2025 Coeur d’Alene Art Auction Highlights Work by Maynard Dixon, Thomas Moran, and More

Western art collectors have cause for celebration this month: the annual Coeur d’Alene Art Auction returns. This yearly offering of fine Western and American art features work by the genre’s preeminent artists, including Charles M. Russell, Thomas Moran, and Maynard Dixon. The 2025 edition will be held live in Reno, Nevada on July 26, 2025, with online bidding options available through Bidsquare. 

Maynard Dixon

Among the paintings leading the 2025 Coeur d’Alene Art Auction is a 1942 oil on canvas work by Maynard Dixon (lot #100; estimate: USD 800,000 – $1,200,000). Open Range is a sweeping landscape painting that features an enormous cumulus cloud looming over two attentive cowboys. This piece makes precise use of shadows, which add depth to the scene. Prior to being offered in the 2025 Coeur d’Alene Art Auction, this painting was held in a private Wyoming collection. 

A prolific artist with a long career, Maynard Dixon experimented with many subjects and styles in the early 20th century. His long-running interest in Western cowboys and landscapes intensified while he lived in San Francisco in the 1920s. He painted ranchers, cowboys, and Native Americans, paying particular attention to each group’s labors. By the 1940s, he had simplified his style. Dixon’s later work strips away details to create clean lines and well-composed scenes. Donald J. Hagerty, a scholar of the artist, notes in the auction catalog that Open Range is a striking example of Dixon’s later work, with its “organization of space, clean clear color, his trademark cumulus clouds, and, in spite of the cowboys and their cattle that fill the immediate foreground, compelling emptiness.”

Charles M. Russell 

Another key lot in the 2025 Coeur d’Alene Art Auction is Roping a Wolf by Charles M. Russell (lot #73; estimate: $500,000 – $750,000). This lively gouache and watercolor on paper piece was executed around 1918 and is signed in the lower left. Rendered in delicate yellows, browns, and greens, this painting depicts two cowboys who have just caught their prey. It was last seen at auction in 2020 with Christie’s, when it sold for $625,000. 

Charles M. Russell fostered an early and intense interest in the American West. He left home at the age of 16 to herd sheep in Montana. He then worked for years as a cowboy, making time to paint the lifestyle he lived. A frequent subject in his work is wolf roping, a practice born out of necessity that also provided sport for restless cowboys. Pursuing lucrative bounties with lariats in hand, cowboys chased gray wolves across valleys and ravines. Roping a Wolf evokes this thrill of the chase amid an idyllic landscape. 

Thomas Moran

Thomas Moran’s Coast of Monterey, California painting from 1912 is another highlight of the 2025 Coeur d’Alene Art Auction (lot #29; estimate: $400,000 – $600,000). This work balances light and shadow as the viewer gazes upon a rocky coastline. Strips of light fall in the grassy foreground, while dark clouds overhead signal the storm to come.

Moran enjoyed an influential and well-traveled career. His work with Scribner’s Monthly brought him to scenic vistas across the Western United States, and he frequently returned to Yellowstone and the Grand Canyon. Moran’s later life was spent in California, where he increasingly turned his attention to the Monterey coastline. The present example, like many of Moran’s works from this period, focuses on the emotions evoked by nature.

Oscar Howe

In addition to the classic Western artworks in the catalog, the 2025 Coeur d’Alene Art Auction will include more modern pieces by the likes of Oscar Howe and Nicolai Fechin. Howe’s Dawn Rider from 1966 is particularly notable (lot #123; estimate: $150,000 – $250,000). This modernist casein on paper work is filled with tight lines and a sense of movement. A Native rider and horse appear in the composition’s center. Delicate grape vines appear on top and around them. Howe’s inspiration for this piece came from Očhéthi Šakówin cultural heritage. In war, a rider would disguise himself with grape vines and attack the enemy in the brightness of the dawn. 

Oscar Howe deeply influenced modern and contemporary Native American art. His clear lines and geometric style drew on a long history of Native painting techniques, which Howe transformed and explored in a modern setting. Howe also nurtured the next generation of artists while teaching at the University of South Dakota, a post he held for over 25 years. 

The 2025 Coeur d’Alene Art Auction will begin on July 26, 2025 at 3:00 PM ET. To browse the full catalog and register to place a bid, visit Bidsquare.  

Looking for more Western art? Check out Auction Daily’s coverage of the 2024 Coeur d’Alene Art Auction, featuring the work of Frederic Remington.