The Highwaymen Market – October Kickoff 2025 “BAM POW Has Arrived”
September is typically the month when the Highwaymen market takes off. It didn’t happen this year. But this first Saturday of October exploded on the scene like an onomatopoeia fight scene straight out of the 1960’s Batman series.
The day included an auction by Florida Highwaymen Auctions (live in Davie and on-line), a large sales event at This Is It Café & Highwaymen Gallery in West Palm Beach, and a sales event at The Highwaymen Art Gallery in Vero Beach. All events were strong and successful.
First up ….. The Florida Highwaymen Auction had a strong line-up of paintings, which produced many strong results. The top painting of the sale was clearly the gorgeous, exceptionally large 40×47 James Gibson double poinciana, which hammered at $20,000. While there have been higher priced Harold Newton paintings sold at auction this year – in my opinion, this was the best and most beautiful highwaymen painting sold thus far in 2025 ! It was an extraordinary painting sold by this relatively new auction house. Bravo for the disrupters !
James Gibson
Another beauty was the oversized 30×40 jumbo Curtis Arnett. It had a target price of $4,500 and hammered at $5,750 ! A very strong price for Arnett.
Curtis Arnett
A third knockout painting by Harold Newton, creatively entitled “Spine Tingler” hammered for $17,000 against a target price of $12,000. And an unusually nice Freddy painting hit the target of $9,000.
Harold Newton
Overall, bidding was strong, despite the fact that there were 5 passed paintings among the 44 lots. It seems these outliers were a result of consigners who would not budge on their reserve prices. I was interested in a couple of the Passed paintings, and contacted the auction house to see if I could buy them after the auction. To my surprise, it seems that some paintings had reserve prices higher than the low estimates ! While there is nothing illegal about this practice, it is a bit unusual relative to the way most Highwaymen auctions work.
For example, lot 58, a beautiful Sam Newton night scene with an estimate of $3,000-5,000 Passed. I inquired to see if I could purchase the painting for the low estimate of $3,000, but found out the painting had a reserve of $4,000 which the consigner would not budge from. So it’s hard to find fault with the auction house, who estimated the painting properly, but could not sell the painting as the reserve was actually higher than the auction houses target price !
Overall view… a strong auction, but slow moving and with some technical glitches. Nonetheless, these Florida Highwaymen Auctions are producing some of the best paintings being auctioned in the Highwaymen market today.
Next up – The Sales event at This Is It Café & Highwaymen Gallery. This has become a regular event in the Highwaymen community – frequently with other artists who sell their work during the event. It was the first event of the Fall season at the Café, and while crowds were moderate, everything sold very well. We sold high priced paintings, low priced paintings, original Highwaymen, Legacy paintings, paintings by Landscape painters who joined us, and even many of our out of print books that we regularly offer. As always, the food was great. We had a great time. Thank you to everyone for coming out and joining us !
This Is It Café & Highwaymen Gallery
This Is It Café & Highwaymen Gallery
And finally, a new event that we are reporting on for the first time …. What is becoming a regular sales event at The Highwaymen Art Gallery in Vero Beach, organized by Ralph Oko. These typically feature a legacy / Florida landscape artist painting at the event. Yesterday’s featured artist was Mary Ann Clawson, who was trained by Al Black. Despite a moderate turnout due to heavy rains in Vero Beach, Mary Ann informed me that she sold 6 paintings, so it would be hard to come to any conclusion other than that the event was an unqualified success !
Mary Ann Clawson at
The Highwaymen Art Gallery
Overall, it was a great day and a great start to the Highwaymen fall season !
Happy Hunting !
Mark Lerner
786-599-5816
https://www.TheHighwaymenCollector.com