1946 Magnus Colcord Heurlin Oil Painting
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GUEST:
This was a painting that belonged to my father. He'd been a pilot there in Alaska for a number of years, and this painting had been done for their airline for the calendar.
APPRAISER:
So how long have you had the painting?
GUEST:
It's been about 20 years, a little bit over that.
APPRAISER:
Who's the artist?
GUEST:
It is a gentleman, everyone called him Rusty, and his last name was Heurlin.
APPRAISER:
So the artist of your painting is Magnus Colcord Heurlin, but his name is a mouthful, so we're going to use Rusty.
GUEST:
Okay.
APPRAISER:
Had you met the artist?
GUEST:
I did. He was an interesting person. He had red hair, and he had a log house that he lived in.
APPRAISER:
Your painting is an oil on canvas, and the artist has signed the painting, located the painting "Barrow," in Alaska, and the painting is dated '46, 1946. The artist was Swedish-American. He came to this country and ultimately settled in Alaska, first coming to Valdez, then coming to Barrow. I looked up Barrow just now on a map. He was really at the tippy tippy top of Alaska. What I like about this painting, first of all, you don't get a great many artists who worked in Alaska or who did Alaska scenes. Alaska, by its very location, was so difficult to get to. What I also like about this painting, it is a kind of transition in terms of progress and advances in technology. He very faithfully depicted Inuits, and you have a group of Inuits in this vessel, which my colleagues inform me is called an umiak. And then we have an airplane, which my colleagues tell me is either a DC-3 or a C-47. What was the name of the airline?
GUEST:
Wien Air Alaska.
APPRAISER:
And I did some checking and found that that was the first airline, the first commercial airline in Alaska, which began in the 1920s. And Rusty was not only a muralist; he was a commercial artist as well.
GUEST:
Okay.
APPRAISER:
But Rusty was a member of the Alaska Territorial Guard, working on behalf of the country for the war effort against the Japanese. Works by the artist have not been offered at auction with great frequency over the last ten or 15 years or so. But he is a popular artist and a rare artist.
GUEST:
Okay.
APPRAISER:
If your painting was offered at auction, it would be valued at $10,000 to $15,000.
GUEST:
Wow, okay.
APPRAISER:
And I would suggest an insurance value of $25,000.
GUEST:
Okay.
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