Specialists in the Field is an informal summer segment of the blog in which we speak to specialists at Swann about their extracurricular activities. Unsurprisingly, their interests are generally aligned with their specialty! We asked them to talk about what they’re reading, and compiled the results into a Swann Summer Reading List.

James A. Porter, Woman Reading, oil on canvas, 1930. Sold October 9, 2014 for $16,250.

Nicholas D. Lowry – President and Principle Auctioneer, Director of Vintage Posters
Paul Freedman, Ten Restaurants that Changed America, 2016.

This delightful and easy-to-read book encapsulates a world of pleasure for anyone who has an interest in food, history and travel. The author examines the influences of ten restaurants (from the 1830s through the present day) on American social, business and culinary culture. From a visual point of view, the book is illustrated with menus, menu covers, photographs, print ads and even a handful of old New Yorker covers. One image shows a still from an Andy Warhol-designed television commercial for the Schrafft’s chain of restaurants which he created in 1968. The book also resonates for me because of its genesis. Freedman explains that while researching a book on spices in the Middle Ages at the New York Public Library, he came across “an exhibition of selections from the library’s superlative menu collection organized by William Grimes of The New York Times. [It] fascinated me and made me wonder why American food was so different in the nineteenth century.” On December 12, 2002 we offered a large collection of vintage American menus, split into different groups. The designs, the selections offered and the prices quoted were all tantalizing snippets of a by-gone era. Freedman, inspired by similar material, has taken his inspiration to an interesting and very digestible conclusion.

Atina Sutton – African-American Fine Art
Phillippe R. Girard, editor, The Memoir of General Toussaint L’Ouverture, 2014.

This world-renowned autobiography and biography, translated and edited by Philippe R. Girard, shares the intimate accounts of the Haitian revolutionary, Toussaint L’Ouverture. These memoirs were written shortly before his death in the French prison of Fort de Joux after seizing control of the entire island of Hispaniola. L’Ouverture led former slaves into battle against the French, Spanish and English forces, gaining Haiti their independence in 1804 and leading the first Black insurrection. L’Ouverture’s memoirs provide a vivid alternative perspective to anonymous plantation records, quantitative analyses of slave trading and slave narratives mediated by their white counterparts. This memoir ends with Toussaint addressing his readers with this question, “Doubtless, I owe this treatment to my color; but my color,–my color,–has it hindered me from serving my country with zeal and fidelity? Does the color of my skin impair my honor and my bravery?”

Jacob Lawrence explores these accounts of the Haitian revolution in his series titled The Life of Toussaint L’Ouverture. Using silkscreen, Lawrence demonstrates these events in bright colors and with strong angular figures.

Daile Kaplan – Photographs & Photobooks
Ann Patchett, Commonwealth, 2016.

Although I have a soft spot for mysteries, which are a great escape during the busy calendar year, summer is a special time for serious reading catch-up. One of my favorite authors is Ann Patchett, whose latest novel, Commonwealth, is an absorbing read on blended family life. Earlier this year I was transfixed by her novel State of Wonder, a story of many twists and turns, and an extraordinary exotic travel sub-text. Loved it!

Deborah Rogal – Photographs & Photobooks
Lisa Ko, The Leavers, 2017.

I’m an avid fiction reader in my spare time, and over the past few years have become fascinated by the complex history of China as well as America’s relationship with its large immigrant population. The Leavers touches beautifully on these themes, with unique narrative styles and a different take on what it means to be Chinese and American. This novel is also about family and the ties that bind us together despite differences in generations and perspective.

Edward Gorey, New York is Book Country, group of 23 posters by various artists.
At auction August 2, 2017. Estimate $1,500 to $2,000.

Diana Flatto – American Art, Contemporary Art, Prints & Drawings
Roxane Gay, Bad Feminist: Essays, 2014.

I’ve been on a Gay kick in my pleasure reading, catching up with her recent book of short stories Difficult Women before the release of her memoir Hunger earlier this summer (both of which are also phenomenal). Bad Feminist is a great summer read since it is a book of digestible essays, and Gay’s incisive cultural commentary is sure to enthrall an arts and culture-loving audience.

Ferry Foster – Communications
Bernd Brunner, Bears: A Brief History, 2007.

Bernd Brunner’s oeuvre examines the cultural importance of a theme throughout history; in this case, bears. He uses early sources to support his narrative, covering the scientific, mythological, etymological and social history of bears and their relationship with humans. The book is filled with illustrations and interesting facts — for example, all seven bear species are descended from one common ancestor that was about the size of a terrier. I love learning about the secret relationships and influences of mundane things throughout history, especially when Brunner explains his findings with art depicting bears from myriad epochs and places.

 

Keavy Handley-Byrne – Photographs & Photobooks
Anne Carson, The Autobiography of Red, 1999.

The story of a monstrous young boy named Geryon, who falls in love with photography and a n’er-do-well named Herakles and navigates the dangerous waters of identity. This book is subtitled “a novel in verse,” and is loosely based on part of the Greek Herakles myth, in which Geryon is a red, winged monster. Anne Carson writes photographs the way most photographers visualize poetry, and it makes for a tender and heartbreaking read.

 

Childe Hassam, Reading in Bed, etching, 1915. Sold November 3, 2016 for $6,250.

 

Jessica Feldman – American Art, Contemporary Art, Prints & Drawings
Francine Prose, Peggy Guggenheim: The Shock of the Modern, 2015.

This biography gives a fascinating inside look at one of the most influential art world patrons of the twentieth century. Guggenheim was a renegade in every sense of the word–from saving artwork from Nazi destruction in Europe, to providing a platform through her New York Gallery for modern masters such as Alexander Calder, Willem de Kooning, Jackson Pollock, and many others. Her personal life proved to be just as fascinating as her professional life, and this book is sure to enthrall and educate modern art enthusiasts.

 

Lauren Goldberg – Vintage Posters
Kate Moore, The Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America’s Shining Women, 2017.

The most recent book I’ve read is an incredibly tragic but important homage to the “Radium Girls,” young women in Newark and Orange, New Jersey, as well as Ottawa, Illinois, who worked in Radium factories hand-painting dials for the military. Told that Radium would be beneficial to their health, they used their lips to point the brushes and took no safety precautions; while the corporations knew that the element could have negative effects, hundreds of women unknowingly poisoned themselves. The symptoms took years to emerge, and were often fatal. The author pays tribute to and humanizes these otherwise anonymous women, creating portraits of their lives while following them through their heart-wrenching illnesses. She details some of the court cases that ensued, seeking compensation for the workers. Many people have never heard of this tragedy, which spanned decades due to the slow-acting properties of Radium, years of court appeals, and push-back from the companies. However, the determination of the women and their lawyers is the reason we have many of the labor abuse laws and industrial safety rules in effect today.

 

Lauren Kristin – Communications
Rebecca Solnit, River of Shadows: Eadweard Muybridge and the Technological West, 2004.

Using biography as a venue for broader histories, Rebecca Solnit follows the story of Edward Muggeridge, a British expatriate and unlikely forefather of the moving image. Through a spoonful of name changes, melodrama, murder, and photographic innovation, the book draws direct and poetic lineages from post-Civil War California to the modern dramas of Hollywood and Silicon Valley. Transcontinental, industrial, unquiet and on the precipice of being globalized: the developing world of Eadweard Muybridge is the world from which we all accelerate.

 

Joseph Solman, Man Reading on the Subway, gouache over pencil on newsprint on card. Sold June 9, 2016 for $2,210.

The post Specialists in the Field: Summer Reading List appeared first on Swann Galleries News.

Our August 2 auction of Vintage Posters features the largest — and best — selection of war posters we have ever offered. As England prepared to enter World War Two, the government launched a poster campaign to entice women to join the Auxiliary Territorial Service. The ATS was the least populated branch of service women could join, possibly because of its frumpy reputation. Abram Games was commissioned to design a poster that changed the public perception of the ATS, but it seems he did too good a job: the independent “blonde bombshell” was deemed too suggestive for public consumption, and the poster was never published.

Lot 213: Abram Games, Join the ATS, 1941.
Estimate $3,000 to $4,000.

From the catalogue: This poster was “one of [Games’s] earliest assignments for the War Office [to] attract recruits to the least popular women’s service. His ‘blonde bombshell,’ as she came to be known, as glamorous as a Hollywood film siren and wearing the newly-designed cap that was part of the strategy to dispel the dowdy image that the ATS had acquired, was deemed too daring for public consumption. In October 1941, Parliament demanded that it should not be reprinted. The dramatic lighting evoking places of moral danger — shadowy night clubs perhaps — was as suggestive as the red lipstick and plucked eyebrow. A photograph of a marching brunette replaced it. Lacking the sexuality of Games’ design, it was felt to attract the ‘right sort,’ something Games’ recruit, exhibiting worrying independence and self-assurance, clearly was not.” We could find only two other copies at auction.

Lot 214: You Are Wanted Too! Join the A.T.S., designer unknown, circa 1941. Estimate $500 to $750.

By chance, both the censored and approved posters will be offered in our upcoming Vintage Posters auction. Browse the full catalogue.

The post Abram Games’s Sultry Poster Causes a Stir appeared first on Swann Galleries News.

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 news. According to legend, the famous aviatrix’s plane crash landed into the Pacific. With the discovery of this latest photograph, some believed she may have landed on the Marshall Islands in 1937, where she was rescued.

The photograph purporting to show Amelia Earhart in Jaluit Atoll. Courtesy of the U.S. National Archives.

The notion that photographic images convey layers of information is writ large in this latest story. Indeed the History Channel has relied on a single photograph, purportedly picturing Earhart strolling on a pier, to make their case regarding Earhart’s landing in the new documentary Amelia Earhart: The Lost Evidence. However, as NPR journalist Laurel Wamsley opines, “I think if you are shown this photograph, it would not necessarily occur to you that this is absolutely Amelia Earhart.” The photograph has since been debunked.

Photo detecting is an integral part of being an auction house specialist. But, for me, it holds special meaning. As a young arts administrator I was managing an archive containing 500,000 early twentieth-century photographs, among which was a cache of images depicting European refugees–mostly children–during the first World War. The pictures were great and clearly produced by the same photographer. Since I had just returned from living in Paris, my response was immediate: let’s discover who made the photographs and their purpose.

Lewis W. Hine, Gathering food from the dumps, Salonika, Macedonia (American Red Cross), sepia-toned silver print, 1918, printed 1920s-30s.
Sold February 14, 2007 for $4,560.

After a bit of lucky sleuthing, I was led to a huge room at the Library of Congress housing hundreds of thousands of photographs compiled by the American Red Cross. Because I was able to “crack the cataloging code,” I had located Lewis W. Hine‘s ‘lost’ photographs of ARC relief efforts in 1918-19. His poignant photographs were the topic of my first book, Lewis Hine in Europe, The ‘Lost’ Photographs. Moreover they transformed my identity from amateur scholar to (semi) mature curator.

The thrill of discovery is its own reward. But the idea that a photograph can reveal new truths is one that makes my heart beat faster.

The post Daile Kaplan on The Thrill of Photographic Discovery appeared first on Swann Galleries News.

Shrewd perusers of our sales may notice a familiar eave lurking in the catalogue for our upcoming auction of Vintage Posters: the iconic orange roof of the beach house at Isle Adam, a popular resort outside of Paris. The same structure seen in Leon Blot’s poster L’Isle Adam / Chemin de Fer du Nord is visible in the background of William Glackens’s circa 1925-26 canvas The Beach, Isle Adam, which sold at our annual American Art auction on June 15.

William Glackens, The Beach, Isle Adam, oil on canvas, 1925-26. Sold June 15, 2017 for $581,000.

The painting, which topped our spring sales at $581,000, depicts bathers at Isle Adam, where Glackens and his family lived during the summers of 1926-28. It is the artist’s most significant work from the mid-1920s that portrays his celebrated beachgoers and the first instance since 1906 that Glackens painted a beach scene of Europe. The rich, brilliantly-lit colors, short brushstrokes, liveliness and motion that beautifully define the canvas showcase his distinctly American vein of Impressionism.

Lot 336: Leon Blot, L’Isle Adam / Chemin de fer du Nord. Estimate $400 to $600.

The famous beach sits on the River Oise, about 16 miles northwest of Paris. According to the regional tourist office, it is “the largest and oldest river beach in France.” It was incorporated in 1910. It was instantly a popular destination for weekenders from Paris and around the world. Before this, the region was a favorite muse of Charles-François Daubigny and Vincent van Gogh.

The beach and pool at Isle Adam, showing the beach house in the background. Courtesy of L’Isle Adam Tourist Office.

The work by Leon Blot will be available in our August 2 auction of Vintage Posters. Browse the full catalogue.

The post Isle Adam: Inspiration for All Artists appeared first on Swann Galleries News.

An unusual lot in our upcoming auction of Vintage Posters features an unusual individual: Captain Costentenus, a Greek Albanian man tattooed from head to foot.

Lot 2: Captain Costentenus, 1876. Estimate $800 to $1,200.

Captain Costentenus was tattooed over his entire body and claimed to have had them applied on him as punishment by Chinese Tartars when he was caught on a gold-seeking expedition to Burma. Upon his return to western civilization, he joined the circus. As early as 1874, he was appearing at the Folies Bergère in Paris, and the following year he came to America. After a brief stint at the New American Museum in New York, he began working for P.T. Barnum, touring with his circus on and off through the end of the decade.

According to the New York Historical Society in their 2017 exhibition Tattooed New York, “For more than 300 years, New York has played a central role in the development of modern tattooing, from its origins in Native American body art to the introduction of the craft by sailors in colonial New York, from the development of a New York style to the three-decade tattoo ban instituted in 1961 and the subsequent underground tattoo culture.”

La Bella Angora, 1910. Sold February 7, 2002 for $3,220.

The striking graphic of tattooed performers made them an ideal subject for circus posters. In another example, “The Tattooed Queen” is depicted at different angles and, as her backstory, is shown getting tattooed.

Today, instead of tattooed persons appearing on posters, you’re more likely to find a person with a poster tattooed onto them. A poster’s inherent bold, graphic quality makes them ideal for tattooing. Designed to be recognizable, the meaning of an iconic poster is enhanced, changed or subverted when its image is used as a body modifier. The August 2 Vintage Posters auction is bursting with iconic imagery that has inspired people for decades.

Lot 54: Alphonse Mucha, Zodiac, 1900. Estimate $12,000 to $18,000.

With Zodiac, Mucha’s style reaches full maturity, with each of his signature design elements in their most fluid and elaborate incarnations. The image was originally published as a calendar by F. Champenois but was quickly bought by La Plume, who began issuing it as a calendar with their own name at the top. The image was a huge success and was ultimately used for a variety of different advertising purposes; at least ten different variations have been identified. This is a previously unrecorded variant, possibly a proof, with registration marks in the corners and within the blank calendarium and the absence of Mucha’s printed signature.

Lot 141: James Montgomery Flagg, I Want You for U.S. Army, 1917. Estimate $7,000 to $10,000.

James Montgomery Flagg’s searing rendition of Uncle Sam galvanized generations of Americans into battle, and cemented the bearded, top-hatted man into the national consciousness. Countless interpretations of this poster have been permanently etched onto bodies since it was first published, exactly 100 years ago.

James Montgomery Flagg, I Want You, on an arm. Courtesy Lady Luck Tattoo.

Find more inspiration in our full catalogue.

The post The Symbiotic Relationship Between Tattoos & Posters appeared first on Swann Galleries News.

While we live in a digital age, faced with a tsunami of photographs on all manner of devices, many modern artists have returned to the earliest photographic techniques. These were delicate, time-consuming processes and produced a result that existed as a physical, tangible object. Some of these artists, described as “the antiquarian avant-garde,” are represented in our April 20 auction of Images & Objects: Photographs & Photobooks.

The daguerreotype, developed by Louis Daguerre and unveiled in 1839, was the first reliable photographic process. The Metropolitan Museum of Art describes it thusly: “Each daguerreotype is a remarkably detailed, one-of-a-kind photographic image on a highly polished, silver-plated sheet of copper, sensitized with iodine vapors, exposed in a large box camera, developed in mercury fumes, and stabilized (or fixed) with salt water or ‘hypo’ (sodium thiosulphate).” The result is an extremely fragile image on a silvery background, which changes from positive to negative as you turn it in your hand.

Jerry Spagnoli, Jack-Be-Little Squash, daguerreotype, 2000-15. From Heirloom Harvest.

As M. Mark says in Heirloom Harvest, a recent publication illustrated with daguerreotypes by contemporary photographer Jerry Spagnoli, “The daguerreotype, photography’s original form, has been described as a mirror with a memory, and in fact the technology announced by Louis Daguerre in 1839 depends literally on a mirror. Because the daguerreotype plate is a sheet of copper coated in polished silver, viewers encounter both an image and a virtual image, a doubling that leads to depictions of almost holographic clarity and depth. Holding a daguerreotype in your hands allows you to see the subject–let’s say a cabbage or a peach–in splendid detail, but if you move the plate even slightly, you see instead a reflection of yourself. This is an intensely intimate form of time travel.”

Lot 227: Adam Fuss, Untitled (Human Skull), unique, oversized daguerreotype, 2002. Estimate $15,000 to $25,000.

Adam Fuss is an avid practitioner of the modern daguerreotype. He is invested in pushing the possibilities of the medium, and created the largest daguerreotype ever. He frequently explores timeless themes of birth and death, as seen in Untitled (Human Skull), 2002.

Lot 225: John Dugdale, Giovanni Through Screen, one of three cyanotype prints, 1992-94. Estimate $3,000 to $4,000.

Cyanotypes were developed by English scientist and astronomer Sir John Herschel in 1842. They are named for their vibrant blue color, which is due to a chemical reaction between UV light and ferric ferrocyanide. The process eventually fell out of favor, but has, like the daguerreotype, experienced a resurgence. American artist John Dugdale turned to vintage processes after nearly going blind in the early 1990s. He specializes in traditional compositions with a distinctly modern twist.

Lot 226: John Dugdale, Pink Spatter Ware, one of three cyanotypes, 1992-94. Estimate $3,000 to $4,000.

The tintype replaced the daguerreotype in the 1860s because it developed much more quickly. A daguerreotype might take several hours to develop, but a tintype could be given to the sitter within minutes. They were especially popular at amusement parks, and because they were more stable, they did not need to be kept under glass. Jayne Hinds Bidaut‘s near-scientific reproductions of animals recall the early use of photographs as a scientific tool.

Lot 223: Jayne Hinds Bidaut, Butterfly, Peru (Diaethria ethusa), tintype, 2001. Estimate $600 to $900.

Browse the full catalogue.

The post Modern Daguerreotypes & More appeared first on Swann Galleries News.

Nigel Freeman, founder and director of our African-American Fine Art department, is in London this week visiting some familiar images. Two of the works in the Tate Modern’s latest exhibition, Soul of a Nation: Art in the Age of Black Power, passed through the halls of Swann Galleries.

Nigel Freeman at the Tate Modern exhibition, Soul of a Nation: Art in the Age of Black Power.

Kay Brown, The Devil and His Game, mixed media collage, 1970.
Sold October 7, 2008.

Kay Brown, The Devil and His Game at the Tate. Photo by Nigel Freeman.

The Tate said of the impetus behind the show, “The call for Black Power initiated powerful and inspiring images of political leaders such as Malcolm X and Angela Davis and even works of radical abstraction invoking Martin Luther King’s legacy. Soul of a Nation showcases this debate between figuration and abstraction, from Faith Ringgold’s American People Series #20: Die, 1967, and Wadsworth Jarrell’s Black Prince, 1971, to Frank Bowling’s Texas Louise, 1971, and Sam Gilliam’s April 4, 1969. A highlight is Homage to Malcolm, 1970, by Jack Whitten,which is on public display for the very first time. Whitten was awarded the National Medal of Arts by Barack Obama in 2015.

The exhibition showcases the work of a number of artists we’re very familiar with. These include Benny Andrews, Romare Bearden, Elizabeth Catlett, Roy DeCarava, Melvin Edwards, Barkley L. Hendricks, Carolyn Mims Lawrence, Norman Lewis, Betye Saar and William T. Williams.

David Hammons, Untitled (Double Body Print Collage), pigment and ink with printed paper collage, 1976. Sold April 6, 2017.

David Hammons, Untitled (Double Body Print Collage) at the Tate. Photo by Nigel Freeman.

Sam Gilliam, Frank Bowling and Martin Puryear at the Tate. Photo by Nigel Freeman.

William T. Williams, Daniel LaRue Johnson and Virginia Jaramillo at the Tate. Photo by Nigel Freeman.

Archibald Motley, Kay Brown, Faith Ringgold and Elizabeth Catlett at the Tate. Photo by Nigel Freeman.

Background: Jeff Donaldson, Gerald Williams, Wadsworth Jarrell;
Foreground: Jae Jarrell at the Tate. Photo by Nigel Freeman.

Three works by Barkley L. Hendricks at the Tate. Photo by Nigel Freeman.

Soul of a Nation will be open through October 22, 2017. Our next auction of African-American Fine Art will be on October 5.

The post Specialists in the Field: Nigel Freeman at the Tate appeared first on Swann Galleries News.

We learned this morning the very sad news of the passing of Barkley Hendricks. We have lost one of the great American painters of this and the last century. Hendricks raised portraiture to a new level – changing contemporary art with his dashing life-size portraits. They were amazing accomplishments in both style and substance. Barkley created indelible images of the people he knew, paintings that were both tour-de-forces in technique and iconic representations of the 1970s. I was honored to get to know Barkley when bringing several of his paintings to auction.

Nigel Freeman
Director, African-American Fine Art
Swann Auction Galleries

Swann Galleries is proud to have handled many of his artworks, including Steve, 1976, and Tuff Tony, 1978, two important works from the artist’s “white on white” series. Hendricks’s late 1970s paintings are now widely recognized as pioneering accomplishments in American art and portraiture, and significant precursors to many themes found in contemporary art today.

Barkley L. Hendricks, Steve, oil, acrylic and Magna on canvas, 1976. Sold April 2, 2015 for $365,000, a tied record.

Barkley Hendricks, Tuff Tony, oil and acrylic on canvas, 1978.
Sold December 15, 2015 for $365,000, a tied record.

The post Barkley Hendricks, 1945-2017 appeared first on Swann Galleries News.

More than 600 colorful advertisements and announcements crossed the block at our sale of Vintage Posters on Wednesday, August 2. The encyclopedic selection represented a century’s worth of development in graphic design, history and technology.

Lot 141: James Montgomery Flagg, I Want You for U.S. Army, 1917. Sold August 2, 2017 for $14,300.

In honor of the centennial anniversary of the U.S.’s entry into WWI, the sale featured the largest selection of war propaganda the house has ever offered. According to Nicholas D. Lowry, Swann Galleries’ President and Director of Vintage Posters, the varied designs from 1917 are the result of the government giving illustrators free rein to create striking imagery that continues to resonate today. Highlights from this category include works by James Montgomery Flagg, lead by I Want You for U.S. Army, which sold for $14,300, and Wake Up America Day ($5,250).

Lot 218: Keep Calm and Carry On, designer unknown, 1939. Sold August 2, 2017 for $15,000.

The top lot was the iconic British directive Keep Calm and Carry On, 1939, which was purchased by a collector for $15,000. Additional highlights from WWII included Join the ATS, 1941, a poster by Abram Games considered so scandalous it was never published ($6,500), and a suite of patriotic works by Leo Lionni, titled Keep ‘Em Rolling!, 1941, purchased by an institution for $8,750. Lowry added, “As expected, the war posters and propaganda sold exceptionally well, with nearly 80% of lots offered finding buyers.” War poster sales accounted for nearly half of the total revenue of the auction.

Lot 54: Alphonse Mucha, Zodiac, 1900. Sold August 2, 2017 for $11,250.

Fin de siècle works performed well, with a pencil drawing by Alphonse Mucha nearly doubling its estimate to sell for $10,400. The Art Nouveau master was also represented by Zodiac, 1900, Job, 1898, and Salon des Cent, 1896 ($11,250, $6,563 and $6,500, respectively). A monumental circa 1905 advertisement for Abricotine liqueur by Eugène Grasset reached $8,125, while Ausstellung für Amateur – Photographie, a 1908 ad for cameras by Burkhard Mangold, was purchased for $4,750, a record for the work. Walter Schackenberg’s complete 1920 portfolio of striking costume designs, Ballet und Pantomine, reached $11,250.

Lot 449: Rick Griffin, Jimi Hendrix Experience / John Mayall, 1968. Sold August 2, 2017 for $11,875.

Posters promoting performers spanned a century and encompassed a variety of acts. One of the oldest works in the sale depicted the heavily tattooed Captain Constentenus at P.T. Barnum’s New American Museum in 1876; it reached more than five times its high estimate, finally selling to a buyer on the phone for $6,750. Nearly 100 years later, Rick Griffin created the well-known eyeball design for the Jimi Hendrix Experience, 1968 ($11,875). An undated, life-size advertisement for Danté, often considered the last Golden Age magician, was purchased by a collector for $12,500.

Lot 566: Danté / Sim – Sala – Bim!, designer unknown. Sold August 2, 2017 for $12,500.

Browse the catalogue for complete results. The next sale of Vintage Posters at Swann Galleries will be Rare & Important Travel Posters on October 26, 2017. For more information or consign quality materials, contact Nicholas D. Lowry at posters@swanngalleries.com.

The post Records & Results: Vintage Posters appeared first on Swann Galleries News.

Keavy Handley-Byrne of 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 brushing iron salts, which are light-sensitive, onto a sheet of plain paper. These iron salts oxidize in the light and turn a brilliant Prussian blue color. We see many industrial and amateur photographs from the Victorian era to the 1920s using this simple technique. The beautiful blue prints appeal to vernacular photography collectors, and have been rediscovered by contemporary artists.

20 photographs documenting the construction of a trestle bridge in France, cyanotypes, 1899-1902. Sold April 19, 2016 for $15,000.

The vivid color prints of a dye transfer print were originally used for advertising. Considered one of the most stable color printing techniques, they can often be distinguished from chromogenic prints by the paper base or stock. Dye transfer prints are made on fiber-base paper. These photographs have a rich color palette and occasionally there are faint registration lines at the edge of the image area where the three color negatives used in this process do not align. Popularized by William Eggleston, the technique has been discontinued.

Ernst Haas, The Creation, complete portfolio with 10 dye-transfer prints, 1962-81, printed 1981. Sold October 15, 2015 for $6,000.

Another stable color photography technique, cibachrome prints can be distinguished from dye transfer prints by their bold color palette, plastic-like paper base and very subtle metallic appearance. These are favored by Nan Goldin, whose prints have a luminous quality and vivid color range.

Nan Goldin, Brian in the cabana, Puetro Juarez, Mexico, oversized cibachrome print, 1982. Sold February 14, 2017 for $8,450.

Danny Lyon, Danny Lyon, complete portfolio with 30 silver prints, New York, 1962-79, printed 1979. Sold April 20, 2017 for $30,000.

Photogravures are made by a “photomechanical” process, and is a form of intaglio printmaking. Photogravures can be distinguished by a plate mark surrounding the image area, which reveals depressions from the copper plate. Alfred Stieglitz’s Camera Work magazine employed the finest photogravures, and this was also the preferred technique of Edward Curtis in creating The North American Indian.

Alfred Stieglitz, Camera Work, Number 36, with 16 photogravures, New York, 1911. Sold April 20, 2017 for $20,000.

Auctions of Photographs & Photobooks at Swann frequently boast works made by these popular techniques, as well as many less common methods.

The post Identifying Types of Photographic Prints appeared first on Swann Galleries News.

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 existed, TV programs and noir films were produced in black-and-white, and print media was devoid of color. All of this was readily accepted by the public. Black-and-white, or classical fine art photography, was the visual language of the twentieth century. Although silver prints were often quite small, approximately eight by ten inches, they still presented myriad opportunities for creative pictorial expression.

Jimmy De Sana, book maquette for Submission, with 31 silver prints, 1979.
Sold April 17, 2014 for $22,500.

Today it’s hard to find pictures that don’t appear digitally, in color, or that aren’t selfies. Of course, images that utilize a full chromatic palette can be pretty astounding. But the whites, grays and blacks of a photograph made by hand, in a darkroom, often conveys a distinctly transformed reality. The bold graphic qualities of a black-and-white photograph render form, line, shape and texture in essentially new ways.

Ansel Adams, Moonrise, Hernandez, New Mexico, mural-size silver print, 1941, reprocessed 1948, printed early- to mid-1950s. Sold February 25, 2016 for $221,000.

Take the work of Ansel Adams, for example. He pre-visualized the image Moonrise, Hernandez, New Mexico; he saw the picture in his mind’s eye before it existed on film or paper. Moonrise is a profound visual poem—tombstones in a cemetery subtly lit by moonlight—that speaks to our common humanity.

Lewis W. Hine, Safety-man coming up on mooring mast, Empire State Building, silver print, 1930. Sold December 12, 2013 for $21,250.

Photography has always relied on advances in technology and optics. Adams himself was famous for developing a set of principles, known as “the zone system,” that articulated his masterful technique. However the attention he devoted to creating a photographic print wasn’t just a geeky exercise, it was a personal practice that drew from his longstanding belief in the inherent beauty and power of the photographic object: the print.

The next auction of Photographs & Photobooks at Swann Galleries will be held on October 19, 2017. To consign quality materials, please contact Daile Kaplan at dkaplan@swanngalleries.com.

The post Black and White All Over: The Riddle of Classical Photography appeared first on Swann Galleries News.

One of the best parts of working at Swann is the ability to be surrounded by incredible varieties of art collecting and witness their intersection within our gallery. Our specialists (who are each, at heart, huge nerds) share interests across fields and enjoy educating ourselves, and this has primed us to recognize conceptual connections between seemingly dissimilar items when out in the wider art world.

Above: Sol LeWitt, Drawing #411B, #411D, #411E. At Dia: Beacon.
Below: P.C., Cinzano. Sold May 25, 2017 for $1,063.

It was in this frame of mind that I visited Dia: Beacon last month. Dia: Beacon, a cookie box printing factory turned world-renowned contemporary art center in Beacon, New York, houses nearly 300,000 square feet of exhibition space devoted to the works of artistic minds such as Dan Flavin, Sol Lewitt, Robert Irwin, Donald Judd and John Chamberlain. It is, in short, an art oasis in the Hudson Valley.

Left: Richard Serra, Union of the Torus and the Sphere, 2001. At Dia: Beacon.
Right: Adolphe Mouron Cassandre, Normandie, 1935. Sold May 25, 2017 for $22,500.

With the intention of quietly consuming a healthy dose of contemporary art on a weekend, the result was my mind racing between the monumental works art in front of me, and the poster design mediums with which I am most familiar.

Left: Sol LeWitt, Wall Drawing #235 The location of three points, 1974.
Right: Charles Kuhn, Telephone International, 1930. Sold May 25, 2017 for $2,500.

The conceptual nature of the art in Beacon lends itself to this train of thought. The mediums themselves are recognizable in advertising, such as the fluorescent tube lights which make up Dan Flavin’s iconic light sculptures, which were advertised with similar dynamism by Orsi in the 1940s. Similarly, the geometric elements and color schemes of many of the works are graphic design fundamentals, echoed in advertising and propaganda from the last century.

Left: Dan Flavin, Untitled, 1969. At Dia: Beacon.
Right: Orsi, Lamp Flourescente / Philips, circa 1940. Sold May 25, 2017 for $4,000.

The post Specialists in the Field: Sarah Shelburne at Dia: Beacon appeared first on Swann Galleries News.

Some people made such an impact on history that we see them in multiple sales each season, across widely disparate genres. One such figure was Mexican revolutionary Emiliano Zapata, who helped to lead a rebellion against the government in the first decades of the twentieth century. He is represented in two of our fall 2017 auctions: 19th & 20th Century Prints & Drawings and Printed & Manuscript Americana.

Commanding the Liberation Army of the South from his home state in Morelos, Zapata sought land reform and supported the 1911 overthrow of President Porfirio Díaz. When Díaz’s successor Francisco Madero also proved uninterested in land reform, Zapata continued the struggle. The Zapatistas, a rebel group that still exists today, formed in support of Zapata’s ideals of bringing power to peasants.

A highlight in our September 28 auction of Printed & Manuscript Americana is a letter from Zapata to the railroad offices of Mexico, in a file relating to the Madero government’s counter-insurgency efforts against the Zapatistas. Headed “Ejército Libertador del Sur, Circular 210” and dated Morelos, 25 August 1912, it notifies all railroad employees and passengers that any trains leaving Mexico City after 10 September will be attacked by Zapata’s revolutionary army. It closes ““Reforma, Libertad, Justicia y Ley” (Reform, Liberty, Justice and Law).

Lot 315: Archive documenting Mexican counterinsurgency efforts against the Zapatistas, with an Autograph Letter Signed by Emiliano Zapata, 1912. At auction September 28, 2017.
Estimate $5,000 to $7,500.

This is the earliest signature by the revolutionary to come to market since 1986. The remainder of the file consists of reports from field agents to the chief inspectors of the Mexican Police, Major Emiliano López Figueroa and Anastasio Bravo. They discuss attempts to infiltrate Zapatista bases in Morelos; investigations of Zapatista collaborators in Mexico City; and inspections of federal trains in search of smuggled ammunition and weapons.

The Zapatista movement influenced the life and work of Mexican muralist Diego Rivera. Though the two never met–Zapata was assassinated in 1919–he appeared several times in Rivera’s work over the years.

Lot 280: Diego Rivera, Zapata, lithograph, 1932. At auction September 19, 2017. Estimate $15,000 to $20,000.

On his return from art school in Europe, Rivera was offered a one-man show the Museum of Modern Art in New York. For six weeks, he worked on a series of five “portable murals” that illustrated the Mexican Revolution. The lithograph offered in our 19th & 20th Century Prints & Drawings auction on September 19 is based on one of these murals. Rivera created only fourteen prints in his entire career.

Diego Rivera, Agrarian Leader Zapata, fresco on galvanized steel framework, 1931. Courtesy of MoMA.

For more, browse the catalogues:

19th & 20th Century Prints & Drawings

Printed & Manuscript Americana

The post Mexican Revolutionary Emiliano Zapata appeared first on Swann Galleries News.

Specialists in the Field is our segment devoted to specialists incorporating their work into their lives and vice versa. Keavy Handley-Byrne of our Photographs & Photobooks department contributed.

Over the last two years, my colleague Diana Flatto from the Prints & Drawings department has been working towards an MA with a curatorial certificate at Hunter College, the culmination of which will be an exhibition entitled Framing Community: Magnum Photographs 1947-Present. Through Swann, Diana and I were lucky enough to connect and become friends around photography and art, frequently visiting museums together and sharing discourse surrounding both classical and contemporary photographs. Most recently, we visited the closing weekend of Magnum Manifesto at the International Center of Photography.

Diana Flatto at Magnum Manifesto at the International Center of Photography.

Magnum is one of the most far-reaching and well-known networks of photographers in the world. The work included in this show ran the gamut of their oeuvre, giving a sampling of important works by Magnum photographers from multiple generations working all over the globe. In terms of contemporary photography, a few old friends were prominently featured; Inge Morath’s Mask Series, a kind of artistic collaboration with Saul Steinberg, could be found in the third room of the exhibition on their own wall. An image from the project will be offered in our October 19 auction of Art & Storytelling: Photographs & Photobooks.

Inge Morath, from Saul Steinberg: Mask Series, 1962.

Additionally, works by Danny Lyon from his series Conversations with the Dead and the magazine spreads in which they appeared were presented in a striking and timely way. Magazine spreads were present throughout the earlier generation’s portions of the exhibition, keying into a more recent fascination with press prints, ephemera and vernacular photography.

Danny Lyon, magazine spread with material from
Conversations with the Dead, 1971.

One of the most important aspects of the show highlighted that Magnum is a living, growing organization that continues to encourage photographers to document their worlds, however large or small they may be. Contemporary photographs and photobooks were abundant, and seeing them contextualized under the auspices of Magnum brought home the versatility of the medium, and indeed, how various the distinctions of “documentary photography” can be.

Mikhael Subotzky, from the Ponte City series, circa 2011, with zine-like book maquettes.

Martin Parr, 7 Communist Still Lifes, 2003.

Thankfully, attending exhibitions of this sort always reminds me that I am never finished learning about photography, and never finished drawing important and edifying connections between contemporary photography and its forebears.

Diana Flatto admiring works by Olivia Arthur.

Keavy Handley-Byrne lost in Mediterranean Sea, 2015, by Paolo Pellegrin.

The post Specialists in the Field: Keavy Handley-Byrne & Diana Flatto at Magnum Manifesto appeared first on Swann Galleries News.

The top lot in our September 19 auction of 19th & 20th Century Prints & Drawings is a masterful lithograph by Pablo Picasso of his muse, Françoise Gilot. The following notes from the catalogue describe their tumultuous relationship.

Lot 338: Pablo Picasso, Françoise sur fond gris, lithograph, 1950.
0Estimate $70,000 to $100,000.

Picasso called Françoise Gilot “The Woman Who Says No,” as she alone among his many lovers dared to defy him and ultimately left him in the south of France. She was his muse and mistress from 1943 to 1953 and the mother of their children, Claude and Paloma. Françoise was born to a wealthy family in Neuilly-sur-Seine. Her father was a businessman and her mother was an amateur artist. From an early age, Françoise yearned to be an artist like her mother, but her father forced her to study law, which she ultimately abandoned after several failed attempts to resist her father’s control, by 1942 devoting her life to becoming an artist.

Robert Capa, Picasso and his wife, Françoise Gilot, Golfe-Juan, France, silver print, 1948, printed 1985. Sold December 12, 2013 for $6,250.

Their relationship began the following year, when she was 21–a neophyte in the art world. Picasso, who had just turned 61 years old, was among the most famous living artists on the planet. Gilot put her artistic pursuits on hold to raise their two children. She and Picasso fought frequently, however, and by the early 1950s their relationship had dissolved. She separated from the artist and left their home in the south of France and to live with their children to Paris.

Robert Doisneau, Picasso et Françoise Gilot, silver print, 1952, printed 1980s. Sold April 4, 2012 for $2,880.

Henri Matisse was also fond of Gilot and found artistic inspiration in her. He remarked that he would paint her with a pale blue body and leaf-green hair, prompting Picasso to create La Femme-Fleur, 1946, another famous portrait of Françoise, hyper-stylized with a pale blue body and leaves for hair.

Pablo Picasso, Femme Fleur, oil on canvas, 1946.
Private collection.

Françoise sur fond gris — a tour-de-force lithograph — is the second, more complete version of Picasso’s two lithograph portraits of Françoise from November 1950. He shows her with characteristic narrow, arching eyebrows, full lips and youthful visage. Impressions of this highly-worked lithograph were printed in black on a bluish gray paper (perhaps harkening to the blue-toned figure of Françoise in La Femme-Fleur) adhered to a sturdy cream wove paper during the printing process. The heightened drawing of the portrait and the quality of the printing process combine to produce perhaps the most visually stunning and successful lithographs Picasso created during the span of his prolific career.

Françoise Gilot, Self Portrait Full Face, graphite, 1941. Courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

After leaving Picasso, Gilot returned to her own artistic endeavors. She wrote a memoir about their relationship, titled Life with Picasso, 1964. In 1970 she married Jonas Salk, the inventor of the Polio vaccine. She continues to paint in New York City.

Browse the full catalogue for more.

The post Who is Françoise Gilot? appeared first on Swann Galleries News.

As Hurricane Harvey roared through Houston last month, an unlikely victim was left behind: the monumental 1953 mural by John Biggers, titled Contribution of Negro Women to American Life and Education.

For more than 60 years, the massive work has stood in the Blue Triangle Community Center in Houston’s Third Ward. It was the first important mural the artist painted following his move to the area from New York.

John Biggers, Contribution of Negro Women to American Life and Education (detail), 1953. Courtesy of the Houston Chronicle.

The Blue Triangle Center describes the work thus: “The right side represents slavery out of which Harriet Tubman leads people, symbolized by the Torch of Freedom pushing over the column, symbol of dominant society which is supported by man’s labor. Left of the column, the Tree of Life, also supported by man’s labor embraces the balance of the mural depicting progress in education, science, music and healthful living with Sojourner Truth as the Pioneer Teacher. The search for knowledge in a free society becomes available to the old and young, men and women, as symbolized by the old man reading the lamp. The contribution of a third woman Phillis Wheatley appears in the book being read by the mother with the child. All of that embraced by the Tree of Life is in contrast to the hopelessness expressed in the figures at the far Right. The church on each side symbolizes the spiritual background of our society.”

In 2016, the Center tried to raise money to fix the roof above the mural, but they could not secure the funds. After Harvey whipped through the city, Blue Triangle Community members returned to the building to find blooms of black mold spreading across the surface of the work.

Conservationists at work on the mural. Courtesy of the Houston Chronicle.

According to the Houston Chronicle, “The mural can be saved. The preliminary diagnosis credits Biggers’ use of two coats of white paint to prime the wall, which protected the colors from moisture.”

If you’re interested in seeing this important piece of American art history preserved, Blue Triangle is seeking funds to repair and strengthen the mural, as well as to repair the leaking maze of roofs above it to prevent another catastrophe. To help, please contact Lucy Bremond, a member of the Blue Triangle Friends, at lucybremond@gmail.com

The post John Biggers Mural Damaged by Hurricane Harvey appeared first on Swann Galleries News.

Swann is honored to commemorate the legacy of Marlene Dietrich by offering for the first time select items that have touched her life and that of her family. Our May 4 sale of Autographs will open with an array of letters addressed to the actress, as well as her own photographs and promotional materials.

Lot 22: Archive of over 50 photographs of Marlene Dietrich, including a family portrait of Dietrich at five years old, Berlin, 1905. Estimate $3,000 to $4,000.

Items on offer include a 1905 family portrait, showing young Marlene at five years old (far right). The run includes letters written to Dietrich by her famous lovers and admirers, offering an intoxicating glimpse into the private sphere of one of the world’s first film icons.

Lot 7: Ernest Hemingway, Autograph Letter Signed “Love / Mr. Papa,” to Marlene Dietrich, Cuba, 1952. Estimate $20,000 to $30,000.

“Your cable came Sunday afternoon and the phone was so bad I couldn’t hear it. All I could make out was . . . that I had not sent you a book and I had forgotten you. Balls. So then I tried to find you in NY. And when the call came through had to shout into the phone and could not hear your lovely voice and we said goodbye like people who did not understand each other nor love each other. . . .

“. . . Please know I love you always and I forget you sometimes as I forget my heart beats. But it beats always. Lots of times I have what seem like very bad troubles, at least they seem bad because people die, or I am bitched out of money unbelievably or people I love get cancer; or I start to not give a damn about anything and wish things were simple like in a war where you can just do your duty and maybe be killed . . . .

“When I decided to publish this Old Man and the Sea it was all like a military secret because of lining up the book of month, Life, Scribner’s and everything was on that basis. Naturally everyone gives away the secret but me. You know I would not tell you a military secret if I were in bed, or drunk or anything. So I did not send you the Mss. once it was in that secretive basis. But I know people who were sworn not to show it to other people did. One son of a bitch wrote me, very gloatingly, that I would be annoyed to know it but that he had already read it. . . . I would rather have you read it than anyone.
“Nobody knows I am a good poet except you and Mary. Probably I am a better poet than anything. But you are the one who knows it best . . . .

“If you have any bad problem or if you are bad lonely would you like to come down here? Or would you like to come down here just for fun?

“You know if you feel bad and want to talk or go swimming, or on the ocean, or read, or eat and drink well or anything, you can fly here in 4 1/2 hours. I think you would have fun. I know I would. I know we would.”

Hemingway’s novella The Old Man and the Sea was first published in the September 1, 1952, issue of Life magazine. Appearing in the August 18, 1952, issue of that magazine was Winthrop Sargeant’s article, Dietrich and Her Magic Myth; the article includes an image of Marlene Dietrich in her New York apartment, where a table displays a large photograph of Hemingway inscribed “With love, Papa.”

Lot 1: Jean Cocteau, Autograph Manuscript Signed, working draft of his poem, Tribute of Jean Cocteau to Marlene Dietrich, in French, circa 1954. Estimate $4,000 to $6,000.

In addition to several letters from Jean Cocteau to Dietrich, there is also a working draft of a poem he wrote for her, probably on the occasion of her appearance at the Polio Gala on August 17, 1954, where is was read aloud by Jean Marais.

“Marlene Dietrich! Your name starts with a caress and ends with a whip. You wear feathers and furs, which seem to belong to your heart like the furs of the wild beasts and the feathers of the birds. Your voice and your eyes are those of the Lorelei, but Lorelei was dangerous. . . .”

Lot 4: Noël Coward, Autograph Letter Signed to Marlene Dietrich, thanking her for the present of a blue alpaca suit, in French, London, July 13, 1951. Estimate $600 to $900.

The British playwright Noël Coward wrote to Dietrich informing her of his upcoming trip to the South of France with Hugh Beaumont (whom he calls ‘Binkie’) to discuss his latest play–possibly Relative Values. He also thanks her for a rather unusal gift:

“. . . [M]y blue Alpaca dinner jacket suit is the smartest thing ever seen on land or sea & is one of the loveliest presents I have ever had–and you are a darling duck.
“Life over here has been highly social but I am putting a stop to all that & am going off to the South of France to stay with Binkie & discuss my new play & various business things. . . .”

In another letter dated November 1, 1954, he wrote:

“The photograph is absolutely wonderful & the dress looks a dream & oh how I wish I could see you whirling on in that tiny hurricane.

“. . . Kindly keep a lamp burning in the window . . . Love love love love love.”

Lot 21: Marlene Dietrich, group of three Photographs Signed, early 1930-40s. Estimate $600 to $900.

An unusual part of the offering is an archive of photographs used by the Beverly Hills Police Department  after the attempted extortion and kidnapping of Dietrich’s daughter, Maria. The perpetrators send notes composed of magazine clippings, like something out of a movie, to Dietrich’s approximate address (“Marlene Dietrich / Roxbury Drive / Beverly Hills / Calif.”)

Lot 6: Archive used by the Beverly Hills Police Department during the investigation into the extortion attempt and threatened kidnapping of Marlene Dietrich’s daughter, Maria, 1932. Estimate $600 to $900.

Peruse the full catalogue.

The post Dearest Marlene: Letters & Photos from the Collection of Marlene Dietrich appeared first on Swann Galleries News.

The book arrived in Honolulu by ship from San Francisco on New Year’s Day, 1863, and soon caused a stir throughout the city. It begins by revealing the author’s intent to allow his colleagues “to see themselves as others see them” so that “in all their underhanded dealing, they may hesitate.” The slim volume offers bracingly frank descriptions of 31 leading Honolulu merchants, in terms that border on slanderous. Issued anonymously and distributed to its subjects in the dead of night, The Honolulu Merchant’s Looking-Glass remains one of the great curiosities–and rarities–of Hawaiian literature. One of only two known first editions is among the more scandalous highlights in our September 28 auction of Printed & Manuscript Americana.

Lot 126: The Honolulu Merchants’ Looking Glass, first edition, San Francisco, 1862. Estimate $6,000 to $9,000.

Let’s meet some of the victims:

John Hackfeld “has saved quite a small fortune through being mean and parsimonious.”

John T. Waterhouse is “eccentric, and full of tricks.”

William Stott “is notorious for his great size, weighing some 300 pounds” and “has a weakness for attending native feasts, and admiring native dancing girls.”

Thomas Spencer “has a most notorious reputation for women of a tender age.”

Perhaps the harshest words are reserved for Alexander Cartwright, often regarded as the inventor of baseball from his days back in New York: “Has probably a better capacity for pulling wool over shipmasters’ eyes than any other man in the community. . . . Is very vindictive, and does not scruple at anything where there is money to be made. Is generally disliked, and by many considered a dangerous man to confide in.”

A typical page from The Honolulu Merchants’ Looking Glass.

The provenance of this copy is significant. It was originally owned by Honolulu merchant Charles Lewis Richards,  a partner in the mercantile firm of Wilcox & Richards. According to a 1913 note attached to the only other known surviving first edition, “this booklet was published by P.S. Wilcox of Wilcox & Richards. . . . At the suggestion of Wilcox it was written out by Widderfield, printed for Wilcox in S.F., sent down on the Comet and Wilcox delivered it in person at night by placing a copy at each doorway in town.” This, then, would be the copy belonging to the instigator’s business partner.

If the attribution is correct, we should not be surprised that the pamphlet has nothing too damning to say of the firm of Wilcox & Richards: “P.S. Wilcox apparently delights in opposition, and is a man who would do a great deal to carry his own point. . . . Has no particularly visible weakness. C.L. Richards, the junior partner . . . is a good buyer, a smart salesman, and shrewd in a trade . . . and, as currently reported, has a weakness for women.”

Edward Bailey & Samuel P. Kalama, Honolulu as seen from the foot of Puawaina, Punch-bowl hill, engraving with contemporary manuscript notes, 1837. Sold May 19, 2015 for $70,000.

The idyllic city was in uproar. On January 8, 1863, the editor of the Pacific Commercial Advertiser wrote, “Most contemptible. Honolulu is periodically disturbed with some new scandal, that serves as gossip for our community … The last apple of discord comes in the form of a pamphlet of some twenty pages, entitled The Honolulu Merchants’ Looking Glass …. It made its appearance the day after the arrival of the Comet, and during the night following, a number of copies were distributed among town, some thrown into the premises of foreign residents, or left at the doors of stores … It was evidently … printed… at some newspaper office at the coast. The author, in his preface, admits that his object is to injure others, but hopes that the wounds inflicted may heal soon, and that the parties will learn to mind their own business, and not meddle with that of others. Short biographical sketches are written for the most part good-naturedly, with the prominent traits of each one, and his supposed money value, being stated, with disparaging or eulogistic comments, as the authors fancy dictated … Those who have been specially singled out as the objects of attack will probably take steps to ferret out the author, and we trust they may be successful.”

The only other surviving copy of the first edition is currently in the collection of the Hawaiian Mission Children’s Society Library.

Browse the full catalogue.

The post A Nineteenth-Century Honolulu Gossip Rag appeared first on Swann Galleries News.

On a trip to her homeland, a young Syrian-American woman named Mary Arbeely kept a diary recording her attempts to connect with her ancestors while feeling deeply homesick. The diary, spanning November 1908 to September 1909, is one of the more personal highlights in our September 28 auction of Printed & Manuscript Americana.

Lot 131: Mary Arbeely, diary of a young Syrian-American woman in Beirut, 239 manuscript pages, 17 November 1908 to 30 September 1909. Estimate $1,000 to $1,500.

Mary Arbeely was born in Los Angeles into what is generally regarded as the first family of Syrian immigrants in America. Her father, grandparents, and uncles, all Orthodox Christians and ethnic Arabs, had arrived in New York in 1878, fleeing oppression by the Turkish authorities. Her father Abraham Arbeely became a successful physician and founder of the first Arabic newspaper in America, Kawkab Amirka. In 1907, the family went on a trip to Beirut (at the time still part of the Ottoman Empire) that would last two years.

The Arbeely family in the nineteenth century. Courtesy of NC State University.

Mary recorded the trip in a repurposed 1906 German daily diary, often correcting the days of the week and the year when she thought of it; she began in November 1908 at the rear of the volume, and started over at the front in January 1909. The entries are filled with luxurious descriptions of Gilded Age adventures in Beirut, such as horseback riding, society teas, golf lessons, painting, singing and attending motion pictures. On many of these escapades she was accompanied by various gentlemen, many of whom tried unsuccessfully to woo her, despite her loyalty to her American beau Clifton Byrd “CB” Shoemaker, whom she would later marry. A typical entry reads: “Mr. Khouri then took the opportunity to ask me if my ‘heart was free.’ I told him no, that I left it back in America. . . . If I wanted to marry for money only, here’s my chance & I know I could have everything I want. But then I would rather marry for love and get a very poor man than this way. Give me CB every time.”

Another foiled attempt: “Received a letter from Mr. S. Haddad (a downright love sick proposal). He took it for granted I shall not refuse because he thinks he is somebody. He mentioned my having told someone in Cairo ‘no’ and showed my engagement ring but he did not take stock in that and still felt I was free. At the same time I told him I was not ‘free’ — crazy fool! They are all alike. No old man for me, thank you.”

But the trip wasn’t all gifts and adventures. The family was frightened by the Adana massacres taking place elsewhere in the Empire, in which up to 30,000 Armenian Christians were killed: “Everybody is still frightened that Beyrout may be the next to be visited by a massacre, for Adana, Tarsus, Mersine have been scenes of awful butchering. The troops under young Turkey have started from Salonica for Constantinople.” The next week, “the American consul advises everybody to remain at home today. . . . We have just learned that a Muslim was killed by a Christian in the mts. and that Mr. N. Khuri has gone in the auto to bring the body down by request of an uncle to the dead man. We all are afraid of our lives for this may cause a massacre between Christian & Muslims. . . . Everyone is scared to death today, expect something will happen tonight.”

The Adana Massacre, 1909. Courtesy of The Hurriyet Daily News.

A contagious disease outbreak allowed her to express her patriotism: “Plague has broken out in this city, discovered on a woman who had come from India. . . . There have been 5 deaths. There is a quarantine in all ports against Beyrout. Will be fearful if we are to be in the midst of plague. Mr Arranean is leaving for the U.S.A. (wish I was in his boots). Wrote some songs for him. He is a dandy chap & a thoro American.”

Mary savored any trace of American culture: “The U.S. Steam launch was to take us to the Montana, but unfortunately we were too late so took a row boat. My first inclination upon stepping on that bit of America was to yell for all I was worth. Oh, but it was good to be there. . . . We reached the shore, having had a taste of Uncle Sam that we knew must last us until we get home.”

The USS Montana, 1909. Courtesy of the USS Montana Committee.

The family sailed back to America on August 9, 1909. On her arrival home, she wrote “I often feel as if I have been dead for two years & just come back to life.” Mary and her beau, Cliff Shoemaker, were married on October 17, 1914 in Washington, D.C. In the years that followed, Mr. Shoemaker would go on to secure two patents: the “eye-shade” and the rotary water sprinkler.

For more information, browse the full catalogue.

The post Diary of a Syrian-American Woman, 1908 appeared first on Swann Galleries News.

Alma Thomas is renowned for her brightly colored abstract works that seem to dance across canvas and paper, but how did she develop that iconic style? Two paintings that reveal her stepping stones toward abstraction are featured in our October 5 sale of African-American Fine Art.

Etude in Brown or Saint Cecilia at the Organ is a significant and early oil painting by Thomas — a large, transitional work from the mid- to late 1950s, when the artist was developing her abstract voice.

Lot 43: Alma W. Thomas, Etude in Brown (Saint Cecilia at the Organ), oil on canvas, circa 1958. Estimate $75,000 to $100,000.

In Etude in Brown, Alma Thomas’s expressive composition is almost — but not completely — abstract. While the composition is dominated by a towering abstraction of warm colors broken up by passages in white, the small seated figure of Saint Cecilia appears in the foreground. Alma Thomas studied with Jacob Kainen, an Abstract Expressionist painter and printmaker, at American University in the fall of 1958, and exhibited her work in Contemporary American Painting, part of the College Arts Traveling Service at Howard University Gallery of Art.

Lot 42: Alma Thomas, In the Studio, oil on canvas, 1956.
Estimate $30,000 to $40,000.

The second transitional painting by Thomas in the upcoming sale, In The Studio, shows another side of her development as an abstract painter. Stacked canvases and papers on a table are reduced to a compressed composition of shapes with a limited palette.

Alma Thomas, Untitled (Abstraction in Blue), oil on canvas, 1964.
Sold February 2011 for $36,000.

Untitled (Composition in Blue) is a dynamic Abstract Expressionist canvas and an excellent example of Thomas’s work from the early 1960s, when her oil paintings were characterized by saturated color and punctuated by rapid brushstrokes and palette knife markings. She turned her attention to painting full-time in 1960, at the age of 69. In 1964, she a severe attack of arthritis and was forces to step back from her work — an interval that led to her “mature” style and first retrospective at Howard University in 1966.

Alma Thomas, March on Washington, oil on canvas, 1964.
Sold February 2012 for $72,000.

This important Civil Rights painting is one of Alma Thomas’s few representative works from the early 1960s. Thomas incorporates her bright palette of primary colors with a flattened, abstracted view of the crowds and their placards. She participated in the March on Washington on August 28, 1963, which clearly made a lasting impression, as she returned to figuration to record the historical event in her work. The painting did not travel to her 1998 Fort Wayne Museum of Art retrospective, but it was illustrated in the catalogue.

Alma Thomas, Untitled (from the Space Series), watercolor on cotton batting, circa 1969-72.
Sold October 2014 for $32,500.

Thomas began her Space Series of abstract paintings in 1969, inspired by NASA and the televised images of the Apollo missions and moon landings. In 1970, she exhibited both her Earth and Space paintings at the Franz Bader Gallery, Washington, D.C., and the following year, at the Carl Van Vechten Gallery of Fisk University, Nashville.

Alma Thomas, Fall Atmosphere, acrylic on canvas, 1971.
Sold December 15, 2015 for $87,500.

Fall Atmosphere is a wonderful example of Alma Thomas’ vertical stripe abstractions from the late 1960s and early 1970s. This study of light and color is distinguished by its palette of beautiful fall colors. A similar subject is found in the larger painting Breeze Rustling Through Fall Flowers, 1968, at The Phillips Collection in Washington, D.C.

In 1972, Alma Thomas was the first African-American woman honored with a retrospective at the Whitney Museum of American Art, and her acclaim has continued to rise since her death in 1978. The Studio Museum in Harlem organized an eponymous exhibition of her work in 2016, and two paintings by the visionary adorned the White House during the Obama administration. Said The New York Times, “In many ways she’s an ideal artist, and power of example, for the Obama White House: forward-looking without being radical; post-racial but also race-conscious; in love with new, in touch with old. A genuine rainbow type.”

Browse the catalogue for more.

The post Alma Thomas’s Journey to Abstraction appeared first on Swann Galleries News.