Examine the auction records of wildlife painter Bob Kuhn from the past decade and you start to see a pattern: Fire Storm, with estimates of $180,000 to $220,000, sold for $657,000. Leopard in Light and Shade, with estimates of $180,000 to $250,000, sold for $601,000. The Spawning Run hit more than double its high estimate when it sold for $497,250. Jaguar and Cattle Egrets went more than seven times over its high estimate when it sold for $41,600.
The takeaway here: don’t underestimate a wildlife piece by Bob Kuhn. The artist’s estimateshattering streak continued September 16 during the Jackson Hole Art Auction when a lion piece from 1977, Closing the Distance, sold for $409,500, nearly three times its high estimate of $150,000. The piece, now the fifth top-selling Kuhn work,…