Bronze Hound's Art Collection: Defender of the Dakota by Harold Shelton (1918-1999)

Over the last few years, I have seen that the large online aggregators of independent live auction houses (LiveAuctioneers, Invaluable, Barnaby's, etc) have had their buyer's premiums increase at an alarming rate, trending towards 40%. It is indeed rare to see an auction these days with a rate under 20%. While this may be caused by the auction houses themselves raising their rates, many of these independent auction houses have taken the plunge into self-determination by hosting their own live-streamed online bidding platforms. The premiums are typically lower, often significantly. When you're bidding on an expensive (and expensive to ship) bronze sculpture, shaving even a few percentage points off the top of the final price can make the difference between a realistic all-in purchase price and bank-breaking lunacy. I am always looking for ways to minimize my fixed expenses. This has the added benefit of my being able to place higher maximum bids and remain within the tight constraints of my budget. Shipping is typically a fixed cost (within a certain range, I've gotten half decent at estimating the cost), for me the buyer's premiums are the hidden snake in the grass waiting for my unwary toe to tread incautiously. My goal is to buy at a good to excellent price, not set the new high auction result standard!

I first spotted this specific bronze on a couple of the auction aggregators' sites. It had, however, been listed by a major auction house in Texas which has its own bidding platform. The difference in premiums between using an aggregator's site or the auction house's in-house platform can be as high as 5%. Those nickels add up very fast as the bids go up! As I am signed up directly with the auction house in question (not to mention being chronically po), though I first found this bronze on an aggregator's site, I bid on it directly with the auction house. While I was thrilled to get it for a very reasonable rate (even including the premium), this time the shipping tripped me up and almost brought me to ruin. It is a MUCH larger and heavier bronze than I had imagined and came with a massive solid green marble plinth, requiring it to be crated and freight shipped to me in two separate and heavy packages. I'm quite glad that I sucked it up and forked over the shekels though, it is a stunning sculpture.

I've been very familiar with this piece for years. Cast in the early to mid 1990's by a notorious gallery owner from Hollywood, California, Defender of the Dakota was one of a series of quite expensive bronzes from the "Epic of the Plains Indian" series by late California artist Harold Shelton. Cast in a run of only 76, it has shown up in auctions and the occasional dealer resale listings with reasonable frequency over the last couple decades or so. I've always been impressed and have even placed bids a time or three, when I'd gotten to the auctions early enough to be the first to bid. The sales prices always went into what is, for me, the stratosphere. When I saw this one, with one of the lowest starting bids that I've ever seen on this bronze. I crossed my fingers as I placed my bid and hoped that this time I'd get lucky. Then I did!

I had not realized that the green marble column on which the bronze (with its own marble base attached) was pictured actually came with the bronze. I had assumed that the artwork had been placed on it to be photographed, but it appears that the pedestal was available in different heights from the gallery as an option and came with the sculpture. I was shocked but pleased at that when I called the auction house after successfully winning the lot to set up shipping and was told how much it was going to cost to get the whole shebang out to me. But when the quote turned out to be roughly 25% of the total sale price (hammer price + premium + tax), I looked at my dwindling account, did some quick math to make sure I could cover other bids I'd placed then sighed and okayed the shipping. I am so very glad that I did! Again though, my back-of-the-envelope-math showed that I was still going to have a comfortable margin between my all-in costs and the current retail rate for the bronze alone (and that's at pandemic pricing, not the typical going price). The value of the marble column alone put the total value of the lot well beyond what I paid and would, if sold closer to a retail price, cover the entirety of my outlay by itself, both in terms of money and time. I was quite happy.

Fast forward a month and a half after the auction and a box truck was backing up my driveway, the driver unloading two cartons of alarming size on my doorstep and sailing off into the sunset. I barely managed to get this into the front door. It took me the better part of two hours (with help no less) to wrangle them into the house and remove the copious amounts of packing materials that were protecting the many, many fragile elements that could easily snapped off and ruined my day. It came out fine however, nothing damaged in the least. I can't imagine trying to load it into a truck by myself, especially considering I'd have had to drive halfway across the country and back just to do so. After I had it set up, I spent another hour or so just marveling at the intricacy and delicacy of this very large piece. I then had my next scary thought - 'It's going to take forever to wax this one!'

California artist Harold Shelton studied art at the University of Northern Colorado, the Minneapolis Art Institute, the Walker Art Center as well as the Art Center School in Los Angeles. He owned a gallery where he sold his art in Carmel-By-The-Sea and was primarily known for his paintings before meeting businessman David Spellerberg, who convinced him to allow him to represent him to promote his work. One of Shelton's clients was actor Gene Autry, who also had a stellar collection of original Western bronzes (including works by Remington, Russell and Solon Borglum). Autry took a liking to Spellerberg and allowed him to make copies of his bronzes, soon partnering with Spellerberg, actor Burt Reynolds, John Wayne's son Michael Wayne and five others to open a gallery on famed Rodeo Drive to sell the copies as well as original creations by artists such as Shelton (who sculpted using hard dental wax). While the gallery closed after eight years, Spellerberg continues to run the gallery from a house in Westlake Village, CA, and a foundry nearby, both creating bespoke sculptures and original bronzes for various artists.

I have to say, the casting is complex yet very fine, the patinas (both hot chemical and cold painted) deftly and accurately applied, the surfaces of the bronze devoid of even the slightest of flaws that one can find on the even the best of the best from art bronze foundries. There are dozens of smaller attached elements and these too were carefully made, attached and colored. The sculpt itself is exquisite, the proportions as fine as the casting, the musculature showing the tension of the drawing of the bow, the expression on the face both intent and intense. Clearly a lot of research went into this piece. It is a truly lovely work of art.

Depicted here is a standing Plains Indian man in the prime of life, my guess aged in his twenties or thirties, muscular of frame and fit without being sinewy or overbuilt, his face unlined. His feet are planted wide as he draws a recurved Plains bow and aims a stone headed arrow at some distant target, another arrow with a knapped flint head clenched between his teeth and two more arrows gripped with the bow. From the feet up he is wearing low moccasins beaded in traditional Lakota style, hide leggings or chaps that are fringed on the side seams and around the cuffs, with wide pony beaded bands down the legs, along the fringe and around the ankles. They are held up around his slim waist by the same wide flat belt that holds up his cloth or soft hide breechclout, which is itself decorated with a simple painted, embossed or embroidered pattern band just above the bottom on the front. Also tucked into the belt, on his right hip, is a long knife about the size of a smaller machete in a beaded and studded sheath that has a beaded band on the hilt near the pommel. He is shirtless, nude from the waist up save for a pair of wide, flat straps, one of which holds a beaded quiver with three arrows and a beaded bow case against his left hip. The second strap runs across his left shoulder and holds a flat, round, hide over hoop shield which has four feathers hanging spaced around the lower margin, six bear claws hanging from the upper rim, blue beads in a star around the margin and a further decoration attached to the middle comprising feathers and a further ermine skin mounted to another beaded star. On both biceps he wears hairpipe beaded bands. His long black hair is braided at each side of his head and wrapped with white fur that is likely ermine (stoat) or rabbit, as is traditional for Plains Indian men, one hanging across his chest and the other behind his back. On his head he is wearing a split buffalo horn headdress from which depend paired eagle feathers at the temples, their shafts wrapped with hide thongs, and clusters of thin flat thongs, all of which curl and blow in the breeze. He is standing on a mossy rock or bluff.

There is a LOT going on here! Given the weight of this bronze and its marble plinth, it rests not far from my front door. Everyone who walks into the house sees it.

Enjoy.