Company, which was a department store in Cleveland. He had some postcards that came with the collection, and supposedly she went to Grace Kelly's wedding and knew Ava Gardner, and this...

APPRAISER: Oh, my!

GUEST: Yes, Ava Gardner had sent her this postcard, talking about Grace Kelly's wedding.

APPRAISER: So she traveled in some…

GUEST: She traveled.

APPRAISER: …Very heady circles.

GUEST: She did, and I know she traveled overseas because one of my paintings is from Capri, where she painted, in Italy.

APPRAISER: Well, I'm not surprised, because after you showed me these pictures, I got quite interested in Belle Hoffman, and I've – I’ve done some very quick research—

GUEST: Oh!

APPRAISER: -- and I've been very impressed with Belle.

GUEST: Good.

APPRAISER: Belle was apparently quite a woman. She began her career here in Cleveland as a dress designer.

GUEST: Oh.

APPRAISER: And studied art at the art school here in Cleveland and also at the New York Art Students League…

GUEST: Wow.

APPRAISER: …And became a painter, and in 1912, at the ripe old age of 23, gathered together a group of like-minded young women and founded the Cleveland Women's Art Club, which had its first meeting in her studio in the Gage Galleries here in Cleveland.

GUEST: Oh, my gosh.

APPRAISER: And I've read a couple of really interesting newspaper articles about that, both contemporary with the founding and recent, in which she is described variously as articulate and outspoken, and… no shrinking violet…

GUEST: Wow.

APPRAISER: …And well-versed in the New York City commercial art world…

GUEST: Oh my gosh.

APPRAISER: …And that the club was very lucky to have her as its spokeswoman and I think leader at the time. She was quite a force, and they pointed out that not only was she a wonderful painter, but that unlike most of the other women in the group who painted or made art in other media, primarily, they had to teach to earn their livings, and she was able to earn her living as a designer, so I guess she was sort of a cut above.

GUEST: Wow.

APPRAISER: She did spend a lot of time in Gloucester and Provincetown and that area in the summers in the 1918, 1919 period. She was influenced by the impressionists in France. This beach scene is a perfectly lovely example of that genre, with the sparkling sun and waves and children. This picture is a lively example. Ah, I saw another version of it… and it was entitled "The Red Cross Fair.”

GUEST: Okay.

APPRAISER: So it's a particular event. In this one, you can see her handling of the paint and how incredibly colorful, and these flags moving in the wind and so on. She's an extremely accomplished painter. Since she signed them clearly but did not date them, it's a little difficult, but I would suspect that the beach scene dates from the year she was… on the New England shore, 1918, 1919. And this picture one would assume, based on the costumes and so on, might date from the '20s.

GUEST: Oh, wow. That’s amazing.

APPRAISER: At the same time, it's possible she was doing subjects later…

GUEST: Yes.

APPRAISER: …That were from an earlier date. They both are oil paintings.

GUEST: Okay.

APPRAISER: When your father bought the group, do you have any idea how much he paid for it?

GUEST: I think he paid around... between, like, $98 and $100 for it.

APPRAISER: For the entire group of--

GUEST: For the entire group of--

APPRAISER: -- how many?

GUEST: The entire collection, 13.

APPRAISER: Of 13 items.

GUEST: Mm-hmm, yes.

APPRAISER: And how many of them do you have?

GUEST: He gave me three of them in... oh, about five years ago. My sister also got three. My daughter has one.

APPRAISER: And what's happened to the rest of them?

GUEST: Um, my mother is still alive, and they are in her collection.

APPRAISER: Her prices at auction are few and far between and not particularly high.

GUEST: Okay.

APPRAISER: There are no pictures comparable to these except one version of this composition here.

GUEST: Mm-hmm.

APPRAISER: So, it's a little bit of a seat-of-the-pants appraisal, but my colleagues and I have agreed that because these pictures are so lovely and commercially desirable, that each one of them would probably carry an estimate of between $7,000 and $9,000.

GUEST: Oh wow, that's great.

APPRAISER: I—

GUEST: Thank you, that's amazing, yeah! That's a great investment!

APPRAISER: It certainly is.

GUEST: Wow!