By now enough people have died to tell some of the story of the Fery paintings that hung in the Big Hotel in East Glacier for decades. The mural-sized paintings were proof that no one painted scenery better and no one painted animals worse.
First you need to know the source and nature of the Big Hotels in Glacier National Park. Once compensating for impossible trips to Europe, it was meant to be luxury but the luxury was based on access to wilderness. They were closely linked to the northern route of the Great Northern and meant to add value to the railroads fortunes. This particular railroad believed in the seductions of fine art and contracted with specific painters as well as using the Blackfeet Tribe as a signature symbol. Thus we have all those calendars of Blackfeet portraits by Winold Reece.
Fery was never so promoted and therefore familiar, but his grand portraits of the Rockies, not quite so fine as those of Moran, were striking enough to suit the location and strong enough to be admired even from the floor of the three story atrium to the balconies where they hung for decades. I do not know anything authoritative about how they disappeared in the Sixties, only the rumors which were accusations. A good reporter could write a fascinating story.
By that time the Big Hotel didn't seem so grand and had moved its PR focus to middle-class respectability. To them the Ferys were kind of pretentious and rough. They admired "pretty." And safe. Fery always picked up a bit of the danger in vastness. So a woman manager of the Big Hotel, who had a good friend artist more along those lines, took down all the Ferys and put up the friend's paintings for a pretty good profit.
The problem was what to do with those old giant paintings. This woman manager knew nothing about art and made little or no effort to sell the Ferys. A friend of ours who worked in the hotel discovered one of them in a dumpster. Another one turned up in a broom closet with a broom handle stuck through it. Don't be too surprised. This was the era when Dick Flood was still finding Russell paintings stored in chicken houses, speckled with bird poop, because they were considered little more than calendar art, disposable. But a little too appealing to discard entirely. Maybe. Then I was gone.
Bob, realizing the quality of the Fery paintings, also realized that the Scriver Museum of Montana Wildlife had walls plenty big enough to accommodate the work and, in fact, the paintings were the perfect background for the mounted animals. The time when the walls of the museum were covered with Fery paintings were the prime years of the exhibits. It was not a gallery -- the lighting was low -- nothing was for sale. Some works had been "found" and others were bought for low prices.
When Bob Scriver died in 1999, his estate was dispersed by his fourth wife, Lorraine. She had little idea what she was doing but followed the directions of some notorious art wheeler-dealer hyenas. The "best" most expensive works were sold at a Coeur d'Alene auction in Reno. I wasn't there. The rest were auctioned off in Kalispell. Two of Scriver's grandchildren, Michelle and Lane, were there and so was I. To us, it was a scandal. We knew the underground.
Fery paintings were considered too trivial for Reno and, in fact, some were damaged, which hadn't mattered so much in the low light of the museum. The damage was so much of concern (and argument for low prices) that an art restorer was on the premises, ready to contract for whatever the customer wanted. The paintings didn't sell well and I overheard the restorer wonder whether he was wasting his time.
Twenty years later, Fery has finally gotten his due. Small paintings sell for thousands of dollars, and the big ones go for tens of thousands. None have hit a million, though Russell's painting do and even some contemporary artists can manage it. Part of the problem is that people who have really big money often buy or build houses with glass walls and open plans, no place to hang a big painting meant for public buildings like post offices and railroad depots.
This link is to the results of an auction of Fery paintings. http://www.cdaartauction.com/consign/9410
This link will take you to the next auction of Fery paintings in July in Reno. The Coeur d'Alene Art Auction; info@cdaartauction.com; Don't let the name of the auction house mislead you: it moved from Coeur d'Alene years ago but kept the French name. If you want to sell big, you must go where the big money is. Like the stockmarket or horse racing, the web of Western Art is basically informed gambling.
Youngsters around here still believe that the arts or rodeo can take them to sudden wealth, the same as in the movies. Part of the work of becoming seasoned and productive is realizing that's a mirage. It can sting that painters educated in China or Paris, their home towns, can be taught better skills and find better promoters than anyone locally American. These contexts are no longer produced by amateurs besotted with what they know and love as Western art has been in the past.
(From Wikipedia):
John Fery (1859–1934) (born Johann Nepomuk Levy) was an Austrian-born painter, known for his works of the Western United States. He was a painter of outdoor scenes, whose largest customer was the Great Northern Railway. His works were large format, often over 100 sq ft (9 m).
Fery's paintings were hung in train stations and other places, promoting travel, particularly to Glacier National Park.
His grandson, John B. Fery, was chief executive officer of Boise Cascade Corporation.
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