A Western art painter’s auction garnered $9.3 million on a single night last week in Jackson, making for what organizers said was the largest single-artist show in contemporary Western art.
Mark Maggiori showed up with an entourage of cowboys, horses and a spiritual shaman. The Renaissance designer, director and metal vocalist spent the past three years painting dozens of American West landscapes.
“It’s rare to have an auction in the Western market built around one person like this,” said Jackson-based art appraiser Maggie Moore, adding that the night reminded her more of a New York City modern art auction.
The ticketed event – with its bottomless bar and steak – was big, even by Jackson’s Fall Arts Festival standards.
“I’ve never seen anything like it,” said Kevin Doyle, managing director of Jackson Hole Art Auction, which hosted the event. (Doyle is also a KHOL volunteer DJ). “It was like putting together a Hollywood production in some ways.”
Rising wealth and wealth concentration help drive the luxury art market, according to recent research from Maastricht University.
Economist and Jackson Town Councilor Jonathan Schechter said the art market, just like the market for high-end yachts and stocks, is booming as the wealthy seek to park and grow their money.
“There’s so much money sloshing around the world right now that it has to go somewhere. And so people are buying assets,” he said.
Some locals in the audience criticized the lavish evening as a gaudy show of wealth. Others said Jackson was lucky to attract such top talent. Many of the collectors were from California, New York and Texas.
The night’s top bid was $1.3 million for a wall-sized depiction of bison under dramatic cloudy skies titled “Prophecy.” Many cowboy scenes went for more than half a million dollars.
The artist kept most of that, organizers said. Jackson Hole Auctioneers also got a cut and the Center for the Arts took home a small fee as the host venue. Doyle said the bigger benefit for his organization may be its ability to pitch similar artists on future solo shows.
“We’re thrilled that he chose Jackson as his location, because he was looking at other venues, other cities and towns to do this show,” he said.
One of the top bidders was Ryan Graves, the former Uber CEO and a friend of the artist, who spent more than $1 million on two oil paintings and an elk sketch.
“What better to put money into?” he told KHOL.
The winner of the $1.3 million painting, who declined to be named, came from Amarillo, Texas, and told KHOL he didn’t expect the bids to run up quite so high.
Maggiori’s show eclipsed a much larger auction of more than 400 works the following day in Jackson. That show brought in $8.9 million.
