2024: Year in Review

2024 was an eventful year for Swann that brought about exciting changes, including the reorganization of our Fine Art Department, which saw Nigel Freeman step in as the head of the department and Lisa Crescenzo as the managing director. The year also saw the addition of The Subculture Sale in February and the return of The New York Sale in September. Single-owner collections were among some of the high spots of 2024; in February, we offered An American Century: The Collection of Dr. James & Debra Pearl & Fine Photographs, March’s Autograph auction featured property from the Steve Forbes Collection, May brought Tennis & Sports Posters: Collection of the Schwartz Family & Tennis Corporation of America, and June’s Illustration Art sale included Highlights from the Collection of Jules Feiffer.

Browse below for a look at some of the year’s highlights.

Books & Manuscripts

Autographs

Torquato Tasso, autograph manuscript signed, his poem: “The Phoenix,” 1586. Sold in June for $106,250.
Accounting book kept by Frederick Douglass while recruiting for other 54th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment, 1863. Sold November 2024 for $173,000.

Related Reading:

The Voice & Hand of Frederick Douglass

19th & 20th Century Literature

J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, first London paperback edition, London, 1997. Sold in April for $10,000; and Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird, first edition, signed & inscribed, the Brown Family copy, Philadelphia & New York, 1960. Sold in October for $42,500.

Americana

(left) First Edition Book of Mormon, Palmyra, NY, 1830. Sold in June for $185,000; (center) Broadside for Ira Aldridge’s performance of Shakespeare, 1840. Sold in March for $27,500; (right) New Englands First Fruits…, First edition, first state, of the first of Eliot’s Indian Tracts, 1643. Sold in November for $60,000.

Early Printed Books

(left) William Shakespeare, Comedies, Histories, and Tragedie, Published according to the true Originall Copies, Second Impression, rare second folio, London, 1632. Sold in October for $137,000. (right) Miguel de Cervantes, El Ingenioso Hidalgo Don Quixite de la Mancha, Third Madrid Cuesta edition, Madrid, 1608. Sold in April for $106,250.

Related Reading:

A Brief Publishing History of Don Quixote

Maps & Atlases

(left) Robert John Thornton, New Illustration of Sexual System of Carolus von Linnaeus COmprehending … The Temple of Flora, or Garden of Nature, 1799-1807. Sold in June for $45,000; (right) Reconnaissance of the Anchorage of Ura-Ga & Reception Bay, on the West Side of the Entrance of Jeddo Bay, Japan, September 1853. Sold in December with $47,500.
Philip Meadows Taylor, Views in India by Lieut. P.M. Taylor His Highness and Nizams Servant, 22 pen-and-ink drawings of Indian sites, circa 1828. Sold in December for $22,500.

Illustration Art

(left) Frank Miller, The Blind Leading the Blind, comic book page appearing in the Spectacular Spider-Man, the fist time the prolific Daredevil wrtier/artist worked with the Character, 1979. From the collection of Jules Feiffer. Sold in June for $60,000; (right) Joseph Francis Kernan, Dog Bath, cover illustration for The Saturday Evening Post, 1935. Sold in December for $52,500.

Related Reading:

Iconic Cover Artists for The Saturday Evening Post

Specialty Sales

The Artists of the WPA

Claude Clake, Drafting, oil on board, circa 1940-41. Sold in January for $17,500.

The Subculture Sale

Andy Warhol, Andy Warhol / The Velvet Underground and Nico, 1966. Sold in February for $15,000.

Focus on Women

(left) Dr. Lora Genevieve Dyer, a large archive including journals, letters, photographs and more, 1899-1903. Sold in May for $32,500; (right) Judith Rothschild, Untitled, collage, gouache and ink on paper, circa 1945. Sold in May for $3,750.

LGBTQ+ Art, Material Culture & History

(left) Roman Bust of A Youth once owned by Tennessee Williams and then gifted to Gore Vidal. Sold in August for $68,750; (right) Hugh Steers, Self-Portrait, oil on board, circa 1980s. Sold in August for $41,600.

The New York Sale

Edward Steichen, The Flatiron – Evening, from Camera Work XIV, 1904, printed 1906. Sold in September for $25,000.

Related Reading:

Nicholas D. Lowry Reflects on 2024

Fine Art

Prints & Drawings

(left) Pablo Picasso, Fleurs, color crayons, 1959. Sold in March for $81,250; (right) Maurits C. Escher, Circle Limit IV (Heaven and Hell), woodcut, 1960. Sold in April for $93,750.
Andy Warhol, Life Savers, color screenprint, 1985. Sold in June for $87,500.

American Art

Letta Crapo-Smith, Home of Madame H, oil on canvas, circa 1909. Sold in September for $42,500.

African American Art

Beauford Delaney, Untitled (Greenwich Village Street, New York), oil on canvas, circa 1945-46. Sold in October for $629,000.
(left) Benny Andrews, Time for Church, oil with painted canvas, lace collage and staples, 1999. Sold in April 4 for $203,000; (right) Suzanne Jackson, There is Something Between Us, acrylic wash on cotton canvas, 1972. Sold in October for $281,000.

Modern & Post-War Art

(left) Fritz Koenig, Quadriga, from an edition of six, bronze, 1959. Sold in May for $81,250; (right) Lynne Drexler, Blue Vision, oil on canvas, 1962. Sold in November for $70,000.

Fine Photographs

(left) Ansel Adams, Monolith, the Face of Half Dome, Yosemite National Park, silver print, 1927, printed 1973-77. Sold in February for $35,000; (right) Dorothea Lange, Migrant Mother, Nipomo, California (Destitute pea pickers in California. Mother of seven children. Age 32), silver print, 1936. Sold in May for $112,500.
Cindy Sherman, Untitled Film Still #52, silver print, 1979. Sold in May for $125,000.

Vintage Posters

Akseli Gallen-Kallela, Bil-Bol, 1907. Sold in February for $62,500.
(left) Val Prince, David Devant / Maskelyne & Devant, circa 1905. Sold in August for $27,500; (right) Roger Broders, Monte / Carlo, circa 1930. Sold in May for $12,500.
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