November 4, 2017Swann NewsPrints & Drawings Records & Results: Old Master Through Modern Prints Read more about Records & Results: Old Master Through Modern Prints A new auction record for any print by American master Edward Hopper was established at our auction of Old Master Through Modern Prints on November 2. The extremely rare etching The…
Read more about Works from Will Barnet’s Estate at Auction November 1, 2017 Prints & Drawings Works from Will Barnet’s Estate at Auction American artist Will Barnet is known for his intimate, foreshortened views of women with cats, but his oeuvre, spanning nearly a century, reveals a diverse and multifaceted artist who transcended…
Read more about Records & Results: Rare & Important Travel Posters October 30, 2017 Vintage Posters Records & Results: Rare & Important Travel Posters Our annual auctions of Rare & Important Travel Posters are destinations in and of themselves. On October 26, we offered more spectacular examples that embodied a century’s worth of technological development.…
Read more about Marvel at Early Aviation Posters from 1910 October 25, 2017 Vintage Posters Marvel at Early Aviation Posters from 1910 The development of manned flight from hot air balloon to heavier-than-air machines was recorded and disseminated to the public via promotional posters. Some of the most influential works from this…
Read more about Records & Results: Art & Storytelling: Photographs & Photobooks October 21, 2017 Photographs & Photobooks Records & Results: Art & Storytelling: Photographs & Photobooks On October 19 our sale of Art & Storytelling: Photographs & Photobooks combined works spanning the lifetime of the medium into an auction intended to “highlight the interrelationships between fine art, documentary and…
Read more about Records & Results: Early Printed Books October 20, 2017 Books & Manuscripts Records & Results: Early Printed Books Our October 17 auction of Early Printed, Medical, Scientific & Travel Books garnered eager interest from bibliophiles, exceeding the sale’s high estimate and earning more than half a million dollars.…
Read more about The First Accounts of Captain Cook’s Fateful Voyage October 16, 2017 Books & Manuscripts The First Accounts of Captain Cook’s Fateful Voyage A transportive highlight in our October 17 auction of Early Printed, Medical, Scientific & Travel Books is the rare complete set of first editions detailing Captain James Cook’s voyages around the…
Read more about Magnum Photographs: 70th Anniversary October 16, 2017 Photographs & Photobooks Magnum Photographs: 70th Anniversary Magnum Photos, founded as a cooperative agency in 1947, is perhaps the most well-known photographic collective in the world. Through the Magnum photographs included in our October 19 auction of Art…
Read more about Records & Results: African-American Fine Art October 11, 2017 African American Art Records & Results: African-American Fine Art Four works exceeded $100,000 at our sale of African-American Fine Art on Thursday, October 5. A wealth of unique paintings, drawings and monotypes distinguished the sale of approximately 150 lots, nearly…
Read more about Records & Results: Printed & Manuscript Americana October 7, 2017 Printed & Manuscript Americana Records & Results: Printed & Manuscript Americana Hoards of history-lovers came out to attend the preview for our auction of Printed & Manuscript Americana on September 28. The sale featured a trove of unique material, much of which…
Read more about Records & Results: 19th & 20th Century Prints & Drawings October 4, 2017 Prints & Drawings Records & Results: 19th & 20th Century Prints & Drawings We opened our fall season with a marathon sale of 19th & 20th Century Prints & Drawings, breaking multiple records and earning more than $2.6M. The September 19 auction offered…
Read more about Four Unique Works by Charles White Debut at Auction October 2, 2017 African American Art Four Unique Works by Charles White Debut at Auction The highlight of our October 5 auction of African-American Fine Art is a series of unique works by Charles White that have never before appeared at auction. We spoke to our…
Read more about Alma Thomas’s Journey to Abstraction September 27, 2017 African American Art Alma Thomas’s Journey to Abstraction Alma Thomas is renowned for her brightly colored abstract works that seem to dance across canvas and paper, but how did she develop that iconic style? Two paintings that reveal…
Read more about Diary of a Syrian-American Woman, 1908 September 26, 2017 Printed & Manuscript Americana Diary of a Syrian-American Woman, 1908 On a trip to her homeland, a young Syrian-American woman named Mary Arbeely kept a diary recording her attempts to connect with her ancestors while feeling deeply homesick. The diary,…
Read more about A Nineteenth-Century Honolulu Gossip Rag September 25, 2017 Printed & Manuscript Americana A Nineteenth-Century Honolulu Gossip Rag The book arrived in Honolulu by ship from San Francisco on New Year’s Day, 1863, and soon caused a stir throughout the city. It begins by revealing the author’s intent…
Read more about John Biggers Mural Damaged by Hurricane Harvey September 18, 2017 African American Art John Biggers Mural Damaged by Hurricane Harvey As Hurricane Harvey roared through Houston last month, an unlikely victim was left behind: the monumental 1953 mural by John Biggers, titled Contribution of Negro Women to American Life and Education.…
Read more about Who is Françoise Gilot? September 12, 2017 Prints & Drawings Who is Françoise Gilot? The top lot in our September 19 auction of 19th & 20th Century Prints & Drawings is a masterful lithograph by Pablo Picasso of his muse, Françoise Gilot. The following…
Read more about Mexican Revolutionary Emiliano Zapata September 8, 2017 Prints & Drawings Mexican Revolutionary Emiliano Zapata Some people made such an impact on history that we see them in multiple sales each season, across widely disparate genres. One such figure was Mexican revolutionary Emiliano Zapata, who…
Read more about Black and White All Over: The Riddle of Classical Photography August 17, 2017 Photographs & Photobooks Black and White All Over: The Riddle of Classical Photography The following was written by Vice President and Director of Photographs & Photobooks, Daile Kaplan: I love looking at photographs in both black-and-white and color iterations. Long before streaming…
Read more about Records & Results: Vintage Posters August 4, 2017 Vintage Posters Records & Results: Vintage Posters More than 600 colorful advertisements and announcements crossed the block at our sale of Vintage Posters on Wednesday, August 2. The encyclopedic selection represented a century’s worth of development in…
Read more about The Symbiotic Relationship Between Tattoos & Posters July 27, 2017 Vintage Posters The Symbiotic Relationship Between Tattoos & Posters An unusual lot in our upcoming auction of Vintage Posters features a colorful individual: Captain Costentenus, a Greek Albanian man tattooed from head to foot. Captain Costentenus was…
Read more about Isle Adam: Timeless & Inspiring July 19, 2017 Vintage Posters Isle Adam: Timeless & Inspiring Shrewd perusers of our sales may notice a familiar eave lurking in the catalogue for our upcoming auction of Vintage Posters: the iconic orange roof of the beach house at…
Read more about Abram Games’s Sultry Poster Causes a Stir July 17, 2017 Vintage Posters Abram Games’s Sultry Poster Causes a Stir Our August 2 auction of Vintage Posters features the largest — and best — selection of war posters we have ever offered. As England prepared to enter World War Two,…
Read more about American War Posters, 100 Years Later July 10, 2017 Vintage Posters American War Posters, 100 Years Later Our August 2 auction of Vintage Posters will feature an exceptionally wide array of World War I imagery, honoring the centennial anniversary of the U.S.’s entry into the fray. More…
Read more about Mrs. Stimson Joins Her Husband at the Huntington Historical Society June 27, 2017 American Art Mrs. Stimson Joins Her Husband at the Huntington Historical Society Mr. and Mrs. Henry Lewis Stimson lived in an estate in Huntington, Long Island. In his memoir, he wrote of her, “That marriage has now lasted over fifty-four years, during…
Read more about Records & Results: American Art June 19, 2017 American Art Records & Results: American Art We closed our Spring 2017 season with a climactic sale of American Art on Thursday, June 15. The annual auction offered exclusively original or unique works by artists living or…
Read more about Records & Results: Spring 2017 June 16, 2017 Swann Records & Results: Spring 2017 The spring 2017 season at Swann Galleries marked the 75th anniversary of our first auction. On March 27, 1942, Benjamin Swann held an auction dedicated to rare and antiquarian books.…
Read more about Records & Results: Art, Press & Illustrated Books June 14, 2017 Books & Manuscripts Records & Results: Art, Press & Illustrated Books Our June 13 auction of Art, Press & Illustrated Books offered a spectrum of books that doubled as objets d’art, with records for important twentieth-century works celebrating art and typography.…
Read more about Records & Results: Maps & Atlases, Natural History & Color Plate Books June 12, 2017 Maps & Atlases Records & Results: Maps & Atlases, Natural History & Color Plate Books Our June 7 auction of Maps & Atlases, Natural History & Color Plate Books saw strong results with multiple auction debuts and records, as well as a plethora of unique…
Read more about Winslow Homer’s Personal “Bible” June 9, 2017 American Art Winslow Homer’s Personal “Bible” On a visit to his Prout’s Neck studio, Winslow Homer’s friend and fellow artist John W. Beatty picked up a dogeared book and asked him if he found it of…
Read more about Grapefruit: Yoko Ono’s Guide to Living Art June 9, 2017 Art Press & Illustrated Books Grapefruit: Yoko Ono’s Guide to Living Art Visionary Yoko Ono created “event scores” as a way to encourage people to find art and beauty in their quotidian activities. A signed first edition of her seminal self-published book…
Read more about Recently Rediscovered Watercolor by John Marin June 7, 2017 American Art Recently Rediscovered Watercolor by John Marin A recently rediscovered watercolor by John Marin will be making its auction debut in our June 15 sale of American Art. The work displays two features for which the artist…
Read more about Nahui Olin: Muse & Maker June 5, 2017 Art Press & Illustrated Books Nahui Olin: Muse & Maker Nahui Olin, the pseudonym of Carmen Mondragón, was a Mexican Surrealist active in the 1920s and ’30s. She hailed from the upper echelons of Mexican society, and fraternized with the…
Read more about Records & Results: Graphic Design June 1, 2017 Vintage Posters Records & Results: Graphic Design Our May 25 auction of Graphic Design offered a cornucopia of inspired works spanning fin de siècle Art Nouveau masters to modernist posters. The top lot of the sale was Col…
Read more about Leaving the Land: Ship’s Logs from England to the Mediterranean in the Nineteenth Century May 30, 2017 Maps & Atlases Leaving the Land: Ship’s Logs from England to the Mediterranean in the Nineteenth Century In January of 1819, Captain William Hodgson steered the three-masted merchant ship Transit down the River Avon from Bristol, beginning a six-month voyage toward the Mediterranean. The ship’s log book he…
Read more about A Personal Collection of Bernhardt Wall Books May 30, 2017 Art Press & Illustrated Books A Personal Collection of Bernhardt Wall Books Bernhardt Wall was an American illustrator active in the first half of the twentieth century. A selection of fine, early or test examples of his work were given to his…
Read more about Graphic Design in the Vienna Secession May 23, 2017 Vintage Posters Graphic Design in the Vienna Secession This post includes notes from the catalogue of our May 25 auction of Graphic Design, featuring an extensive selection of works out of the Wiener Werkstätte, the design school for the…
Read more about Records & Results: 19th & 20th Century Literature May 18, 2017 Books & Manuscripts Records & Results: 19th & 20th Century Literature First editions and inscribed copies filled the shelves at our May 16 auction of 19th & 20th Century Literature. The sale broke several auction records and encompassed a variety of genres,…
Read more about George & Robert Cruikshank, Early Caricaturists May 11, 2017 Books & Manuscripts George & Robert Cruikshank, Early Caricaturists Brothers George and Isaac (who often went by his middle name of Robert) Cruikshank were famed early nineteenth-century caricaturists. Their work appears in two of our sales this season, 19th…
Read more about East Hampton Artists May 10, 2017 Contemporary Art East Hampton Artists The community of East Hampton has long been known as an avant-garde artist enclave. Our May 11 auction of Contemporary Art features a century’s worth of output by artists who…
Read more about Records & Results: Autographs May 9, 2017 Autographs Records & Results: Autographs On Thursday, May 4, we held an auction of Autographs, with twentieth-century highlights by authors taking the spotlight. The sale performed well overall, with 88% of items offered finding buyers. …
Read more about Records & Results: Old Master Through Modern Prints May 4, 2017 Prints & Drawings Records & Results: Old Master Through Modern Prints On Tuesday, May 2, we offered Old Master Through Modern Prints, with highlights from as long ago as 1495 and as recent as 1959. The top lot of the…
Read more about Thomas Hart Benton Links Pollock and Rubens May 3, 2017 Autographs Thomas Hart Benton Links Pollock and Rubens In 1926, Thomas Hart Benton was a teacher at the Art Students League of New York. Disappointed by the lack of a painting manual, he set about writing his own.…
Read more about Notes from the Catalogue: Robert Motherwell’s Early Surrealist Period May 2, 2017 Contemporary Art Notes from the Catalogue: Robert Motherwell’s Early Surrealist Period Notes from the catalogue of our May 11 auction of Contemporary Art. Though Motherwell is known for his integral role in the New York school of Abstract Expressionism, the…
Read more about Dearest Marlene: Letters & Photos from the Collection of Marlene Dietrich May 1, 2017 Autographs Dearest Marlene: Letters & Photos from the Collection of Marlene Dietrich Swann is honored to commemorate the legacy of Marlene Dietrich by offering for the first time select items that have touched her life and that of her family. Our May…
Read more about Masters of Early Engraving April 28, 2017 Prints & Drawings Masters of Early Engraving Our May 2 auction of Old Master Through Modern Prints offers a rare opportunity to see works by some of the earliest scions of European engraving in the same place. Master…
Read more about Records & Results: Printed & Manuscript Americana April 27, 2017 Printed & Manuscript Americana Records & Results: Printed & Manuscript Americana On Thursday, April 27, our tenth consecutive auction of Printed & Manuscript Americana exceeded $700,000. Much of the top material was unique or extremely rare, including diaries, letters and archives, many…
Read more about What is a Cosway-Style Binding? April 26, 2017 Books & Manuscripts What is a Cosway-Style Binding? It’s hard not to judge a book by its cover when it is encased in a fine Cosway-style binding. Two of these sumptuous decorative tomes will be coming to auction…
Read more about The Cherokee Messenger April 24, 2017 Printed & Manuscript Americana The Cherokee Messenger The complete set of The Cherokee Messenger, Oklahoma’s earliest periodical, will be coming to auction in our Printed & Manuscript Americana sale on April 27. Only one other complete set…