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American Outdoor Artist Philip R. Russell's "Honest Woods" to Auction this December

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Published
11/29/2022 by

Rock Island Auction Company is proud to offer wildlife artist Philip R. Goodwin's painting "Honest Woods," during the company's Premier Auction, Friday, Dec. 9 through Sunday, Dec. 11. Goodwin is best known for illustrating Jack London's "The Call of the Wild" and President Theodore Roosevelt's "African Game Trails." The signed and framed "Honest Woods" painting is set at a pre-auction estimate of $25,000 - $50,000.

Works of art by Goodwin have seen recent demand, with his "Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea" oil painting selling at auction for $968,000 this summer. This sale set a world-record price for one of Goodwin's paintings.

"Honest Woods," is equally divided between the dark, tangled wilderness and pale, placid waters, and exhibits Goodwin's classic use of depth. The painting is based on the 1904 short story "In the Honest Woods" by Holman F. Day about a big-city minister on an annual hunting trip who seeks refuge in solitude of the woods but finds himself lost. He comes across a cabin with two hunters and a guide. The guide is the man whose wife he stole many years earlier.

The reverend fears violent retribution when the guide initially asks to speak to him alone. He refuses but finds no allies in the two other hunters after hearing their guide's story. The minister and hunting guide leave the cabin, and when the guide returns, he tells of what happened in the hours they were gone, leading the lost man back to his hunting party and lending him a rowboat to cross a lake, where the guide must make a harrowing choice.

"This is a tremendous ground floor opportunity for a collector to acquire an original work by one of the 20th century's great painters of the American outdoors," Rock Island Auction Company President Kevin Hogan said. "The story that inspired the painting is compelling and Russell has selected a perfect moment to depict. It portrays a pivotal and tension-filled moment for which Russell is best known."

Despite his famous illustrations, and designing the logo for Winchester Repeating Arms, Goodwin wasn't a self-promoter so his work didn't enjoy the publicity of his contemporaries such as Charles Russell and Carl Rungius. That is until this summer when the sale of "Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea" turned heads along with his painting "Quenching Two Thirsts" that fetched $363,000, the third highest price for one of Goodwin's works.

The December auction will also feature a number of advertising works by Goodwin commissioned by companies like Remington, Winchester and Peters Big Game Ammunition that also display his talent at portraying the energy and tension of the great outdoors and the Old West.

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