Saola by Jeff Long
The American artist Jeff Long has created a significant new work, a unique painting of the iconic Saola. Jeff has kindly donated this piece to the Saola Foundation to help raise funds for our appeal to put the search team back in the forest in the Annamite Mountains Bioregion of Lao.
This work has an estimated value of US$20,000. Bidding is open NOW and closes on 9 October 2026.
Opening bid: US$5,000
Minimum raise US$500. Bidding closes 9 October 2026 at 22:00 Central Time.
How the sale works
Bidding is now open. The current bid is shown above and updated within one working day of each new bid.
Bids start at US$5,000, which is the reserve. Bids below the reserve cannot be accepted. Each new bid must be at least US$500 above the last.
You can bid as often as you wish. If you prefer, name the maximum you are willing to pay and we will bid for you in US$500 steps. You pay only enough to stay ahead of the next bidder, never more than your maximum, and your maximum stays private. We will email you if you are outbid.
Bidding closes on 9 October 2026 at 22:00 Central Time, which is 04:00 on 10 October in the UK. In the final 24 hours we stop publishing the current bid and accept maximum bids only. We will announce the result and contact the successful buyer on 10 October.
About the painting
The painting is an oil on canvas, 36 by 48 inches, depicting a wild Saola. Jeff Long created it specifically to support the search.
Meet the artist
Jeffrey Long is an American painter, born in New York City in 1948, who studied at the Rhode Island School of Design and the California College of Arts and Crafts. He has painted for more than five decades, and the human element in nature runs through all of it. His work is held by the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Oakland Museum of California, the Crocker Art Museum in Sacramento, and the Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art.
His paintings have raised conservation funding before, including for Working Dogs for Conservation, our technical partner on the Scent Detection Dog Unit, and for the Akashinga all-female ranger teams in Zimbabwe through Operation Diana.
More of his work is at Artsy and jeffreylongstudio.com.
His Saola painting was recently featured in the Marin Independent Journal: Unraveling the mysteries of the Saola.
Terms
Bids are binding. Payment is due within seven days of notification. The painting ships from the United States, and shipping and insurance are at the buyer’s cost. We can ship internationally.
This is a purchase rather than a donation. We publish an estimated value of US$20,000 in good faith. If the winning bid exceeds that estimate, the excess may be deductible. Please consult your own tax advisor. The Saola Foundation is a registered 501(c)(3), EIN 82-3731270.
Place a bid
To bid, email info@saolafoundation.org with your name, your bid, and a telephone number. We will confirm every bid by reply. If you would rather name a maximum and have us bid for you, say so in the same email.
Where the money goes
The Saola has not been recorded anywhere in the world since 2013. Almost certainly fewer than 50 remain. The Saola Foundation is the only nongovernmental organization in the world with a program dedicated exclusively to this species, and every gift and every bid puts our team back in the forest.
Every dollar this painting raises goes directly to our appeal to return the team to the forest in October, where we need $150,000 to fund three months of searching.
Your bid also supports the people who do the searching. Unless this appeal is funded, the contracts of 23 of our 28 field team members end on September 30. The Annamite Mountains Research and Conservation Team is a Lao field team of trackers, dog handlers, logisticians and technicians, built over years of specialized training with Working Dogs for Conservation, CyberTracker Conservation and WCS Lao. A team of this caliber cannot be stood down and then easily rebuilt.