What You Need to Know on Auction Day This auction will be held live and conducted remotely. There will not be bidding in the room, though we accept order bids,…
Auction Brings $3.9 Million – Second-Highest Grossing Sale in Department Thirteen-Year History Our spring offering of African American Art on April 22, 2021 was the second highest-grossing sale in the…
Howardena Pindell, Betye Saar, Vanessa German, Bisa Butler, and Dindga McCannon are assemblage artists that apply found items and fabrics that previously held different uses or significance.
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.
With the arrival of baseball’s Opening Day, spring is truly here. Swann does not handle baseball memorabilia in the traditional sense, leaving the encapsulated gem-mint rookie cards and game-worn jerseys to…
At Auction April 22, 2021 Early 20th Century & Harlem Renaissance Featuring the works of Henry Ossawa Tanner, Grafton Tyler Brown, Aaron Douglas, Norman Lewis, Charles White, sculptures by Richmond…
In a year that was unlike any in our lifetimes, Swann’s specialists and staff proved to be as resilient and innovative as ever, bringing forward new and safe ways to…
The December 10, 2020, sale of African American Art was met with enthusiasm from collectors. The sale saw nine auction records set, as well as an auction debut from contemporary…
Join us for a lively conversation between Swann Director of African American Art, Nigel Freeman, and the artist Bisa Butler, whose recent exhibitions and exceptional body of work make her one of the most exciting young artists to gain prominence in the last few years.
At Auction December 10, 2020 Previewing by Appointment Only Through Wednesday, December 9 This sale will include significant works by innovative artists, including a fine example of Gamin, an iconic…
A consummate artist, Faith Ringgold has developed a practice that consists of painting, mixed media sculpting, performing, and quilting. Born October 8, 1930, in Harlem, New York, Ringgold’s mother was…
Richmond Barthé, Beauford Delaney, Kehinde Wiley, Freddie Styles, and Glenn Ligon produced artworks that are in sole ownership of the manifestation of their physical entities. They chose these modes of representation that best suit them, without the gaze of the heteropatriarchy and white cis-gendered gay men.
A Full Month of Fine Art Sales at Swann Delivers Record Prices Swann offered four sales of Fine Art this June, each one proving audiences are undeterred by the remote…
Our sale of African-American Fine Art on June 4, 2020 was met with much fanfare, despite an online-only format due to social distancing guidelines in New York City. The sale…
Swann Auction Galleries’s June 4, 2020 sale of African American Fine Art features five lots from contemporary women photographers who use the lens to document, critique and challenge their societies and their institutions. Here Corey Serrant takes us through the artists and their work.
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.
Ernie Barnes was the first American professional athlete to become a noted painter. From his sports experience and the study of anatomy, Barnes’ unique style of elongation captures the movement, energy and grace of his subjects.
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.
The AfriCOBRA movement was borne from the Civil Rights and Black Power Movements. The collective was founded in 1968 by Chicago based artists: Jeff Donaldson, Wadsworth Jarrell, Jae Jarrell, Barbara…
As jobless Americans eventually found work with Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal Works Progress Administration (WPA), George Biddle, an artist and childhood friend of the president, pushed for significant government…
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.
Here we take look at letters, postcards and greeting cards from Romare Bearden to his longtime friend and collaborator Harry Henderson, as well as touch on the 2005 sale of Henderson’s art collection that made the establishment of our African-American Fine Art Department possible.
Corey Serrant is the newest member of our African-American fine art department – in fact, he started the week of our white-glove sale of the Johnson Publishing Company collection! We…
At Auction June 4, 2020* *This auction has been rescheduled from its original date, and will now be held on Thursday, June 4, 2020 at 1:00 PM ET, previewing online…
Our Thursday, January 30 sale of African-American Art from the Johnson Publishing Company was an all-around success. The packed auction room saw all 87 lots find buyers, bringing $2.9 million—over twice the high-estimate for the auction—29 new auction records were established, and 22 artists made their market debuts.
Our January 30 sale of African-American Art from the Johnson Publishing Company features nearly 30 market newcomers. Here we’ve assembled a selection of ten artists whose work is set to cross the auction block for the first time.
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.
We welcome a new decade with 100 fine artworks from the collection of the Johnson Publishing Company, a great institution of American publishing and an icon of African-American culture. The sale will feature paintings, sculpture and works on paper from diverse periods, with 75 artists featured,
Who builds a statue of a young man with locks, perched on a horse ready to ride into the ranks of Confederate statues in Virginia? Kehinde Wiley does. Who let this dude into the building? Who turned him loose on the rest of us, asking “Why not?” then answering himself with art that breaks molds, blending, for example, British Romanticism with urban power.
Swann Galleries’ Fall 2019 auction of African-American Fine resulted in nine new auction records, supported by a room brimming with bidders—in fact, there were just enough chairs for everyone.
Amid a backdrop of highlights from the Johnson Publishing Company’s incredible art collection—the majority of which hung in the offices of the company’s historic Chicago headquarters—we will sit down with fashion commentator Audrey Smaltz.
New York was waiting for Aaron Douglas, though no one knew just how much, including the artist himself. By the time he arrived in 1925 he had no idea what was waiting, not the lifetime of work and certainly not the eventual reputation as the Harlem Renaissance’s father of African-American art.
A superb selection of images by African-American photographers is set to come across the block in our Fall 2019 sale of African-American Fine Art. Here we take a look at the offering that includes artists from the Harlem Renaissance through today.
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.
Describing himself as a “Rural Modernist,” McArthur Binion is known for his paintings that encapsulate both simplicity and complexity. Our Fall 2019 sale of African-American Fine Art on October 8 features a stunning mid-career work by Binion that captures his laborious technique and beckons the viewer in for a closer look.
Norman Lewis was an Abstract Expressionist painter associated with The Irascibles who developed as a painter as the New York Modern Art scene grew. Here we discuss Lewis’s rise from the margins to art market center.
At Swann, we’re lucky to contribute to an overall market correction, offering exceptional art by women of color, whose work on the themes of feminism and identity is increasingly being recognized by a more equitable marketplace.
Abstraction features heavily in our October 2019 sale of African-American Fine Art, including first-generation abstract expressionist Norman Lewis, alongside artists Sam Gilliam and Kenneth Victor Young of the Washington Color School.
A strong section of fine sculpture coming on October 8 includes works by Selma Burke, Elizabeth Catlett, Sargent Johnson, Richard Hunt and Augusta Savage.
Highlights this fall from the African-American Fine Art department: sculptures by Elizabeth Catlett, Sargent Johnson and Augusta Savage, iconic works by Carrie Mae Weems, paintings by Allan Rohan Crite, Henry Ossawa Tanner and Hughie Lee-Smith.
Artist Records for Amos, Leigh, Lovelace O’Neal, Pindell & More We saw strong results for African-American Fine Art on Thursday, April 4. Nigel Freeman, the house’s director of African-American Fine Art, noted, “I was happy to see…
Howardena Pindell is among the contemporary artists included in our April 4, 2019 sale of African-American Fine Art. Her work explores texture, color and structures often incorporating punched circles and…
Our April 4 sale of African-American Fine Art features four market newcomers, artists whose work has never before appeared at auction. Their work comes in a variety of mediums and…
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…
At Auction April 4 Complete Catalogue A powerful charcoal drawing by Charles White, Caliban, 1950, is one of the top lots in the sale. Never exhibited publicly, this rediscovered…
Selections from the Dr. Robert H. Derden Collection of Contemporary Art are featured in our October 4 African-American Fine Art sale, a private collection located in Chicago, Illinois. The works…
At Auction October 4 Complete Catalogue Highlights from our upcoming selection of fine art by African-American masters. Elizabeth Catlett Works by figurative greats include the earliest sculpture…
We held our highest-grossing auction to date on April 5, totaling $4.5M—more than $1M over the high estimate of the sale. The 160 works that made up the highly curated…
Two extremely scarce prints from William H. Johnson’s Jitterbugs series will make their auction debut with African-American Fine Art on April 5. The series was conceived and executed during Johnson’s tenure in New York…
As part of Women’s History Month, we’re offering a week of #5WomenArtists, inspired by the National Museum of Women in the Arts. We asked some women of Swann to tell us…
![Grace Meschery-McCormack shares about two copies of Fernando de Rojas’s ‘La Célestine,’ including a limited edition copy illustrated by Pablo Picasso.
At auction April 22. Learn more about the works at the link in our bio.
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