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Essential Modern & Post-War Art Terms & Movements — Part II
Harold Porcher’s Illustrated Glossary of Modern & Post-War Movements II Read Part I The post-war era of art, as an auction category, is simply a construct used to differentiate art movements...
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Collecting Vintage Olympic Posters
Collecting Olympic posters was straightforward up until the 1964 Tokyo Olympics. Prior to those games, the International Olympic Committee would choose one official poster (on some occasions, they...
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Auction Highlights: Fine Photographs — May 16, 2024
Catalogue & Bidding Cindy Sherman, Untitled Film Still #52, silver print, 1979. Estimate $120,000 to $180,000. Our May 16 auction is headlined by two iconic female photographers, Dorothea Lange...
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Surrealist Centennial: 100 Years of the Surrealist Manifesto
André Breton’s Surrealist Manifesto was first published in 1924. Breton, a writer and member of an earlier art movement known as Dada, penned the ideas of himself and his compatriots. Voicing their...
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Auction Highlights: Focus on Women — May 23, 2024
Catalogue & Bidding The May 23, 2024, Focus on Women sale features books, prints, original art, photographs, ephemera, archives, and more produced by women from the 16th century through the 21st....
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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...
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Auction Highlights: Contemporary Art — June 6, 2024
Our June 6 Contemporary Art auction will offer an array of artwork spanning five decades of original works, prints, and multiples. The sale will begin with the works of abstract expressionists,...
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Swann Salon: A Conversation on Vintage Tennis Posters
Swann President and Vintage Posters specialist Nicholas D. Lowry is joined by Nicole Markham, curator at the Museum at the International Tennis Hall of Fame; Simeon Lipman, Antiques Roadshow Appraiser...
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Collecting Vintage Tennis Posters
There are several notable reasons why people collect tennis posters. First and foremost, collectors of these pieces are driven by their love of the game. Within that passion, there are more focused...
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Specialist Pick: Devon Eastland on Wuthering Heights vs. David Copperfield
Devon Eastland, specialist for our Focus on Women auction, touches on the special nature of Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights and the differences between Brontë’s female characters and those in Charles...
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Auction Highlights: Maps & Atlases, Natural History & Color Plate Books —...
From Havana to hallucinogenic mushrooms and Mercator to menswear, this sale is set to include a wide range of historically important and interesting material for collectors across many different...
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Meagan Gandolfo on Pop Art Printmakers
In advance of our Contemporary Art auction, Meagan Gandolfo discusses the trajectory of mid-20th century of American artists seeking new avenues of expression beyond Europe’s traditional printmaking...
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Auction Highlights: Illustration Art — June 20, 2024
Winsor Mccay, The Last Day of Manhattan, 1905. Estimate $10,000 to $15,000. Our Spring 2024 Illustration Art sale will showcase an exceptional selection of original artworks spanning various media,...
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A Toast to Todd Weyman: Our Congratulations on His Retirement
Todd Weyman at Swann in the 1990s. A Note From Swann Galleries President Nicholas D. Lowry May 24, 2024 In an industry not particularly known for big changes, Swann Galleries is about to undergo the...
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Caleb Kiffer on a Rare Copy of ‘A Description of Sixteen New Species of North...
Featured in the June 13, 2024, auction of Maps & Atlases, Natural History & Color Plate Books is Lot 166: Jacob Post Giraud, Jr. & Nathaniel Currier’s A Description of Sixteen New Species...
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Auction Highlights: Autographs — June 25, 2024
Catalogue & Bidding Pop Culture (Lots 1–30) Collectors of popular culture have a new place to look for autographs by folks who are making waves right now or whose earthshaking presence is still...
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Collectors on Collecting: Jules Feiffer on the Artists and Works from His...
Jules Feiffer’s career spans decades, producing a remarkable range of projects and generating numerous awards and honors. His contributions to the field of comics since his start in the late 1940s...
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Auction Highlights: Printed & Manuscript Americana — June 27, 2024
Catalogue & Bidding Our June 27 Americana sale stretches across the ages from the 1500s to the 1980s. The age of early exploration is represented by a lovely 1590 De Bry Latin printing of Thomas...
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Reintroducing Swann’s Fine Art Department
Swann Galleries’ newly reorganized Fine Art Department Back row: Sarah McMillan, Corey Serrant, Harold Porcher, Lisa Crescenzo, and Meagan Gandolfo. Seated: Nigel Freeman and Skye Lacerte Swann...
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Collecting Aviation History
As a specialized auction house, Swann has the unique ability to connect collectors with their specific interests. This is especially true for aviation collectors; the auctions from our books and...
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Auction Highlights: Vintage Posters — August 8, 2024
Our August Vintage Poster auction encompasses a broad array of genres, spanning the nineteenth through twenty-first centuries and from countries around the globe. Some of the oldest and most desirable...
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Records & Results: Printed & Manuscript Americana — June 2024
Swann closed out June 2024 with a standout Printed & Manuscript Americana sale on Thursday, June 27. The auction earned $1 million against a $647,100 to $970,700 pre-sale estimate and had an 82%...
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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:...
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Auction Highlights: LGBTQ+ Art, Material Culture & History — August 22, 2024
Swann Galleries is excited to present the sixth iteration of the LGBTQ+ Art, Material Culture & History auction. The sale will take place on Thursday, August 22, and will feature an exciting...
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A Look at Swann Galleries’ Staff Art Show
The Swann Staff Art Show, which was on display from July 11 to 18, featured selected artworks in various media from Swann’s talented staff. Take a look at our show below! Harold Porcher, Director,...
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The Danish Girl and the Erotic Art of Gerda Wegener
Gerda Wegener, Sur Talons Rouges, engraved hors-texte plate, 1929. Featured in our October 2014 Art, Press & Illustrated Books sale Who was Gerda Wegener? Since its release, David Ebershoff’s...
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American Art — September 19, 2024
American artists have historically not only captured our changing landscape and society but, through their travels, have exposed the public to exotic and sometimes treacherous lands. This...
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New York Through Photographs
New York City, in its state of inevitable change, its restless power, its siren’s call to dreamers and doers, has proven irresistible to the camera’s lens. Photographers have captured the city’s...
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Artist Profile: Lili Elbe
Lili Elbe was a Danish painter, trans woman, and one of the earliest recipients of gender-affirming surgery in 1930. The child of Ane Marie Thomsen and spice merchant Mogens Wilhelm Wegener, Elbe was...
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Stompers Gallery & Its Leather Fetish Art Lineage
Stompers, a West Village boot store, was owned by classical composer Louis Weingarden. The store also featured a gallery in the backroom of its retail space at 259 West Fourth Street that exhibited...
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Auction Highlights: The New York Sale — September 26, 2024
Catalogue & Bidding In honor of the 400th anniversary of the founding of New York City, Swann Galleries is bringing back the New York sale. From a monotype by Abraham Walkowitz featuring the...
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Auction Highlights: African American Art — October 3, 2024
Catalogue & Bidding Our October 3 auction of African American Art features exceptional and innovative post-war painting, including an outstanding New York painting by Beauford Delaney. Acquired...
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Movement on Paper: The Work of Abraham Walkowitz
“Isadora was my strongest weakness. She was like music. When she moved, it was like the sound of violins,” said Russian-American painter Abraham Walkowitz of his muse, modern dancer Isadora Duncan....
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A Look at Midcentury Modern Vintage Posters Advertising NYC
In viewing mid-century modern posters depicting New York City, it is a curious surprise to find a direct graphic line drawn between 1947 and 1956, as four of the most prominent (and spectacular) of...
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Auction Highlights: Rare & Important Travel Posters — October 10, 2024
At Auction Thursday, October 10 at 12:00 PM ET Catalogue & Bidding October’s travel poster auction is a journey around the world and a trek through the Who’s Who of famous travel poster designers,...
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Suzanne Jackson & Bill Russell: There is Something Between Us
Suzanne Jackson’s painting There is Something Between Us brings together two legendary figures from two very different worlds. The arenas of professional sports and contemporary art have little in...
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Works from the Estate of Dr. Constance E. Clayton
Lot 28: Charles Ethan Porter, Chrysanthemums, oil on canvas, circa 1881-83. Estimate $15,000 to $25,000. Swann Galleries is honored to be presenting a group of artworks in our October 3 auction from...
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Auction Highlights: Old Master Through Modern Prints — October 17, 2024
At Auction Thursday, October 17 at 10:30 AM ET Catalogue & Bidding Swann continues its tradition of presenting a premiere selection of important prints in our October 17 auction of Old Master...
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Artist Profile: Nelson Stevens
I create from the rhythmic color-rappin’-lifestyle of Black folk. I believe that art can breathe life, and life is what we are about. — Nelson Stevens Early Life Born in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn,...
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Auction Highlights: Fine Books — October 24, 2024
At Auction Thursday, October 24 at 10:30 AM ET Catalogue & Bidding This fall’s sale promises to tempt with bibliographic rarities from before the invention of movable type through the twentieth...
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Auction Highlights: Fine Photographs — October 31, 2024
At Auction Thursday, October 31 at 10:30 AM ET The October Fine Photographs auction opens with a selection of 45 lots from a California Collection. Examining photography as an element of the story of...
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Leslie Ragan Calendars for the New York Central Railway: A Unique Pictorial...
For an artist with such a prominent place in the American pantheon of poster designers, very little biographical information exists about the life of Leslie Ragan. He is best known for his exceptional...
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Sarah McMillan’s Specialist Picks: 5 Lots to Watch in Old Master Through...
Ahead of her first sale as the head specialist for Old Master Through Modern Prints, Sarah McMillan shares five works to watch in the October 17 auction. Hendrick Goltzius, Icarus from The Four...
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Records & Results: African American Art — October 3, 2024
African American Art Sets Six Artist Records The Thursday, October 3, 2024, sale of African American Art at Swann brought $3M and saw top prices for artists, with six records being set. Nigel Freeman,...
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Specialists in the Field: James Baldwin’s Century
Anthony Barboza, James Baldwin – Writer, silver print, 1975. Sold October 2016 for $11,250. Swann autographs specialist Marco Tomaschett visited the Schomburg Center to view their display celebrating...
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Auction Highlights: Modern & Post-War Art — November 12, 2024
Working on canvas and wooden support, Bernard Réquichot danced the fine line between figurative and abstract forms to produce surrealist compositions with an allure of familiarity. His paintings...
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Photographers Who Captured the Changing Landscape of the American West
America was, in some ways, founded on the idea of land. A restless push West, a desire to “discover,” to claim, and to shape, has formed the American identity. Here, land is a political, romantic, and...
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Auction Highlights: Autographs — November 14, 2024
Timed Auction — Lots begin closing Thursday, November 14 at 12:00 PM ET Lots 1-25: Popular Culture Lot 8 illuminates this section like a film projector on the silver screen. It contains a 1964...
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Auction Highlights: Printed & Manuscript Americana — November 21, 2024
At Auction Thursday, November 21 at 10:30 AM ET Catalogue & Bidding This sale strikes a particularly rich vein of western mining material from Alaska, California, Colorado, and Nevada. Highlights...
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Auction Highlights: Contemporary Art — November 26, 2024
At Auction Tuesday, November 26 at 12:00 PM ET Catalogue & Bidding We are in the middle of an exciting fall season here in New York and we would like to share some of the upcoming highlights in...
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