June 26, 2020Photographs & Photobooks
A Toast to Daile Kaplan, Swann’s Doyenne Emerita
At the end of this month Daile will be stepping away from her role as Vice President and head of Swann’s Photographs & Photobooks Department.
Browsing Tag
Daile Kaplan
The Whitney Museum of American Art’s exhibition Vida Americana: Mexican Muralists Remake American Art posits Mexico’s valuable artistic legacy. José Clemente Orozo, Diego Rivera and David Alfaro Siqueiros, towering artistic…
The North American Indian by Edward S. Curtis An ambitious photographer’s happenstance meeting on the side of a mountain sets into motion a chain of events that spurs an…
Our Summer Reading List is back for 2018! Here’s what some of us are cracking into in the off-season. Nicholas D. Lowry, President & Principal Auctioneer Noah Charney and Ingrid…
Daile Kaplan Reflects on Lewis Hine’s Legacy Swann Vice President and Director of Photographs & Photobooks Daile Kaplan is the preeminent scholar of Lewis Hine. Her books on his work…
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…
With the recent NPR coverage questioning whether an anonymous photograph actually depicts Amelia Earhart on a wharf in Jaluit Atoll, photography’s role as historic evidence is once again in the…
Swann’s second sale devoted to Vernacular Photography showed the strength of this growing segment of the photo market, with strong results for esoteric material. The top vernacular lot was…
We are delighted to offer a suffragist archive of rare and important photographs documenting “The Liberty Bell Tour, Votes for Women.” The march was organized by Louise Hall and her life-partner Ethel…
The delicate condition of the natural world is vividly brought to life by Nick Brandt, who organized the Big Life Foundation to protect wild animals in East Africa. This British…
Last week Swann Galleries held an auction devoted to Vernacular Photography, which was the first sale of its kind. Two items led the auction–bringing $22,500 each–and they could not…
New discoveries are often made during our auction previews. Sometimes a guest will identify a place depicted in a work of art, or recognize a name in an inscription. One…
The cyanotype or blueprint process has a poetic quality that embodies a painterly aesthetic and is defined by particular visual characteristics, in this case, a distinctive and rich “prussian blue”…
What is vernacular photography? According to our director of Photographs & Photobooks Daile Kaplan, it is photography taken for the sake of the photograph.
The vast American scene has long captivated photographers. Some took to the road while others focused on the urban street. The portrait studio also emerged as a site of aesthetic…
As collector Bill Diodato knows, photography begins with the birth of the photobook. Long before the white wall or editioned print–and more than century before galleries and museums exhibited pictures–photographers…
Murder and mayhem have long fascinated photographers and film aficionados, and are also inextricably linked with collectors of vernacular photography. But, how did the mugshot become a fine-art collectible? For…
Swann Galleries’ February 26, 2013 auction of Fine Photographs features several early photographic albums filled with images of Asia that come from the Estate of Fong Chow. Chow (1923-2012) was…
Yesterday Swann sold a complete set of Edward S. Curtis’s The North American Indian for $1,440,000–the highest priced item ever sold at New York’s premiere auction house for works on…
Irving Penn is associated with fine photographs of fashionable women. An innovative artist and master technician, Penn recognized that editorial photography was but one form of representation and moved effortlessly…
The majority of photographer Claude Cahun’s imagery is associated with the feminist Surrealist movement. Her artwork focuses on issues related to gender and identity, with a particular emphasis on sexual…
The Fine Photographs & Select Photobooks auction yesterday, October 19, 2010, saw much interest in a large selection of photojournalism, as well as a photograph by Annie Leibovitz of John…
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…
Gordon Matta-Clark, whose work is featured in the Photographic Literature portion of Thursday’s sale, brought an inspired and playful quality to his highly experimental and diverse art projects. All speak…
Sol LeWitt, Autobiography, illustrated with more than 1,000 reproductions of LeWitt’s sequential photographs of his apartment and possessions, first edition, New York, 1980. Estimate $1,500 to $2,500. Conceptual Art first…
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…
Swann’s October 22 Photographs auction offers several salted paper prints by William Henry Fox Talbot, which date from the early days of photography. Depicted in lush brown tones and compelling…
Among the highlights in our October 22 auction of Photographs & Photographic Literature are portraits by Diane Arbus of key figures in the American Art Scene for a 1966 story…
