A big auction day for Bo Bartlett fans

Not to be overlooked in the hullaballoo about Sunday's auction of art once owned by disgraced HealthSouth CEO Richard Scrushy is the fact that the sale represents a rare opportunity for fans of American realist artist Bo Bartlett to bid on 50 of his works.

Bartlett, 55, who was educated at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and spent time in Philadelphia as a portrait artist, has many longtime admirers here who are eager for a chance to acquire his work, said Anne Henry of Freeman's Auction House, where both Bartlett and Scrushy are part of the big annual spring sale of modern and contemporary art.

The Bartletts were acquired from one person - unidentified - who has put his entire collection on the block. The work, done in classic PAFA-trained figurative style, in the tradition of Thomas Eakins and Andrew Wyeth, includes self-portraits, portraits of women, nudes, studies for larger works, gouaches or oils that, Bartlett noted in an e-mail, "were either done as studies for major paintings, or were done as quick narrative exercises painted from life." The works carry estimated values ranging from $1,000 to $15,000.

Bartlett, who lives with his wife in Maine, Georgia and on an island in the Puget Sound, wrote this about the sale: "Auctions are a complicated aspect of the Art World. Auctions can effect the artists market in an artificial way for better or for worse. ... There are some very strong pieces in this body of work, including some of my all time favorite drawings ...

"Since 1981, (my first year out of the Academy) when I began showing with Marion Locks, the prices for my work have risen steadily. .... Since the downturn, most all artists prices have seen a dip in sales and paintings often sell for a percentage off or a pre-discribed discount; auctions often offer some of the biggest bargains .... An artist has little control of what happens at auctions. I love Philly and Philly has always been appreciative of my work.

"... Not long before his death, Andrew Wyeth said to me, 'I believe in objects.' Painters and their collectors believe in objects, they share a commonality, in their love for beauty and their placement of meaning in the aesthetic experience. I hope the auction goes well, for my work, for the collector auctioning the work, and for the many new collectors who'll be going home with a piece of my soul."