Iconic painting saved from Goodwill fetches over $100,000 at auction
By Steven Rosenbaum
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TEXAS (KTVT) — Nearly lost forever, a family heirloom painting turned out to be a Texas masterpiece and sold for six figures at a Dallas-based auction house last week.
According to Heritage Auctions, the painting of Texas bluebonnets was loaded onto a trailer with donations bound for Goodwill, all belongings of a woman who was moving to the West Coast for retirement.
She had received it as a gift from an extended family member in Texas to commemorate her birth in 1922, according to the auction house. At the last minute, the woman decided “it was too pretty to surrender,” and she kept it.
After the woman died, her daughter kept the painting on display in her own home near Tacoma, Washington.
For years, no one in the family realized the artwork was an original by “the father of Texas painting,” Julian Onderdonk. The family recently made the discovery and decided to put it up for auction “to someone who will genuinely appreciate it,” the original owner’s grandson told Heritage Auctions.
On June 29, the painting, named “A Field of Bluebonnets, San Antonio” sold for $112,500. In the same auction, two other Onderdonk paintings sold for $106,250 and $93,750, respectively.
Who was Julian Onderdonk? Onderdonk was born in San Antonio, Texas, in 1882 and showed artistic talent at a young age, according to the Texas Historical Society. He began teaching art as a teenager and later moved to New York City to study and teach.
In 1906, Onderdonk took a seasonal job organizing art exhibitions at the Dallas State Fair, now known as the State Fair of Texas. In 1909, he moved his family back to Texas, eventually taking an interest in painting bluebonnets and other Texas landscapes.
Onderdonk painted “A Field of Bluebonnets, San Antonio,” in 1921. He died the next year, at the peak of his success.
His work is on display at several museums, including the Amon Carter Museum of American Art in Fort Worth and the San Antonio Museum of Art.
Former President George W. Bush had several Onderdonk works in the White House during his administration, according to the historical society.
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