Saturday Morning, February 14, 2026
If You're Going to San Francisco
Flowers in your hair. Free love. Never trust anyone over thirty. Welcome to the land of baby boomers. The 1960's. A Lotus Eater existence. A new generation emerging. Demanding change. Refuting status quo. Anti-war. Hair to toes. Bohemian lifestyles. This, an eye opener to a former generation who had defeated worldwide fascism only twenty years prior. What had happened? Nothing and everything.
Happy Valentine's Day.
Nothing speaks of love like a 14k yellow gold
carved coral cupid pin.
Joan Miró lithograph - Sur Quatre Murs, unsigned, 10" x 30 ¾"
Each generation blazes a new trail. The boomers, well, there were just more of them. Up the Down Staircase. Emotions expressed through raging rock music, a smorgasbord of drugs, and time honored resistance. Turbulence redefined. Consternation. Resignation. Assassination. All capped by a festival called Woodstock. In rewritten words of Bob Dylan,
Times, they were a'changing.
Express Yourself
Each generation seeks inner truth. Finding oneself the boomer buzzword. When you are young, life is explosive, intense, idealistic. And yet, this can be quite healthy. New directions are not born from the mundane. Challenges define change. It is universal, timeless.
Eloise Powell Waggoner, decoupage. 31 ½" x 23 ½"
Arnold Hoffmann, Jr. (1915-1991), silkscreen, 5/150, 29 ½" x 33 ½"
When General George Washington crossed the ice-laden Delaware River on Christmas Eve, 1776, he set a bar for future generations. Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country. His soldiers were beat. Marching through the snow to Taylorsville. Leaving bloody footprints. Exhaustion from the lack of everything. Then crossing the river in boats filled with ice water against a sleet and snow nor'easter in the middle of the night. Then something remarkable occurred. Upon reaching New Jersey, they built bonfires. Huddled around the flames, spirits rose. Camaraderie. Officers noticed a lift in their spirit. An inner fire burning brighter than the embers before them. A sense of accomplishment swept over them. Suffering vindicated. Yes, what they chose to do did matter. At that point, the Hessians were already defeated.
Salon des Refusés
Mid-nineteenth century France. A rise among younger artists labeled impressionists. Their paintings were created around life, distinct through their treatment of subject, light and color. Against them stood a wall. The Salon. A state sanctioned exhibition finding comfort in allegorical and Biblical themes. Status quo challenged. Exclusive. Resistant to new concepts.
.800 silver tea caddy, Hanau, Germany, Storck & Sinsheimer,
with French import mark, 5 ½" H.
George Jensen sterling salad servers, Continental pattern.
This staid group viewed the younger painters as toxic, barring them from their annual Salon Exposition. Enter Napoleon III. The French emperor seized a political opportunity by formally recognizing these Bohemian painters. In 1863, he sanctioned the Salon des Refusés, an event featuring these artist's work. Where would the world be without impressionism. A bit duller indeed.
Time After Time
Saturday we will explore our range of categories again. Among them is the artwork of Eloise Powell Waggoner. Married to Dr. Irving Manford Waggoner throughout the mid-twentieth century, Eloise expressed herself on canvas. Her artwork, far from the safe harbor of acceptance, represents one of the many, unsung, unrecognized, groups representing the effusiveness of her generation. The old guard will always reject the new. In a way, it is not the concepts they are rejecting, it is the repudiation of aging. It's terminal and unequivocal. Old known comfortable worlds crumbling before the new. A life cycle we witness over and over, time after time, here in the gallery. Our trip beckons, forever intriquing.
14k yellow gold Victorian slide chain, with seed pearls.
Auction will also include a selection of silver coins, including uncirculated 1881CC Morgan dollar and friends. And you'll like his friends.
Doors open at 8 AM. Auction starts at 9 AM. PA AU 1265L [bb]