2014 Coeur d’Alene Art Auction / Lot 100C204 / 302  •  View Catalog  •   • 

100C
Carl Rungius (1869 – 1959)
Above Treeline
oil on canvas
30 × 40 inches
signed lower right

Frederic Remington wrote, “For a long time I have said ‘This man Rungius knows our big game animals and he knows their backgrounds, and he paints it so it looks all right to me; and I am going to own one sooner or later.’ There is not likely to be another fellow who will have the opportunity to study big game as you are doing, and I think records of us fellows who are doing the ‘Old America’ which is passing so fast will have an audience in posterity.”

Rungius’ biographers Jon Whyte and E.J. Hart wrote, “The Rocky Mountain goat lives in the arctic alpine life zone’s barren realms, gleaning nutrition from tufts of grass and lichens, dropping down to meadows and valleys to bear its young and to obtain the minerals absent from the terrain where it spends most of its life. If it lived in less strenuous circumstances, the goat would certainly be the icon of its home. As it is, it is among the least known and least understood of North American mammals. Carl himself called the goat ‘probably the strangest animal on our entire list of big game.’”

PROVENANCE:
Eileen McEachren, Toronto, Ontario, 1940s
Present owner, by descent

100C

Carl Rungius

1869 – 1959

Above Treeline
oil on canvas
30 × 40 inches
signed lower right
Sold at Auction: $263,250
Condition ReportOriginal and unlined canvas. Surface condition is very good. Several hairline cracks in rocks and mountains. Small spot of inpainting, bottom-center.

Important Notice: Statements of condition are provided as a service to potential bidders; such statements are educated opinions and should not be regarded as facts. The Coeur d’Alene Art Auction has no responsibility for any errors or omissions.