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THBDouglas Allen (b. 1935), Vermont Bear Hunt
About Seller
20 Winter Street
Pembroke, MA 02359
United States
Founded in 2005, Copley Fine Art Auctions is a boutique auction house specializing in antique decoys and American, sporting, and wildlife paintings. Over the course of the last two decades, the firm has set auction records for not only individual decoy makers, but also entire carving regions. Copley...Read more
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About Auction
LiveFeb 22, 2025
Lots 262-501 Copley Fine Art Auctions cinnie@copleyart.com
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- Lot Description
Douglas Allen (b. 1935)
Vermont Bear Hunt, 1971
signed "Douglas Allen" lower right
oil on panel, 21 1/2 by 24 1/4 in.
titled, dated, and inscribed on back
Thomas A. Chadwick recounts a 1951 hunt with a friend, Bill Baker, where they bagged a 400-pound bear: "In the fall of 1951, I frequently passed a steep sidehill surrounded by woods ... The sidehill was mostly clear of trees and brush, but there was a clump of wild apple trees in the middle of the opening. Those apple trees were at the foot of the steep slope ... When I first passed the place, the apples had begun to ripen and fall ... When I went back a few days later, those apples had been eaten and there were only a scattered few on the ground. Bear droppings told me who the harvester was ..."Thirty yards to my right, the stone wall, topped by barbed wire, ran straight south and down the hill next to the pines ... Nearly at the foot of the slope was the gap in the fence through which the bear would come, if he came from the west. By turning my eyes to the east, I could see the golden carpet of apples under the wild-apple trees...
"I wasn't conscious of any sound or movement, but I turned my head. There stood my bear, only 25 yards away and right out in the open. He looked huge ...
"He stood like a shining black statue, his left front foot raised as though frozen midstride just when his full weight came on his right leg. His posture was like the classic pose of a pointer that has tensed on finding hot bird scent.
"We both knew that the outcome of any hunt, no matter how meticulously planned, still depends partly on luck. There are always unforeseen circumstances. We didn't dream how critical timing would prove to be or how close we would come to spooking the bear in spite of all our efforts to set up a perfect ambush ..."
Douglas Allen, who adeptly captured this bear hunt on canvas, trained as an artist and illustrator at the Newark School of Fine and Industrial Arts, among other venues. His long career as a wildlife artist includes several retrospectives, and his work hangs in the National Museum of Wildlife Art in Jackson, Wyoming.
Literature: Thomas A. Chadwick, "A Vermont Bear Hunt," Outdoor Life, November 1971, pp. 65, 106-112, illustrated.Condition
Please email condition report requests to leah@copleyart.com.
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