The February Fine Photographs auction brings together twentieth-century masters in a curated selection of diverse and rare highlights.
The perpetual sunshine and endless summer enjoyed by California natives has traditionally been linked to the glamor and film industries. But in the 1920s and thirties, a community of artist-photographers known as Group f/64 developed a photographic vocabulary and visual style that might best be described as California Modernism.
This December we are pleased to offer more than 100 lots from the Collection of Neil Robert Berzak. Rich in 20th-century masters, this collection features both rare and important photographs as well as accessible entry points from new and seasoned collectors.
This October Fine Photographs auction will center photography as it developed and impacted the American West as well as the use of photography in exploration and documentation
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…
Dr. James Pearl reflects on the process of amassing his collection of American photography. Coming to auction at Swann Galleries February 15.
We are excited to present A Singular History of Photography: 100 Works from the Stephen White Collection in our spring Fine Photographs auction. This dynamic sale tells the history of…
The Photographs season begins with an exciting online auction featuring an array of nineteenth- and twentieth-century highlights. The sale is headlined by Irving Penn’s exceptionally bold and textural Blast, 1980;…
The Thursday, October 20 sale of Fine Photographs at Swann Galleries brought $1.2M with a strong showing for American photography and portfolios. Romana Javitz & Dorothea Lange The top lot…
A range of exciting photographs includes a vintage 1936 example of Dorothea Lange’s iconic Migrant Mother from the personal collection of the legendary Romana Javitz, who developed the New York…
…And some who are still experimenting and expanding the genre.
Edward S. Curtis — The North American Indian The April 14 auction will be headlined by the seminal Portfolio I from Edward S. Curtis’ The North American Indian, featuring many of his…
On February 10, 2022, we held Fine Photographs: Celebrating 70 Years of Photographs at Swann, not only did the sale mark the 70th anniversary of photography auctions at the house…
Over 70 years ago, Swann held the first auction dedicated to photography in the United States. This 1952 photography auction was astonishingly early for a sale devoted to a medium…
Fine photographs by Diane Arbus, Julia Margaret Cameron, Robert Frank, Adam Fuss, Dorothea Lange, Robert Mapplethorpe, and Irving Penn, portfolios by Ansel Adams, Berenice Abbott, Eugène Atget, Paul Strand, and more.
Martín Chambi & Images of South America Lead Classic & Contemporary Photographs at Swann Our sale of Classic & Contemporary Photographs on Thursday, April 18 saw active bidding across all categories with early-twentieth-century photography, Humanist portraits and sublime images of nature…
At Auction April 18 Complete Catalogue Our diverse April auction bridges classical and contemporary visual idioms with important work, including Robert Mapplethorpe’s Lisa Lyon, Dorothea Lange’s emotive Korean Child,…
A Record for Malick Sidibé in Swann Photo SaleVernacular albums of nineteenth-century India bring $30k Our sale of Photographs: Art & Visual Culture on February 21, a curated sale celebrating photographs as physical objects, saw success across the board with contemporary, twentieth-century and…
At Auction February 21 Complete Catalogue This auction features Robert Frank’s Yom Kippur, East River, New York, 1955, printed 1971; Robert Mapplethorpe’s Roy Cohn, 1981; André Kertész’s signed…
A year of records, debuts and rediscovered works. As we reflect on 2018, we look back at an excellent year of auctions. In April we held our highest-grossing African-American Fine Art…
Brâncusi Breaks $100k at Photographs Auction Records for DeCarava & Sidibé Swann Auction Galleries’ Thursday, October 18 sale of Photographs & Photobooks, which boasted historical and contemporary fine art…
Our April 19 auction The Knowing Eye: Photographs & Photobooks was led by the only known extant print of River Rouge Plant, Detroit (with Ford signage on freight car), 1947,…
At Auction April 19 The Knowing Eye: Photographs & Photobooks features a rare vintage print of Alfred Eisenstaedt’s iconic Premier at La Scala, Milan, circa 1933, and Robert Frank’s quirky Portrait of art…
We opened the 2018 season with a $1.6M auction of Icons & Images: Photographs & Photobooks on February 15. Important rare and unique work, both fine art and vernacular, brought…
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…
This post was written by our Vice President and Director of Photographs & Photobooks, Daile Kaplan. Photography is ubiquitous in visual culture. Whether you prefer contemporary works by Alec…
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…
Our Photographs & Photobooks department has put together a cheat sheet for identifying some of the more common types of photographs we handle. A cyanotype print is made by…
On Thursday, April 20, our sale ofImages & Objects: Photographs & Photobooks set multiple records for early and modern works, with 71% of works offered finding buyers. Nearly all…
Known for his attention and passion for the technical aspects of print making, Ansel Adams became a consultant for Edwin Land and the Polaroid Corporation in 1948. He tested film…
With the unfolding story surrounding a box of photographic negatives discovered in California, which were originally reported to have been taken by esteemed photographer Ansel Adams, many questions have popped…
Ansel Adams’s position in the pantheon of master photographers is assured by his magisterial studies of the American landscape. Swann is pleased to offer Moonrise Over Hernandez in two iterations—a…
