STANDING TIGERAUGUSTUS "GUS" WILSON(1864-1950) | Standing TigerAugustus "Gus" Wilson(1864-1950)

Gus (Augustus Aaron) Wilson;
Robert Laurent, Maine;
John Laurent, Maine;
Nancy Laurent, Maine;
Walters-Benisek Art and Antiques, Northampton, Massachusetts.

Monmouth County Historical Association and the Monmouth Museum, Masterpieces of American Folk Art, September 30 - November 29, 1975.

Masterpieces of American Folk Art, Monmouth County Historical Association and Monmouth Museum, 1975, illus.;
"A Gus Wilson Tiger," Maine Antique Digest, December 1981, p. 6A, illus.;
Maine Sunday Telegram, April 25, 1976, pp. 1D-3D, illus.;
Rubin, Ida Ely (et al.), Guennol Collection, (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1982) p. 286-288.;
Tom Geismar and Harvey Kahn, Spiritually Moving:  A Collection of American Folk Art Sculpture (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1998) cat. no. 78, illus. in color and on back cover and jacket back.

Wear and age cracks consistent with age and use. Areas of in-use touchups to the polychrome. IMPORTANT NOTICE: Purchasers may pay for and pick up their purchases from any of our Americana Week sales taking place from January 17-20, 2019, at our York Avenue headquarters until the close of business on Sunday, January 20, 2019. After this time, all property (sold and unsold) will be transferred to our offsite facility, Crozier Fine Art, One Star Ledger Plaza, 69 Court Street, Newark, New Jersey 07102. Once property has been transferred from our York Avenue location, it will not be available for collection at Crozier Fine Arts until Friday, January 25, 2019. Crozier's hours of operation for collection are from 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM, Monday-Friday. Please note, certain items of property, including but not limited to jewelry, watches, silver and works on panel will remain at 1334 York Avenue. Invoices and statements will indicate your property's location. For more information regarding collection from our offsite facility, please visit sothebys.com/pickup.
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.

Augustus Wilson, known as Gus to his friends and neighbors, was an eccentric Maine boat builder, fisherman, and woodcarver, who also worked as a lighthouse keeper at Spring Point Light in South Portland, Maine from 1917 to 1934. This occupation left him with many free hours in which to whittle. He is best known for his imaginative decoys of mergansers, scoters, elders, and other sea ducks, many with turned or otherwise animated head positions. Besides carving the aquatic birds that lived near his home, which he sold to hunters throughout his adult life, he also carved life-sized standing songbirds, seagulls, and flying ducks with outspread wings, all of which were intended as household decorations. He roughed out the blocks of wood he carved with a hatchet, chisel, and hand plane, then whittled them into forms he invented as he went along with his Boy Scout pocket knife (once sculpting a large rattlesnake, which he subsequently nailed to his garage roof), and finishing them off with a coat of ready-at-hand automotive or boat paint.  This is the largest of three big standing tigers that Wilson was inspired to create after seeing newspaper photos of Emyr, a massive tiger brought to Portland, Maine by the Ringling Brothers Circus in 1931. The noted sculptor and folk art collector Robert Laurent originally acquired all three tigers from Wilson.

This commanding beast, which is arguably Wilson's masterpiece, carved from salvaged railroad ties and telephone poles kept in the artist's barn, is the last of the three to remain in private hands. The other two (fig. 1) were exhibited at the American Folk Art Museum, the Brooklyn Museum, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in the 1980s and are now in the permanent collection of the Brooklyn Museum (acc. nos. 1999.26.1 and 1999.26.2).