2020 SCVAS Annual Dinner Silent Auction

Bidding for the 2020 Silent Auction is now over. Winners will be notified Monday (October 5). Thank you all for participating!

For the 2021 Silent Auction, go here →

Lot Item Descriptions.

These are the items currently up for auction for the 2020 SCVAS Annual Dinner.

Return to the main Auction Page to make your bid. Starting bids ($) are shown at the bottom of each item’s description; for the current bid amount and number of bids, refer to each item on the Auction Page. Note that the Auction page looks best on a laptop or desktop computer. Text may be truncated on mobile devices.

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Lot #101, John Muir Laws, Original watercolor: Thrushes
8.5” x 11” signed, unframed
A great friend and motivator. His workshops are famous nationwide, and his spirt is deeply connected with art and life. Who else can get so many people actively drawing and painting the wonders of the natural world? Who else but Jack can help us find the artist within? He inspires us to make that first brush stroke and create memories. This original painting is the original work used in his seminal book, The Laws Field Guide to the Sierra Nevada.
$100

Lot #102, John Muir Laws, Original watercolor: Grosbeak, Bunting, Tanager
8.5” x 11” signed, unframed
See description for Lot #101
$100

Lot #103, John Muir Laws, Original watercolor: Chickadees, Nuthatches, Creeper, Bushtit
8.5” x 11” signed, unframed
See description for Lot #101
$100

Lot #104, John Gould, Print: Marvelous Spatulatail
22” x 30” framed
$75

Lot #105, Charley Harper, Print: Wings of the World
8” x 10” framed
$25

Lot #106, Charley Harper, Print: Antypasto (Pileated Woodpecker)
8” x 10” framed
$25

Lot #107, Charley Harper, Print: Darwin’s Finches
8” x 10” framed
$25

Lot #108, Robert Bateman, Lithograph: Pileated Woodpeckers
22” x 22” signed, framed, Limited Edition
Personal note: I met Robert Bateman in the early 1980s at an art exhibit. He inscribed both of the books I brought to the gallery, but seemed slightly impatient when I showed him one of my drawings. He told me rather flatly that I should “keep drawing”. I don’t know if that was a compliment or a warning about how much more I needed to learn… Anyway, I’ve always loved Bateman’s work and I use his signature sketch paper faithfully when I draw.
$150

Lot #109, Lars Jonsson, Lithograph: Blue Grosbeak
18” x 20” Signed, Limited Edition
Lars Jonsson is an amazingly talented artist. His command of subtle lighting is astonishing, and intimidating for a wannabe artist. He has illustrated several field guides for European birds with clinical accuracy, but his more artistic spirit truly soars with his portraits. Check out his work, particularly “Birds and Light”.
$75

Lot #110 Michael DiGiorno, Print: Swallow-tailed Kite
12” x 16.5”, unframed
$25

Lot #111 Roger Tory Peterson, Lithograph: Bobolink
17” x 21”, unframed
Personal note: Matthew met Roger in the early 1980s at a book signing for the revised Eastern Field Guide and was very impressed with how tall Roger was—like a birding basketball player! When Matthew suggested that the famous author should revise the Western guide soon, like right away, Roger said it would take too long, and he’d probably be dead before it was finished. Ten years later, what do you know? The completely revised Field Guide to Western Birds was released, and Roger Tory was still very much alive! I feel like a tiny part of me went into that book…
$40

Lot #112 Roger Tory Peterson, Lithograph: White-winged Crossbill
17” x 21”, unframed
$40

Lot #113 Roger Tory Peterson, Lithograph: Bohemian waxwing
17” x 21”, unframed
$40

Lot #114 Roger Tory Peterson, Lithograph: Mountain Bluebird
17” x 21”, unframed
$40

Lot #115 Roger Tory Peterson, Lithograph: Yellow-billed Cuckoo
17” x 21”, unframed
$40

Lot $116 Roger Tory Peterson, Print: Peregrin Falcon
14” x 18” Matted, unframed
$20

Lot #117 David A. Sibley, Poster: Great Horned Owl
16” x 20”, unframed
Personal note: David needs no introduction except to say his artistic abilities go far beyond field guide illustration. His website occasionally offers original watercolors for sale, and he even does commission work. A friend of mine purchased an original painting of a Lewis’s Woodpecker which I’m hoping someday he will give to me. That would be a nice surprise…
$20

Lot #118 David A. Sibley, Poster: Snowy Owl
16” x 20”, unframed
$20

Lot#119 Ralph D. Carson, Lithograph: Indigo Bunting
14” x 16.5”, unframed
$12

Lot #120 Ralph D. Carson, Lithograph: Bullock’s Oriole
14” x 16.5”, unframed
$12

Lot #121 Ralph D. Carson, Lithograph: Lazuli Bunting
14” x 16.5”, unframed
$12

Lot #122 Don R. Ecklebery, Lithograph: Blue-gray Tanager
22” x 26”, unframed
$35

Lot #250 Guy Coheleach, Lithograph: Red-shafted Flicker 1973
18” x 24”, signed, unframed
$40

Lot #251 John James Audubon, Lithograph: Cliff Swallows
18” x 24”, unframed
A huge print, presumably a facsimile of Audubon’s famous “double elephant folio”. Audubon’s original watercolor painting were engraved by his partner, Robert Havell, Jr.. The birds in the massive double volumes were to be printed life size, so smaller species like these Cliff Swallows were featured on the giant pages with a huge border. It is suggested that this be framed with the border intact.
$60

Lot #252 Emélie Curtis, Lithograph: Black-necked Stilts (Limited Edition)
18” x 30”, Signed, numbered, unframed
Emélie was a long-time member of SCVAS, avid hiker and a talented artist. Favoring subtlety colored engraved works, she created many beautiful limited edition prints of local birds. She passed away in Hollister in 2009 while hiking in the great outdoors. She was 80.
$60

Lot #253 Ray Harm, Lithograph: Blackburnian Warlber, Bay-breasted Warbler, Yellow-throated Warbler
18” x 20”, Unframed
$25

Lot #254 Emélie Curtis, Lithograph: Sandhill Crane (Limited Edition)
18” x 30”, signed, numbered, unframed
Emélie was a long-time member of SCVAS, avid hiker and a talented artist. Favoring subtlety colored engraved works, she created many beautiful limited edition prints of local birds. She passed away in Hollister in 2009 while hiking in the great outdoors. She was 80.
$60

Lot #123 Arnold Small, Book: California Birds—Their Status and Distribution (pub. 1994)
342 pages, color photos, 9” x 11.25”
Small’s seminal work, and an indispensable resource for students of our state’s birds. Detailed accounts of their seasonal status, habitats and migratory patterns. A must for the library. Matthew met Small several times and remembers a curious story about him. While driving to southern California to see yet another mega-rarity, Arnold was in a car accident and flipped his rented vehicle over completely before it came to rest again on its wheels. The story goes, he simply continued driving, not wanting to miss the first state Common Redpoll…. That’s a birder who has his priorities straight!
$25

Lot #124 Francis Lee Jaques, Book: Artist of the Wilderness World (pub. 1973)
370 pages, color, hard slip case, 10” x 12”
Handsome retrospective of artists life and work with 64 luminous paintings and dioramas in full color. Plus 100 drawings in scratchboard, pen and ink, and pencil. 
$120

Lot #125 Michael Everett, Book: The Birds of Paradise (pub. 1978)
144 pages, color, 9” x 12.75”
Original paintings and photographs and classic nineteenth-century artwork embellish descriptions of the displays, dances, and nests of the exotically plumaged birds.
$10

Lot #126 John K. Terres, Book: The Audubon Society Encyclopedia of North American Birds
1109 pages, color photos and black-and-white illustrations, 9.25” x 11”
A comprehensive, single-volume encyclopedia provides both novice and expert birders with concise, authoritative, and lavishly illustrated information on the birds of North America, presented in a detailed, thoroughly cross-referenced format. Covers anatomy, behavior, taxonomy, everything!
$12

Lot #127 John James Audubon, Marshall Davidson, Book: Original Water Color Paintings By John James Audubon For Birds Of America (published 1966)
450 pages, color, 11” x 13.5”
Richly detailed account of John James Audubon’s encounters with species not yet recorded or described, the artistic challenges as he labored tirelessly, and reflections on the study of birds and the massive work ahead. These pages represent Audubon’s original artwork which was later handed to his publisher for final engraving and publication.
$40

Lot #128 Theodore Jasper, Book: Studer’s Popular Ornithology: The Birds of North America 
Facsimile 1977. Original edition first published in 1881
300 pages, color, 11” x 15”
With 119 consecutively number plates depicting over 700 species and varieties of American birds. Jacob Henry Studer was a printer, lithographer, painter, and popular ornithologist active in Columbus, Ohio from the 1860s to the 1880s. A member of the American Ornithologists' Union, Studer arranged the birds in this book according to that group's classification scheme. Known as "the poor man's Audubon," this was the first large-format illustrated bird identification book that was affordable for a wider audience. It is fitting, therefore, that the medium employed was lithography, "the democratic art." The plates were made from drawings by Theodore Jasper (1814-1897), a portrait painter and photographic colorist who was active in New York and Connecticut from the 1840s to the 1860s, and in Columbus, Ohio from c. 1866 to 1883.
$20

Lot #129 Oliver Austin, Arthur Singer, Book: Birds of the World (published 1961)
316 pages, color, 10.25” x 13.5”
Matthew is especially fond of this book! It was the first major book purchase he made to support his growing passion for birds. Lavishly illustrated with Singer’s expressive work, and colorfully written by Austin, it planted the seeds within the boy to see the Resplendent Quetzal in the wild. Some 43 years later that dream came true, and the continues to inspire the boy within to learn more, see more, and even draw. A magical book…
$15

Lot #130 Les Line, Franklin Russell, Book: The Audubon Society Book of Wild Birds (published 1976)
292 pages, 9.5” x 12”
Part celebration of the visual beauty of birds, part poetic meditation on the mystery of life and the diversity of birds, and part sober account of their uncertain future. Filled with stunning imagery from around the world that spans across two full pages. A lavish tabletop book.
$25

Lot #255 Ralph Hoffmann, Book: Birds of the Pacific States (published 1927)
A classic book from the rugged early days of the birding in America. Along with William Leon Dawson’s “Birds of California” (1923), Hoffmann’s guide  predates Roger Tory Peterson’s successful guide by two decades and so lacks the typical field guide format. This book uses colorful prose to describe the birds of the west and makes for an amusing read. “As one walks in the winter though a wet meadow or where water-cress almost dams the current of a little stream, a brown bird with a bill nearly as long as his body rises almost from under one’s feet and makes off in rapid zigzags, finally mounting to a considerable height, or drops again at the edge of the brook.” Hoffmann’s account of Wilson’s Snipe. The book is filled with memorable descriptions and personal encounters. A must for the book collector!
$60

Lot #256 William Burt, Book: Rare and Elusive Birds of North America
For sixteen years, author and photographer William Burt lived in pursuit of the toughest of subjects: twenty of the least known, almost mythically elusive North American birds. Burt spent weeks in the field at a time, employing his own hand-built equipment and often revisiting sites, year after year in certain cases, to get the pictures he wanted. The end result is this collection of stunning photographs of these birds in the wild and the engaging stories behind capturing the images. This book contains over fifty remarkable photographs of these camera-shy birds. A wonderful addition to the libraries of serious and armchair birders alike.
$20

Lot #257 Book: National Geographic Complete Guide to Birds of North America (1st Ed. published 2005)
A thick and richly illustrated library companion to the NGS Field Guide with detailed descriptions of family groupings, range, habitats, behaviors and field marks of our regularly occurring species. It includes everything that wouldn’t fit into the more portable field guide…
$12

Lot #258 David Rosair, David Cottridge, Book: Photographic Guide to the Shorebirds of the World
A thrilling photographic exploration and valuable resource for students of the world’s Shorebirds.
$10

Lot #259 Art Wolfe, Book: Owls: Their Life and Behavior—a Photographic Study of the North American Species
Detailed accounts of all species in the Owl family found in North America. Ranch, habitats, behaviors and stunning photographs.
$10

Lot #260 Schulenberg, Stotz, Lane, O’Neill and Parker, Book: Princeton Field Guides: Birds of Peru
The most authoritative field guide to the area. Includes stunning illustrations, range maps, detailed descriptions of each bird, and recently discovered species. A must for the world traveler.
$45

Lot #131 Lenox (Gyrfalcon), Vintage Ski Country Whiskey Decanter 1982 (limited edition)
12” high
Uh, I have no idea how the donor came upon this unique item, but I can tell you the contents are gone… completely drained. The limited edition Gyrfalcon decanter is intact and beautifully detailed. Collectable.
$25

Lot #132 Loepro, Optics Series Scope Porter 200 AW
A very light, but sturdy backpack for scope, telephoto, lens and camera. Beautifully made and destined to accommodate your equipment needs for years in the field.
$100

Lot #133 Lenox (Western Tanager)
$25

Lot #134 Chestnut-backed Chickadee (door knocker)
BirdHug https://birdhug.com
$25

Lot #135 White-tailed Kite (porcelain figure)
$25

Lot #136 Mountain Bluebird (wooden carving)
BirdHug https://birdhug.com
$25

Lot #137 Red-headed Woodpecker (door knocker)
$25

Lot #138 Mark Cormons, Ivory-billed Woodpecker (life size, original carved wood to mount on wall or tree)
https://www.birdcarvings.net
https://fineartamerica.com/featured/ivory-billed-woodpecker-matt-cormons.html
$150

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