Modern & Post-War Art

Swann's Modern & Post-War Art department, led by Harold Porcher, focuses on Modernist paintings, drawings and sculpture up to and including works from 1946 through the contemporary period. Our twice annual sales include works by the likes of early modernists, such as Pablo Picasso and Henri Matisse, through later European modernist movement of the COBRA group including Karel Appel and the unique French response to Action Painting by Zao Wou Ki, Pierre Soulages, and many others. Americans working in the Post-War era include Hard Edge abstraction by the likes of Ilya Bolotowsky, and first and second-generation Abstract Expressionist painters including works by Jimmy Ernst, and Esteban Vicente.

Highlights from this department include Quadriga, 1959, by Fritz Koenig, sold for $81,250; Alma W. Thomas’s Reflections, 1960, for $557,000; Blue, 1970, by Esteban Vicente for $100,000; Tulips, 1924, by Charles Demuth for $137,000; Untitled, 1973, by Tilsa Tsuchiya for $161,000; and John Wesley’s 7 Maidens, 1963, for $93,750. 

The Modern & Post-War Art department also oversees the recurring Artists of the WPA auction, featuring works from artists employed by and influenced by the New Deal.