January 8, 2025Swann
2024: Year in Review
2024 was an eventful year for Swann that brought about exciting changes, including the reorganization of our Fine Art Department, which saw Nigel Freeman step in as the head of…
Browsing Tag
Printed and Manuscript African Americana
This civil rights rally was held in Columbus, OH, a few months after the March on Washington and just as the congressional fight for the Civil Rights Act approached the…
One of our largest African Americana auctions to date includes important documentation of the abolition movement, catalogues and posters for exhibits by leading Black artists, previously unseen Black Panther material, and material on Black-owned businesses.
Nicholas D. Lowry shares his picks for The Subculture Sale. Bidding open now through February 8.
Swann Galleries continued to offer exceptional auctions of quality material in 2023. The year featured several collections, including a special selection of 100 works from the Stephen White collection in…
Our March 24 Printed Manuscript & African Americana sale will feature important material, from slavery through the civil rights era, as well as noteworthy literature and music, including iconic cornerstone…
One’s handwriting is unique unto oneself. For some, the style can remain consistent throughout the years. For others, the features that characterize their handwriting can change depending on circumstance, and…
Our Thursday, May 7, 2020 sale of Printed & Manuscript African Americana was held live online and was conducted remotely. “This was a strong auction regardless of the circumstances. The…
Among the highlights will be an 1836 autograph book with inscriptions by noted early African-American orators Moses Roper and Peter Williams. The large section on slavery and abolition will include several runaway broadsides and a miniature printing of the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation (the only one produced in pamphlet form) intended for soldiers to distribute among the freedmen in the south. Military papers include material written by African-American soldiers, including a Civil War letter and a Spanish-American War diary.
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.
On June 8, 1961, a journalist for The Protestant Hour, a long-running and widely syndicated weekly radio program out of Atlanta, sat down with four leaders of the Atlanta Student Movement to discuss their work in nonviolent direct action. Two reel-to-reel tapes were created as a result of the interview.
The 2010s brought Swann a number of notable moments including memorable sales, the establishment of two new departments, and the celebration of the 75th anniversary of our first sale. Here we take a look at some of favorite highlights from the last ten years.
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…
Auctions offer a moment where the sometimes-incalculable significance of an object is quantified. The price is reached through collaboration: specialists, consignors, the market, and finally, bidders convene in the room,…
A Record for The Negro Travelers’ Green Book Among Printed & Manuscript African Americana at Swann Our Printed & Manuscript African Americana on Thursday, March 28 saw a sell-through rate of 90%, a record for the category. Enthusiastic bidding was seen across all…
Institutional purchases dominated the buying field at our auction of Printed & Manuscript African Americana on March 29. The top lots of the auction were almost entirely manuscripts, archives, early…
New findings in our March 29 auction of Printed & Manuscript African-Americana clarify information behind iconic portraits of Black Panthers co-founder Huey P. Newton. Ensconced in a wicker…
On March 29 we will offer Printed & Manuscript African Americana, an array of material that encompasses a wide range of the African-American experience, from letters by Frederick Douglass to his…
The spring 2017 season at Swann Galleries marked the 75th anniversary of our first auction. On March 27, 1942, Benjamin Swann held an auction dedicated to rare and antiquarian books.…
From the catalogue for our March 30 sale of Printed & Manuscript African Americana. The sale will feature a run of 16 lots of letters and ephemera from Mount Vernon…
Among the highlights of our March 2014 auction of Printed & Manuscript African Americana is an extraordinary archive of letters written by George Washington Carver between 1925 and 1937. The…
“We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal” declares the extraordinary document brought forth by our founders on July 4, 1776. But as we…
