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February 3, 2021
Author: Kelsie Jankowski

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swanngalleries

Specializing in rare books, fine art and everything in between.
President & principal auctioneer: @nicholowry

This prime example of Roman sculpture was original

This prime example of Roman sculpture was originally owned by the German photographer Wilhelm von Gloden, who acquired it while living in Sicily between 1894 and 1914. After von Gloden passed away in 1931, the bust entered the collection of his muse and heir, Pancrazio Buciunì. As fascism rose and Mussolini came to power, the Vatican allied with the government, and a significant portion of von Gloeden's inheritance was confiscated and destroyed by police as obscene. An Italian dealer brokered the bust sale from Buciunì to American playwright and screenwriter Tennessee Williams in 1948. Tennessee Williams and partner Frank Merlo gifted the sculpture to Gore Vidal as a housewarming gift in July 1950 when he acquired "Edgewater," a sprawling estate in Dutchess County, New York—previously owned by John Jay Chapman, who, with his second wife, Elizabeth Astor Chanler, purchased Edgewater in 1902. Vidal and his partner Howard Austen made Edgewater their home for nineteen years. Vidal and Austen lived with the bust, which they affectionately dubbed Alessio, for another thirty-four years, travelling with it as they divided their time between La Rondinaia, Ravello, Italy, and the Hollywood Hills. The provenance was confirmed by Victor Cambell, Tennesse Williams' final partner.⁠
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At auction August 22. Estimate $50,000 to $75,000.

Featured in the upcoming LGBTQ+ Art, Material Cult

Featured in the upcoming LGBTQ+ Art, Material Culture & History auction on August 22 is Kent Monkman's study for "Icon for a New Empire," 2002. Estimate $6,000 to $9,000.⁠
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Among many aspects of Monkman's allegorical work is a modern, indigenous, queer reflection on classical works of art. In doing so, he flips the historical narrative and creates a magical, at times ribald, present rife with insinuation and allegations of centuries of mistreatment of the First Nations people. Here, with acknowledgment to James Earle Fraser's sculpture End of the Trail (a small copy of which can be seen in the background), he depicts an artist breathing life into this very statue through a kiss. It is a gesture reminiscent of the artist in Jean-Léon Gérôme's painting, Pygmalion and Galatea. By doing so, Monkman repositions an icon of the American West as an object of sexual desire above and beyond its artistic merits. The irony of this sexual attraction can be found in the statue's original meaning, reflecting the suffering and cultural destruction visited on Native Americans by the colonizers of North America; with the main figure (modeled by Fraser after Seneca Chief John Big Tree) embodying the tribulations and exhaustion of a people driven from their native lands.⁠
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Monkman's paintings can be found in private collections and institutions such as The Metropolitan Museum of Art; The Denver Art Museum; National Gallery of Canada; the Art Gallery of Ontario, and the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts.

Our Vintage Posters auction begins closing tomorro

Our Vintage Posters auction begins closing tomorrow, August 8, at 12 PM ET!

Visit the link in our bio to bid.

Nicholas D. Lowry on Vintage Magic Posters Aucti

Nicholas D. Lowry on Vintage Magic Posters

Auction closing August 8 beginning at 12:00 PM ET

Since its release, David Ebershoff’s debut novel

Since its release, David Ebershoff’s debut novel "The Danish Girl" and its subsequent 2015 film adaptation have reintroduced artist couple Gerda Wegener and Lili Elbe to a new generation of twentieth-century illustration appreciators. Born in Hammelev, Denmark, in 1886, Wegener’s fashion and erotica illustrations defied the conventional norms of gender and sexuality prevalent in her era. To learn more about Wegener and her artistic practice visit the link in our bio. ⁠
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Pictured here is Gerda Wegener"s "Two Women in a Window," watercolor, chalk and pencil, circa 1920. Featured in our March 2023 19th & 20th Century Art sale.

Pictured here is Claude Clark's "Drafting," circa

Pictured here is Claude Clark's "Drafting," circa 1940-41. Sold in our January 2024 Artists of the WPA auction for $17,500⁠
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This striking modernist painting and very scarce image of an African-American architect or architectural student is an excellent example of the early oil painting of Claude Clark. It was painted shortly after the artist was a student at The Pennsylvania School of Industrial Arts. In 1935, Clark won a four-year scholarship to study at the commercial art school. By his third year, Clark won the painting prize and had adopted his palette knife technique. From 1939-1942, Claude Clark was also a colleague of Dox Thrash and Raymond Steth in the Philadelphia Fine Print Workshop and the WPA workshop, where he worked in lithography and carborundum etching. In 1939, Clark was accepted to the Barnes Foundation for a fellowship study. In 1944, his painting Cutting Pattern was only the second work by an African-American artist accepted into the Barnes Foundation's permanent collection after Horace Pippin. ⁠
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Today, Clark's paintings are found in numerous museum collections, including the David C. Driskell Center, the University of Maryland, the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and the Smithsonian Museum of American Art.⁠

LGBTQ+ Art, Material Culture & History is at aucti

LGBTQ+ Art, Material Culture & History is at auction August 22. Previewing Saturday, August 17, and Monday August 19, through Wednesday, August 21 — 12PM to 5PM⁠
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Browse the complete catalogue and register to bid at the link in our bio. ⁠

Our Vintage Poster auction closes in one week! Thi

Our Vintage Poster auction closes in one week! This August 8 sale contains posters of many genres, including World War I and II propaganda, Art Nouveau, Magic, Circus, Food and drink, Mather Work Incentive, Sports, Transportation, Summer Resort and travel, and many more. ⁠
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The exhibition is open from Monday, August 5, through Wednesday, August 7 — 12-5 PM. Register to bid now!⁠
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Above: ⁠
1) Adolphe Mouron Cassandre, "Grand - Sport La Casquette," 1925.⁠
2) Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, "Ambassadeurs / Aristide Bruant," 1892.⁠
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TIMED AUCTION | This summer’s Vintage Posters au

TIMED AUCTION | This summer’s Vintage Posters auction at Swann encompasses a broad array of genres, spanning the nineteenth through twenty-first centuries and from countries around the globe. ⁠
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Timed bidding is open now through August 8 and begins closing at 12 PM ET. Previewing Saturday, August 3, and Monday, August 5, through Wednesday, August 7 — 12 PM - 5 PM⁠
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Browse the complete catalogue and register to bid at the link in our bio.

Our sixth annual LGBTQ+ Art, Material Culture & Hi

Our sixth annual LGBTQ+ Art, Material Culture & History auction is scheduled to take place on Thursday, August 22, and will feature an exciting selection of fine art, illustration, posters, ephemera, photography, manuscripts and archives from the expansive range of the LGBTQ+ community. ⁠
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Pictured above: Lyle Ashton Harris, Untitled (Renee’s Back), large-format Polaroid, 1998-99.

In celebration of Ernest Hemingway’s birthday (a

In celebration of Ernest Hemingway’s birthday (albeit belated), we are proud to present a sneak peek of an exciting find, a photo album compiled by a fellow Red Cross volunteer, Percy D. Johnson, who served in the Ambulance Service with Hemingway during the First World War. It contains unpublished images of Hemingway and his fellow volunteers from the time they shipped overseas, through their service in Italy, and includes an image of the injured Papa in his Milan hospital bed. This album, brought to light for the first time, will be offered in our upcoming October 2024 Fine Books Sale. Happy Birthday Ernest!

Auctions in Review⁠ In the 2024 Winter-Spring se

Auctions in Review⁠
In the 2024 Winter-Spring season, Swann Galleries continued to provide high-quality auctions of unusual and rare material. Several single-owner collections were featured, including Illustration Art: Featuring Highlights from the Collection of Jules Feiffer, Tennis & Sports Posters: Collection of the Schwartz Family & Tennis Corporation of America, and An American Century: The Collection of Dr. James & Debra Pearl & Fine Photographs.⁠
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We bid farewell to our longtime Prints & Drawings director Todd Weyman, and ushered in a new era for our restructured Fine Art Department. Take a look at some of this season’s highlights at the link in our bio!

The top lot and the highlight of our June 27 Print

The top lot and the highlight of our June 27 Printed & Manuscript Americana sale: an 1830 First Edition Book of Mormon.⁠
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Sold to a dealer for $185,000, this rare first edition broke the previous auction record—the Orson Pratt copy was sold by Swann in 2007 for $180,000. This record-breaking sale is also the fourth-highest price ever realized for an Americana lot at Swann.⁠
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Swann has been the leading auction house for Mormon books, selling 13 copies of the first edition over the past two decades, and prices have increased dramatically just in the past three years.

The Swann Staff Art Show opens today! Join us from

The Swann Staff Art Show opens today! Join us from 5 to 7 PM for a Swann Salon celebrating the works of our incredible staff. ⁠

Cindy Sherman's iconic Untitled Film Stills is a c $Cindy Sherman's iconic Untitled Film Stills is a collection of 70 black-and-white photographs in which the photographer herself poses as an actress portraying different archetypal female film characters. ⁠ ⁠ Sherman's gaze is fixed away from the viewer in each of the photographs in her series, adding elements of ambiguity and voyeurism to her work, prompting viewers to consider how women may be perceived in mass media and culture. ⁠ ⁠ This 1979 silver print photograph, Untitled Film Still #52, was the highlight of our May 16 Fine Photographs sale, sold \ for $125,000.$

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