Storms, sunsets and art auctions.

Clouds and Cacti by Ed Mell is dominated by a central saguaro cactus. The cactus and the landscape around it are verging on the abstract, enabling Mell to represent a stark desert landscape.

Following the quiet of winter, springtime is the most exuberant season in the West. The rivers are full, and flowers bloom. There are vibrant sunrises and sunsets, fearsome thunderstorms and breathtaking night skies. Springtime in the West was very evident in the contemporary art sold at the spring Scottsdale Art Auction on April 11 and 12.

Bidding at the auction was enthusiastic, perhaps encouraged by spring fever. Mark Maggiori’s Entering Utah, a colorful and highly detailed depiction of a group of cowboys and a wagon in red rocks country fetched $117,000, considerably higher than the projected high bid of $75,000. The foreground offers a display of high desert flowers. Logan Maxwell Hagege also effectively captured the colors of the Southwest, and its people, with After the Storm Clears, which sold for $105,300, gathering $15,000 more than expected.

Ed Mell illustrated the full fury of a thunderstorm in Eye of the Storm. It sold for $117,000, twice the projected price. A 1991 painting, it is more realistic than his later cubistic landscapes. Eye of the Storm strongly contrasts with his later Western Gap I, an abstracted landscape. That sold for $64,350, versus the projected high of $38,000. Another of Mell’s pieces in the auction, Clouds and Cacti, which depicted a saguaro cactus in the Arizona desert, also sold for twice its estimated price. Mell, whose work has grown greatly in popularity since 1991, passed away in 2024, accounting for the high bids on all seven of his pieces in the auction.

Like Mell’s, Phil Epp’s paintings have grown in popularity over the last several years. Looking Back, with a giant moon silhouetting the small figures of five horses on the Plains, sold for $38,025. Colt Idol’s nighttime scene Prairie Stories, which captured and contrasted the glow of tepee fires with the last moments of sunset, also sold for $38,025. Both paintings sold for more than twice their estimated price. Dominated by bold colors, flowers and whimsy, Kim Douglas Wiggins’ Voice of Jealousy calls to mind the work of the 1930s regionalists. It sold for $35,100, twice its anticipated price.

Martin Grelle’s Wolves in Yellowstone Country, was one of the highest sellers among the contemporary art pieces at the auction. Also exceeding expectations, it brought $222,300. The quality of the artwork at the Scottsdale Art Auction and the exuberant response from bidders showed that this year it was an appropriate place to welcome springtime in the American West.