Patricia Scipio-Brim (1947 – 2023) was born and raised in Trinidad and Tobago, the first of six siblings. She immigrated to New York in the 1970s after she graduated from…
Swann Galleries proudly presents 80 works honoring the legacy and enterprise of a trailblazing collector, showcasing postwar and contemporary Black art with a focus on abstraction.
Swann Galleries is very proud to have been the first auction house to sell the paintings of the great late Barkley Hendricks beginning in 2009. We were also the first…
Swann Galleries is honored to be presenting a group of artworks in our October 3 auction from the estate of Dr. Constance E. Clayton (1933-2022). Lots 28-48 includes a group…
Suzanne Jackson’s painting There is Something Between Us brings together two legendary figures from two very different worlds. The arenas of professional sports and contemporary art have little in common…
Our October 3 auction of African American Art features exceptional and innovative post-war painting.
The landmark exhibition The Harlem Renaissance and Transatlantic Modernism at the Met here in New York has brought deserved new attention to the visual art achievements of the Harlem Renaissance…
This season’s African American Art auction features an array of Harlem Renaissance pieces, post-war figurative art, and contemporary art.
In 1946, in what would become the last year of their brief marriage, Elizabeth Catlett and Charles White shared a career-changing experience living and working in Mexico City. They had…
The October 19, 2023, sale of African American Art will feature exceptional modern and contemporary works of abstract and figurative art. The top lot in the auction is Moon Madness,…
Our April 6 African American Art auction features an exciting range of scarce and significant art from the Harlem Renaissance to the contemporary. We are thrilled to offer an outstanding…
Alma Thomas: Early Life & Career Born in Columbus, Georgia, in 1891, Alma Thomas was the eldest of four daughters in a family immersed in art and culture. The Thomas…
Our October 6th African American Art auction features an outstanding group of abstract paintings led by the excellent 1967 Untitled (Abstraction in Orange) by Norman Lewis—the large canvas comes from…
I Am a Black Woman: Elizabeth Catlett & Representation in Art Elizabeth Catlett’s landmark contributions to twentieth-century art begin in the 1940s with a new representation of African American women.…
Our spring auction of African American Art features many scarce and significant postwar and contemporary artworks. The sale’s top lot is a large 1948 painting by Norman Lewis—Lewis’s striking organic…
“Stone imposes a certain discipline which cannot be ignored.” The October 7, 2021 African American Art auction includes two impressive carved sculptures by Elizabeth Catlett which bookend her half-century practice…
The Delaney brothers became well-known painters in the downtown New York art scene in the 1930s and 40s—while each followed their own distinct artistic path. Sibling artists both finding success in the New York art world is a scarce but not unheard of occurrence, yet there are very few African American visual artist siblings known today, and no other pair quite like Beauford and Joseph Delaney.
Three fascinating sculptures by Richmond Barthé feature in our June 4 sale of African-American Fine Art. Each embody his interests in the 1930s, themes that would continue to define his later body of work. They demonstrate the range of a young artist who was coming into his own, embarking on a career in New York, gaining critical and commercial successes. Newly arrived from his debut in Chicago, and soon a sensation in Harlem, Barthé was one of the first African-American artists to develop a commercial career in New York.
We are sad to hear the news yesterday of Emma Amos’s passing. Emma Amos was a painter, printmaker, weaver and educator—a great artist and innovator who helped broaden greatly American art in the late twentieth century, challenging inequalities in both art and society with a bold figurative message. I would like to remember her life and work as best we can—through the artworks we have handled here at Swann as they introduced me to her many facets as an artist.
We are greatly saddened to hear the news of David Driskell’s passing yesterday with the email announcement from the David C. Driskell Center at the University of Maryland. An incredibly influential figure in the history of African-American art, Driskell was a leading curator, collector, historian, painter, printmaker and writer.
In an introduction to the catalogue for our January 30 sale of African-American Art from the Johnson Publishing Company, Nigel Freeman, director of Swann’s African-American Fine Art department, touches on the legacy of the publishing house, their art collection and Johnson Publishing Co.’s impact on African-American culture.
Born in 1929, Vincent D. Smith was a Brooklyn native and innovative African-American artist. By the late 1950s, he incorporated various modern approaches into his figurative painting practice, including expressionism, collage, politically- and socially-conscious subject matter.
Nigel Freeman, our African-American Fine Art director, stopped by the Wallach Art Gallery at Columbia University to view Posing Modernity: The Black Model from Manet and Matisse to Today. Here are Nigel’s takeaways on the exhibition: Posing Modernity is a…
Nigel Freeman, founder and director of our African-American Fine Art department, is in London this week visiting some familiar images. Two of the works in the Tate Modern’s latest exhibition, Soul of…
Swann Galleries is very proud to be offering for sale the art collection of one America’s great cultural heroes, Dr. Maya Angelou. Dr. Angelou’s homes were filled with paintings, sculpture…
