Magnus Colcord "Rusty" Heurlin (1895-1986), Willow Ptarmigan

Lot 344

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

The Sporting Sale 2025, Day 2 by Copley Fine Art Auctions

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The Sporting Sale 2025, Day 2

By Copley Fine Art Auctions

Jul 11, 2025

Set Reminder 2025-07-11 10:00:00 2025-07-11 10:00:00 America/New_York Bidsquare Bidsquare : The Sporting Sale 2025, Day 2 https://www.bidsquare.com/auctions/copley/the-sporting-sale-2025-day-2-19846 Lots 317-638 Copley Fine Art Auctions cinnie@copleyart.com

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Lot Description

Magnus Colcord "Rusty" Heurlin (1895-1986)
Willow Ptarmigan, c. 1930
signed "C. Heurlin" lower left
oil on canvas, 24 by 32 in.

Rusty Heurlin was born in Sweden, but grew up in Wakefield, Massachusetts, where he was a childhood friend of Aiden Lassell Ripley. "Rusty Heurlin recounted, 'I met him (Rip) out in the woods, he had a .22 and I had a Stevens single barrel shotgun. He was ten years of age and I was eleven...In the years that followed, Rip and I, and his cousin Lank must have tromped thousands of miles together during fall hunting days.'" The dynamic trio enlisted in the American Expeditionary Force in 1917 during World War I, and all three studied at the Fenway School of Illustration together. After working as an illustrator in New York, where "he did covers for numerous publications, including four covers in the late 1920s and 1930s for Outdoor Life, as well as for Boys' Life, The Open Road, and for pulp magazines such as Adventure, Flying Aces, The Popular, and Western Story,' Heurlin left that world for the West and moved permanently to Alaska in 1936. The willow ptarmigan is the state bird of Alaska, Heurlin's adopted home. He first went to Valdez in 1916 and ultimately lived in Alaska for seventy years. Linking the two important locations in his life, Heurlin hung a watercolor of Boston's Public Garden by Ripley in his Ester, Alaska, studio for many years. His "Big Stampede" canvases depicting Alaska's gold rush are on display at the Pioneer Museum in Fairbanks. Among other honors, Heurlin is in the 49er Alaska Hall of Fame and received an honorary doctorate in fine art from the University of Alaska in 1971. This painterly work by one of Alaska's best-known artists places two willow ptarmigan, one a breeding male, in a soft, snowy alpine landscape.

Provenance: Private Collection, Texas

Literature: A. J. Chester and R. M. Kahler, "Three Friends: Rip, Rusty, and Lank (Ripley, Heurlin, Lassell)," Hunting and Fishing Collectibles Magazine, November-December 2018, Volume 18, No. 6, pp. 34-39.

Condition

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