July 15, 2024Chloe Lesser19th & 20th Century Literature This Season’s Successes: Winter-Spring 2024 Auctions in Review Read more about This Season’s Successes: Winter-Spring 2024 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…
Read more about The Woman’s Eye: Seven Women Photographers to Know May 6, 2024 Photographs & Photobooks The Woman’s Eye: Seven Women Photographers to Know Though utilizing a variety of artistic practices and genres, from portraiture, self, and of others to photojournalism and social documentary, the photographers highlighted here have all used the camera to record…
Read more about Auction Highlights: Fine Photographs — May 16, 2024 April 23, 2024 Photographs & Photobooks Auction Highlights: Fine Photographs — May 16, 2024 Swann’s May 16 auction of Fine Photographs is headlines by two iconic female photographers.
Read more about Records & Results: The Artists of the WPA — January 25, 2024 February 1, 2024 American Art Records & Results: The Artists of the WPA — January 25, 2024 Swann Galleries opened the winter 2024 season with the fourth iteration of The Artist of the WPA. The timed online auction closed Thursday, January 25, with an 89% sell-through rate…
Read more about Auction Highlights: The Artists of the WPA — Timed Sale Closing January 25, 2024 December 18, 2023 Modern & Post-War Art Auction Highlights: The Artists of the WPA — Timed Sale Closing January 25, 2024 Highlights from the December 14, 2023 auction of Illustration Art.
Read more about 2022: Year in Review January 3, 2023 19th & 20th Century Literature 2022: Year in Review 2022 was a historic year for Swann in more ways than one. The house celebrated its 80th year of auctions, bringing with it the 70th anniversary of the first photography…
Read more about Rare Vintage Print of Dorothea Lange’s ‘Migrant Mother’ Brings $305k in October 2022 Auction of Fine Photographs October 24, 2022 Photographs & Photobooks Rare Vintage Print of Dorothea Lange’s ‘Migrant Mother’ Brings $305k in October 2022 Auction of Fine Photographs 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…
Read more about Romana Javitz: Champion of FSA Photographers October 14, 2022 Photographs & Photobooks Romana Javitz: Champion of FSA Photographers Romana Javitz was curator of The New York Public Library’s Picture Collection from 1928 to 1968, where she assembled one of the most historically important and artistically significant collections of twentieth-century photographs.
Read more about Fine Photographs: October 20, 2022 Auction Highlights September 27, 2022 Photographs & Photobooks Fine Photographs: October 20, 2022 Auction Highlights 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…
Read more about 2021: Year in Review December 22, 2021 Swann 2021: Year in Review As we close out another successful year at Swann we look back at our record-filled sales.
Read more about Artists of the WPA & the Dawn of a New American Identity December 20, 2021 The Artists of the WPA Artists of the WPA & the Dawn of a New American Identity The New Deal not only established a great legacy, but a greater generation of artists whose works defined the American spirit.
Read more about May & June 2021 Fine Art Sales Roundup for Swann Galleries June 24, 2021 Swann May & June 2021 Fine Art Sales Roundup for Swann Galleries Modern & Post-War Art, Fine Photographs & Contemporary Art Auctions of Modern & Post-War Art, Fine Photographs and Contemporary Art at Swann Galleries in late May and early June 2021…
Read more about Photographs & Photobooks: May 2021 Auction Highlights May 5, 2021 Photographs & Photobooks Photographs & Photobooks: May 2021 Auction Highlights Exploring the thematic and visual diversity of the photographic medium, this auction covers twentieth-century masters as well as contemporary practitioners and items from the visual vernacular: albums, archives, and individual objects.
Read more about Dorothea Lange, Ed van der Elsken, Peter Hujar & More Shine in March 2021 Sale of Fine Photographs March 15, 2021 Photographs & Photobooks Dorothea Lange, Ed van der Elsken, Peter Hujar & More Shine in March 2021 Sale of Fine Photographs Our March 11, 2021 sale of Fine Photographs saw strong results across the auction with humanist works and portraits drawing interest from collectors. “We were pleased to see strength across…
Read more about Dorothea Lange & Photography as a Tool for Social Change March 2, 2021 Photographs & Photobooks Dorothea Lange & Photography as a Tool for Social Change Dorothea Lange‘s iconic photographs from her time documenting for the Farm Security Administration, as well as her international travels, resonate through the decades since. Here we provide insight to the…
Read more about Fine Photographs: March 2021 Auction Highlights February 18, 2021 Photographs & Photobooks Fine Photographs: March 2021 Auction Highlights 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.
Read more about First Auction of Artists of the WPA at Swann Establishes Four Records February 9, 2021 American Art First Auction of Artists of the WPA at Swann Establishes Four Records The Artists of the WPA were on display in our February 4, 2021, auction. The multi-departmental sale was headed by Harold Porcher, the house’s director of Modern and Post-War Art,…
Read more about The Artists of the WPA: Auction Highlights February 2021 January 11, 2021 Swann The Artists of the WPA: Auction Highlights February 2021 We’re pleased to present this curated auction of WPA-era artwork, photographs, and related material. In the aftermath of the Great Depression, president Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal and its related agencies represented an unprecedented investment in art and artists, setting the scene for the twentieth century’s art movements, and establishing the careers of diverse creatives, including women, Black artists, photographers, and muralists.
Read more about Fall 2020 Preview: Fine Photographs September 9, 2020 Photographs & Photobooks Fall 2020 Preview: Fine Photographs Highlights for both the new collector and the seasoned auction aficionado include photographs by Manuel Álvarez Bravo, Alma Lavenson and Dorothea Lange.
Read more about Swann in Profile: Deborah Rogal July 10, 2020 Photographs & Photobooks Swann in Profile: Deborah Rogal After 15 years with Swann, Deborah Rogal is stepping into the role of Director of our Photographs & Photobooks department. As she transitions into her new position we asked a few questions about her time with the house: how things have changed over the years, the photography market, and what’s to come.
Read more about The Social Document: Dorothea Lange’s ‘Migrant Mother’ April 1, 2020 Photographs & Photobooks The Social Document: Dorothea Lange’s ‘Migrant Mother’ Dorothea Lange’s Migrant Mother is widely recognized as the most popular social documentary photograph of all time. During the course of her 40-year career, Lange’s style as a photographer proposed…
Read more about Edward Steichen’s ‘White Lotus’ Brings Record for the Image in Winter 2020 Sale of Classic & Contemporary Photographs February 27, 2020 Photographs & Photobooks Edward Steichen’s ‘White Lotus’ Brings Record for the Image in Winter 2020 Sale of Classic & Contemporary Photographs It was a Who’s Who among American photographers in Classic & Contemporary Photographs on Tuesday, February 25. The auction brought $1M and saw competitive bidding in the room and on the Swann Galleries App.
Read more about Classic & Contemporary Photographs: Winter-Spring 2020 January 10, 2020 Photographs & Photobooks Classic & Contemporary Photographs: Winter-Spring 2020 Photographs by outstanding American artists headline this auction: Berenice Abbott, Dawoud Bey, Margaret Bourke-White, Harry Callahan, Edward Steichen and Minor White.
Read more about Edward S. Curtis & Irving Penn Shine in Fall 2019 Classic & Contemporary Photographs October 22, 2019 Photographs & Photobooks Edward S. Curtis & Irving Penn Shine in Fall 2019 Classic & Contemporary Photographs Swann’s Thursday, October 17 sale of Classic & Contemporary Photographs featured a broad range of photographic material including works by Edward S. Curtis, Irving Penn, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Dorothea Lange and W. Eugene Smith.
Read more about 2019 Spring Season in Review July 1, 2019 Swann 2019 Spring Season in Review A season of firsts. The 2019 spring auction season at Swann Galleries delivered an impressive range of sales, rife with auction premiers and record prices. We started our season off…
Read more about Records & Results: Photographs & Photobooks April 23, 2019 Photographs & Photobooks Records & Results: Photographs & Photobooks 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…
Read more about Upcoming Highlights: Classic & Contemporary Photographs March 5, 2019 Photographs & Photobooks Upcoming Highlights: Classic & Contemporary Photographs 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,…
Read more about Records & Results: Photographs & Photobooks February 27, 2019 Photographs & Photobooks Records & Results: Photographs & Photobooks 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…
Read more about #5WomenArtists: Deborah Rogal’s List March 26, 2018 Photographs & Photobooks #5WomenArtists: Deborah Rogal’s List We’re jumping into Women’s History Month to offer a week of #5WomenArtists, inspired by the National Museum of Women in the Arts. We asked some women of Swann to tell…
Read more about Identifying Types of Photographic Prints August 11, 2017 Photographs & Photobooks Identifying Types of Photographic Prints 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…