This mid-November sale of Rare & Important Travel Posters had an excellent sell-through rate of 77%, bringing multiple auction and artist records for posters of all modes of travel.

Left, Lot 20: Percival Albert (Percy) Trompf, Australia, 1929. Sold November 19, 2015 for $15,000.

Right, Lot 56: Viero Migliorati, Santa • Margherita • Ligure, 1934. Sold November 19, 2015 for $8,450. 

 

Percival Trompf’s iconic image of Bondi Beach was one of the first travel posters commissioned by the Australian National Travel Association (ANTA) to promote the nation as a travel destination. The colorful poster brought a record for the artist at $15,000. Viero Migliorati’s poster for Santa Margherita Ligure, a popular resort located in the heart of the Italian Riviera between the towns of Portofino and Genoa, made an auction record at $8,450. 

 

Lot 170: Leslie Ragan, The New 20th Century Limited, 1939. Sold November 19, 2015 for $22,500.

The auction highlight was a new artist record for Leslie Ragan. His sleek Art Deco poster, The New 20th Century Limited, brought $22,500, nearly doubling its pre-sale estimate.

Swann President and Director of the Vintage Posters department Nicholas D. Lowry said, “Every auction has its surprises, and in this auction the Internet drove bidding especially high in the Italian posters being offered. Swann has been a market leader in broadening collector awareness about travel posters, and we continue to prove ourselves to be America’s best venue for offering select posters in this category.”

View full results here. 

Our December 8 Maps & Atlases, Natural History & Color Plate Books auction marked the first million-dollar sale for our flourishing Maps & Atlases department, lead by Specialist Alex Clausen. The sale brought $1.27 million.

 

Our November 24 auction of Art, Press & Illustrated books saw particular success for classical and poetic texts. Specialist Christine von der Linn said,”In this auction major artists illustrating classical texts, as well as works pertaining to important historical and worldly, such as biblical texts and Greek and Roman literature, performed particularly well, speaking to collector interest in connecting with classical culture.”

The December 15 sale of African-American Fine Art ended the 2015 season here at Swann with record-smashing success.

 

Our Printed & Manuscript Americana sales feature historic materials, and occasionally items that come to auction shed new light on historical objects, periods and people.  Our upcoming February 4 auction contains a excellent example of an object that sheds new light on history: a previously unknown seventh edition of the famed Bay Psalm Book. In the video below, Specialist Rick Stattler contextualizes the dual importance of this book.

Lot 84: The Psalms, Hymns, and Spiritual Songs or The Bay Psalm Book, the previously unknown seventh edition of the first book printed in North America, Boston, 1693. Estimate $30,000 to $40,000.

For a look at more significant historical pieces, take a look at the full catalogue.

As a skier (in all fairness I was an avid skier in my youth and now fondly recall those carefree winter excursions, as I sit behind my desk with my aging knees), a fervent poster connoisseur and specialist, it is always thrilling to come across wonderful ski posters – images that so appealingly combine two of my life interests. A fair amount has been written about the best European ski posters, but there were also a lot of really wonderful American posters, and the following represent my 12 all-time favorites. They are not necessarily the most expensive, nor the rarest, but posters that in one way or another really caught my professional and personal fancy.

1. Ernest Haskell, Truth, 1896. 

This small poster (it measures only 20 inches high by 14 inches wide) isn’t advertising a ski resort or any form of tourism, it is promoting a popular magazine of the time. It is, in my opinion, the earliest American poster to depict skiing. It may in fact be the earliest ski poster from anywhere in the world. Every aspect of the woman’s ski outfit is amusing in its impracticality. The single pole was used in the early days of the sport.

2. Sascha Maurer, Ski at Lake Placid, 1938. 

This is one of the great American ski posters. The motif of skiers spelling out the names of resorts or other messages in the snow has been often used, but Sascha Maurer, who was born in and studied in Germany, brings much of the European design sensibility to this image.

3. Sascha Maurer, Ski The New Haven Railroad, 1938. 

In addition to being a world class designer, Maurer was also an avid skier. His love for the sport is apparent in many of his posters. Maurer spent many years working for the New Haven Railroad and designed more than a dozen posters for them, many of which advertised using the railroad to go skiing. Personally I find the dynamism of this poster so strong that it keeps the viewer from noticing that the man is skiing in a tie.

4. T. N. Joanethis, Dartmouth Winter Carnival, 1938. 

The Dartmouth Winter Carnival may well be the longest standing winter celebration in America. It is certainly the event which has produced the largest and most important legacy of ski posters in the United States. I love the similarity between this poster and the previous example. And while imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, I really am not sure which one of these came first.

5. Sascha Maurer, Winter Sports / The New Haven R.R., circa 1937. 

This image, another in the series designed by the artist for the railroad, is almost like a painting and yet still has all of the graphic appeal of a strong poster. It is tranquil and compelling.

6. Witold Gordon, III Winter Olympic Games, Lake Placid, 1932. 

The 1932 games in Lake Placid, NY were the first time the Winter Olympics had been held in America. Unfortunately it was held during the Depression, and not every country was able to send a full (and fully equipped) team. Posters quite often dovetail fascinatingly with history and I am always excited to discover interesting historical information that helps me appreciate posters not just as attractive images, but as important historical documents.

7. William Welsh, Travel at Reduced Rates to your Favorite Winter Resort in Pullman Safety, circa 1935.

This poster holds a very warm place in my heart. Not only is it an exquisite Art Deco image, but one of the first times I was broadcast on Antiques Roadshow was when the artist’s granddaughter came in with a collection of his works, including this poster.

8. Lou Hechenberger, New Hampshire, 1941.

One of two posters the artist designed to promote winter sports in New Hampshire. This poster not only boasts a very dramatic angle, but also the charming detail of the designs on the woman’s vest. It should be pointed out that people collect ski posters for a number of reasons: not only for the locations being advertised but also for the equipment and fashions that are depicted. This poster is also the sister-image to another ski poster in our upcoming auction. 

9. Dwight Shepler, Sun Valley, circa 1940. 

Ski posters were by no means only relegated to the American Northeast. Out West, the resort that relied the most heavily on poster advertising was Sun Valley. This is no surprise as the resort was built by the railroad company (it opened in 1936) as a place for travelers to stop on their way out West. Railroad companies have used posters for promotion since the 1880s, so they would naturally gravitate towards that medium to promote the newest jewel in their crown.

10. Augustus Moser, Sun Valley, Idaho, circa 1936. 

Posters for Sun Valley were produced by the Union Pacific Railroad, which would imply that quite a number would have been printed to hang in stations and ticket offices all up and down their line. However, in many cases only a very small handful of each poster exists. Such is the case with this image, and the other two Sun Valley posters featured here. Their beauty and rarity ensure that they are always very popular among both collectors and institutions seeking to acquire them. Another copy of this poster is available in our upcoming auction. 

11. Phil von Phul, Sun Valley / Let’s Go!, circa 1940. 

Another of the very rare Sun Valley posters. True railroad buffs will recognize that the logo which appears on all three of these Sun Valley posters is the logo the Union Pacific used in the mid to late 1930s.

12. Herbert Bayer, Ski in Aspen, 1946. 

The great Bauhaus designer Herbert Bayer immigrated to America and ultimately settled in Aspen, Colorado. He designed two posters for the resort. He is one of the most famous artists to have ever designed a ski poster in America and this poster beautifully showcases the photomontage technique that he mastered in Europe.

For a look at more chic ski posters, peruse the catalogue for our February 11, 2016 auction of Vintage Posters. 

Whether they are humorous or heartfelt, simple or striking, the cover image chosen for each issue of The New Yorker bears the heavy burden; the cover must not only grab the viewers attention but hold it, perhaps a moment longer than one would often think to glance at a magazine cover. From festive seasonal imagery to poignant depictions of the current zeitgeist, these illustrations represent a particular type of artistic skill. It’s only fitting then, that original cover art for The New Yorker in our annual auction of Illustration Art continues to increase in popularity. Below are some favorites from our upcoming auction on Thursday, January 28. 

Lot 234: Arthur Getz, Camp Cook, casein tempera, cover illustration for The New Yorker, August 22, 1953.  Estimate $2,000 to $3,000. 

Lot 236: Arthur Getz, Sunset Lookout, casein tempera, proposed cover for The New Yorker. Estimate $700 to $1,000. 

It’s hard to know what may change an editor’s mind. Getz’s notes on the back of Sunset Lookout indicate that it was created and bought for the January 1962 issue but later “killed” by editor Bob Gottlieb. 

Lot 240: Bud Handelsman, Canterbury Pilgrims, watercolor and ink on paper mounted to watercolored backing, cover art for The New Yorker, September 3, 1990.  Estimate $1,200 to $1,800. 

Cartoonist and illustrator Bud Handelsman was another New Yorker regular, producing both cover illustrations and iconic cartoons for the magazine for many years. 

Lot 242: Ilonka Karasz, Autumn Chairs, gouache, pen and pencil, cover art for The New Yorker, October 17, 1964. Estimate $1,500 to $2,500. 

This tranquil autumn scene is one of many cover illustrations done by Hungarian-born designer and illustrator Ilonka Karasz. Beyond her cover designs, Karasz created wallpaper, textiles, and even furniture and silverware. 

For more original artwork for New Yorker covers, as well as New Yorker cartoons, take a look at our full catalogue. 

Everyone loves a good spy thriller, and in the case of British Army officer Major John André, it seems everyone loved a spy. Our upcoming auction of Printed & Manuscript Americana features a storied engraving with a history of intrigue, conspiracy and death behind it.

Major John André is famous for his collusion with the notorious traitor Benedict Arnold during the American Revolutionary War. The two met in secret on September 20, 1780 near West Point, the fort Arnold held, and negotiated its surrender. André was arrested days later under a false name, carrying documents and the map of West Point Arnold had provided him. 

Self-portrait of Major John André drawn on the eve of his execution, from the George Dudley Seymour papers at the Yale University Library. 

During André’s time as a prisoner prior to his execution, he managed to make quite an impression on his captors. Many of the generals in the court that tried him seemed to regret sending the 30-year-old officer to his death. The Marquis de Lafayette noted, “All the court … were filled with sentiments of admiration and compassion for him. He behaved with so much frankness, courage and delicacy that I could not help lamenting his unhappy fate. This was one of the most painful duties I ever had to perform.”

John André, Contemporary Copy of the British spy’s final letter from an American prison, Tappan, NY, 29 September, 1780. Sold September 17, 2015 for $2,750. 

In his final letter from prison, André informed his superior officer General Henry Clinton, “I am perfectly tranquil in my mind, and prepared for any fate.” General Washington noted, after André walked to the gallows and fitted the noose around his own neck, “André has met his fate, which we could not but lament, with that fortitude which was to be expected from an accomplished man and a gallant officer.”

For a look at more thrilling Revolutionary War items, check out the complete catalogue.                                                                                                       

In August of 1862 Jeanette DeCamp Sweet, a young mother who had settled in Minnesota the year before with her husband, was taken prisoner during the Dakota War, also known as the Sioux Outbreak. Tensions in the area had been escalating for some time, following treaty violations on the part of the US government. Jeanette (who was several months pregnant) and her three boys, ages nine, four and an infant, were held captive for a month before escaping with the help of several Indians. 

Ton-wan-I-ton (who also went by the name Lorenzo Lawrence) and his wife aided Jeanette in her escape, transporting her and the children, along with another family they encountered on the journey, safely to the nearest fort. According to her narrative, held in the collections of the Minnesota Historical Society, the escape party paused briefly at her former home on their way to Fort Ridgley. She found the house in chaos, with “Everything which could not be taken away … torn up and thrown about, feather beds emptied, furniture hacked to pieces and otherwise destroyed,” which lead her to fear for her husband’s life. Mr. DeCamp had been away at the time of the families capture. 

The media has long painted a picture of the obsessed sculptor or painter, but the idea that photographers may share this intense personal and passionate focus is less familiar to the popular viewer. For Vermont-born and bred Wilson A. Bentley (1865-1931), the delicate and sublime nature of the snowflake told a remarkable, if idiosyncratic, story that drove his art and passion.

During the course of an over forty-year-long career working in frigid New England winters, Bentley chronicled 5,000 snowflakes. He later expanded his oeuvre to include water formations such as frost and cloud studies. Despite the limitations of camera technologies, his beautiful pictures of ephemeral flakes were shot before they melted by catching them on black velvet backgrounds.

“Each crystal was a masterpiece of design; and no one design was ever repeated”

Deeply committed to his work, Bentley wrote, “Under the microscope I found that snowflakes were miracles of beauty; and it seemed a shame that this beauty should not be seen and appreciated by others. Each crystal was a masterpiece of design; and no one design was ever repeated […] I became possessed with a great desire to show people something of this wonderful loveliness, and ambition to become, in some measure, its preserver.”

Lot 21: Wilson A. Bentley, album with 25 photographs of snowflakes, gold-chloride toned microphotographs from glass plate negatives, all but one with Bentley’s signature, 1888-1927. 

What possessed Bentley to pursue this curious dream? Children have been told that each snowflake is unique, a fact actually introduced and proven by Bentley himself. This marvelous concept, which caught the public’s and the academy’s imagination, was articulated by the photographer in National Geographic, Scientific American, and Nature magazines. Bentley was a unique figure in worlds of science and photography. A polymath and visionary, he died of pneumonia after trekking six miles in on a December day looking for snowflakes.

Posters were designed to grab attention with a combination bright colors, bold typography and iconic imagery, but when it comes to posters advertising early American theater productions, the more dramatic the image, the better. Featuring dramatic chase sequences, fainting women and busy montages, these posters from our upcoming Vintage Posters auction were sure to lure an intrigued audience. 

Edwin F. Mayo came from a theatrical family, with his father Frank Mayo playing the iconic “King of the Wild Frontier” before him. The play was a hit, winning both Mayos fame and fortune and playing to consistently sold out crowds. Unfortunately, both Frank and Edwin died from cardiac issues just a few years apart. 

On February 18 Nigel Freeman will be speaking in a roundtable discussion on multiculturalism at Columbia Global Center’s Paris location. The occasion? A fantastic exhibition of paintings by American-born artist Beauford Delaney, who spent much of his career in France. Nigel was kind enough to take a few moments from his jealousy-inducing trip to send us some snapshots of the exhibition (and a selfie!).

Other panelists for the roundtable talk are Catherine St. John, Doctor of Arts and expert on Beauford Delaney, and André Delpuech, conservateur en chef du patrimoine, cargé des collections Amériques at the Musée du quai Branly. The show was organized by Les Amis de Beauford Delaney and the Wells International Foundation in collaboration with Columbia Global Centers.

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The following post was written by the artist, Elaine O’Neil, whose cyanotype quilt “Rather See Than Be One,” is featured in our upcoming auction, Art & Storytelling: Photographs & Photobooks. The sale focuses on photography’s unique ability to be a vehicle for both fine art and storytelling, and with that in mind, we’re sharing the story of the intricate process behind this lot. 

Lot 199: Elaine O’Neil, Rather See Than Be One, multi-paneled cyanotype cow quilt, 1976. Estimate $2,500 to $3,500.

As I began to write this, I went back to lecture notes from the 70s and 80s to see what I said about this quilt at that time. I always discussed it as the project through which I gained a deeper understanding of what fascinated me about photography, and clarified my personal art-making process.

My fascination with cows, and Jersey cows in particular, began in art school. Sometime later, while teaching in Dayton, Ohio from 1971 to 1975, I became fascinated with patchwork quilts and in 1976 it all came together.

For me the negative has always been raw material. I was schooled, however, in the premise that the negative was a sacrosanct carrier of information to be printed so as to reveal the initial impression of what had been recorded. But I worked to use negatives to make whatever they inspired — an attitude which caused a certain amount of consternation for some of my teachers.

For me the negative has always been raw material.

In graduate school I saw Betty Hahn’s embroidered photographs and given that I loved to sew, the potentials of photographs printed on cloth were instantly evident. The questions in every class seemed to be, “what is photography” and “does photography have any limits.” However, when I asked how to print on cloth, the idea was dismissed as “something women do” and it was suggested that I stay in the darkroom.

But cloth was a material and sewing a process I understood, a process which would allow me to explore questions of meaning on an intuitive level. I chose the form of the quilt because of the social implications and certain expectations it carries. A quilt is perhaps the ultimate symbol of refuge. They are thrift, care and attention to detail; often completed by a group of women, quilts are generosity, cooperation and community. And very important to my choice, because it actually allowed complete freedom to work in what I call a painterly relationship with the object, the often stunning use of pattern and color is demeaned as “intuitive.”

A quilt is perhaps the ultimate symbol of refuge.

In 1975, I began to teach non-silver photography at the school at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston for which I did demonstrations of printing various antique processes on cloth. At some point in 1976, one of my students, Philip-Lorca diCorcia, gave me a stack of 4 x 5 cards with perforated punch-out cows on them; they had been promotional items for a Boston-area dairy. I had the ability to sensitize cloth, and with a positive and a negative stencil, and a lot of tightly woven percale sheets, I began a summer of printing. Given that it was the Bi-Centennial year, red seemed the only color to use for the back and the thread.

Initially my idea had been a series of deep blue and bright white prints. All were to be like the set of four cows in the upper left-hand corner. After a month of work, I laid out the pieces to see how many more were needed to complete the quilt as first envisioned. There were few which looked as I had hoped. However, looking at the arrangement I saw that the “mistakes” to be edited out were actually photographic records of time, place and events: bright white and intense blue were hot, sunny days; blue cows on paler blue backgrounds signaled overcast or humid days; the threads and bugs and pieces of grass were there during the exposure. I truly understood the idea that at the beginning of a project we make an agreement to be able to begin working. But one has to get past that agreement in order to begin the process of making art. The piece sets up its own problems, asks its own questions and demands an engaged dialogue between the artist and what is being made.

I choose to print only those negatives which reveal a world altered by the transformative nature of photography.

I choose to print only those negatives which reveal a world altered by the transformative nature of photography. Likewise, I work to alter the meaning of an image through the context of ‘quilt.’ Both desires stem from a personal process which honors that the intuition needed to manifest an idea is a mixture of knowledge and sagacity.

To be honest, uppermost in my mind at the beginning, was that making this quilt would be a fun adventure into something I had never done before. Looking at Rather See Than Be One now, it certainly has that initial sense of fun but I also can see the complexity that keeps it fresh and interesting.

Swann would like to thank Elaine O’Neil for allowing us to share this piece on her process. If you’re interested in seeing more of her work, Elaine’s book Mother Daughter: Posing As Ourselves can be found here. 

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Lot 99: Ansel Adams, Moonrise, Hernandez, New Mexico, mural-sized silver print, 1948, printed early to mid-1950s. Estimate $200,000 to $300,000.

Our upcoming auction Art & Storytelling: Photographs & Photobooks taps into the dual nature of the photographic medium as a vehicle for both fine art and narrative. The top lot of the sale is a mural-sized silver print of Moonrise, Hernandez, New Mexico, an iconic photograph by the influential American photographer and environmentalist, Ansel Adams. In this video, Swann Galleries’ Vice President and Director of Photographs & Photobooks Daile Kaplan shares the story behind Adams capturing this striking image, as well as the storied tale of this particular 1950’s mural-sized print, which has passed through the hands of Polaroid co-founder Edwin Land and Nobel Prize winner Edward Mills Purcell. 

For a look at more photographs by Ansel Adams and many other storied photographers, view the complete catalogue. 

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The catalogue for our upcoming March 8 auction of 19th & 20th Century Prints & Drawings features an extensive selection of American works on paper. Over the past two decades, Swann has focused on offering the work of American printmakers alongside European masters, and this auction’s wide variety of American offerings are a testament to that commitment.

Below, each specialist in our Prints & Drawings Department has selected a favorite American prints from the upcoming auction and shared their thoughts on the works.

Lot 159: Winslow Homer, Fly Fishing, Saranac Lake, etching, 1889. Estimate $80,000 to $120,000.

Swann Vice President and Director of Prints & Drawings Todd Weyman selected Winslow Homer’s 1889 etching, Fly Fishing, Saranac Lake. Todd noted that the piece “at once captures the peaceful solitude and rugged outdoorsmanship of an Upstate New York fisherman deftly bringing in his catch.”

Lot 286: Grant Wood, Sultry Night, lithograph, 1939. Estimate $15,000 to $20,000.

Senior Specialist Sylvie François favors Grant Wood’s 1939 lithograph Sultry Night, describing it as “a seemingly quotidian scene of farm life that, like the artists’s ubiquitous American Gothic, 1930, is cloaked in manifold layers of meaning that ultimately reflect Wood’s repressed sexuality.” There is also an interesting backstory behind this dramatic print. 

Lot 252: Martin Lewis, Spring Night, Greenwich Village, drypoint and sandpaper ground, 1930. Estimate $15,000 to $20,000.

Specialist Diana Flatto chose Martin Lewis’s luminous Spring Night, Greenwich Village, 1930, “in which the artist expertly handles the intaglio medium to convey light and perspective, depicting the nostalgia of classic New York in a scene that remains familiar today.” 

Lot 210: Edward Hopper, Night Shadows, etching, 1921. Estimate $25,000 to $35,000.

Lisa Crescenzo, who handles Client Relations for the Prints & Drawings Department, appreciates Edward Hopper’s 1921 etching Night Shadows, where “the unique bird’s eye view establishes the viewer as a hidden witness to this ambiguous urban scene.” 

Lot 192: Gustave Baumann, Cliff Dwellings, color woodcut, circa 1920. Estimate $6,000 to $9,000. 

Department Administrator Jess Feldman selected Gustave Baumann’s color woodcut Cliff Dwellings, ” for the artist’s vibrant use of color which makes this deceivingly straightforward nature scene come alive. Figurative, yet abstract, this print exemplifies Baumann’s mastery of the woodcut medium.”

For a look at more masterful works by American printmakers, take a look at the complete catalogue. 

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A lot has changed over the course of our 75-year history here at Swann, from adding new departments to expanding our exhibition space. One small but crucial metamorphosis has been the evolution of our sale catalogues. From simple, printed pamphlets containing written descriptions of each lot to the glossy illustrated volumes of today, there is perhaps no better example of the vast changes in style and design than the catalogues made for our Photographs & Photobooks department. 

On Valentine’s Day, 1952, Swann Galleries held the first American auction dedicated to Photographs: A Panoramic History of the Art of Photography as Applied to Book Illustration From Its Inception Up To Date: The Important Collection of the Late Albert E. Marshall of Providence, R. I. The image above is of a facsimile of that 1952 catalogue, printed in 1978. In the foreword of the reprint, Swann Galleries’ first Director of Photographs David Margolis noted, “Relatively little note was taken in 1952 when Swann Galleries issued the catalogue … certainly no one realized collecting history was being made.”

No one realized collecting history was being made.

The catalogue included no photographic illustrations of the lots being offered, instead, according to Margolis, “working with Mr. Marshall’s notes, a copy of Taft’s Photography and the American Scene, and little else, [Edwin V.] Halbmeier created an accurate, interesting (and now historically important) catalogue … this photographic incunable created a vivid picture of the ‘pre-explosion’ period in the collecting of photographic literature and images.”

The above sample page from the interior of the catalogue shows Halbmeier’s intensely researched lot descriptions. The facsimile edition was appended with prices realized from the sale (seen below). Despite the sale being “heavily attended; some of the buyers later became synonymous with the field of Photographica: Beaumont Newhall, S.R. Strober, Louis Shipley, and Willard Morgan,” according to Margolis, some of these amazing pieces sold for amazingly low prices (even when adjusted for inflation). Note that the catalogue gave no pre-sale estimates, a convention that carried on into the 1980s. Looking at the prices realized, it’s also clear that the sale was an everything-must-go style of auction: lots went for as low as $3.00 and the sale boasted a 100% sell-through rate.

The top lot of the sale was Lot 238, a collection of more than 1000 plates from Eadweard Muybridge’s Animal Locomotion, 1887, which sold for just $250 (the equivalent of $2,235 today), an amazing price when you consider that a collection of just 125 plates from Animal Locomotion sold for $81,000 at Swann in 2009, 57 years after that inaugural sale. Single plates from Animal Locomotion regularly sell for thousands today. The complete list of prices realized can be seen below, and as Margolis noted at the close of his foreword, photography collectors today will probably “Read ’em and weep!”

Sixty-four years after holding America’s first photo sale, our Photographs Department is still innovating. Their most recent catalogue, for Art & Storytelling: Photographs & Photobooks (at auction February 25) experiments with some pretty cool technology. In addition to every lot in the catalogue being illustrated and even more elaborately described, now select pages of the catalogue can be scanned via the Layar app, linking viewers to videos or additional images of particular lots. 

Here’s one of the scannable pages from the catalogue. The logo on the bottom corner of the page lets you know there is more to see for this lot. Click the image above to see the video. 

For our Photographs & Photobooks department and beyond, catalogues continue to be a vital and evolving element of Swann. In addition to our still-beloved print catalogues, our website now features the complete catalogue as well as a digital flipbook of the print version. You can also check out our website to see the last 15 years worth of Swann catalogues from all of our departments. 

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When you think about Contemporary Art, a few big names and images immediately come to mind: the iconic pop art of Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein, the graffiti art of Keith Haring and Jean-Michel Basquiat, perhaps the strong shapes and colors of Richard Diebenkorn and Robert Motherwell. Our bi-annual sales of Contemporary Art feature a mix of works from these heavy-hitters alongside works by artists hitting their stride in the market. Below we take a look at some of these artists whose work is making a splash at auction.

Jesús Rafael Soto, Jai-Alai Series, Multiples I-V, group of five multiples with color screenprint, Plexiglas, metal and cords, 1969. Sold November 12, 2014 for $60,000.

Venezuelan artist Jesús Rafael Soto worked in multiple mediums, creating op and kinetic art. His works can be found in the MoMa and the Tate Modern, among other museums. 

Robert Longo, Study of the Capitol, charcoal and ink on vellum, 2012. Sold November 12, 2014 for $60,000.

Robert Longo has dabbled in a diverse array of media over the course of his venerable 30-year career. While his method was multidisciplinary throughout the 80s, often combining elements of drawing, sculpture, cinema and performance art, Longo’s oeuvre consists mainly of monumental charcoal drawings done in a hyperrealist style. This medium allows him to create the strong lines and rich chiaroscuro that help bring his drawings to life. His subject matter is varied, ranging from nature to seemingly banal objects to political imagery.

Christo, Wrapped Reichstag (Project for Berlin) Diptych, two-part collage with fabric, thread, color pencils, color crayons, charcoal and maps on paper, 1980. Sold May 16, 2013 for $66,000.

Bulgarian-born Christo is known for the environmental pieces he’s created along with his late wife Jeanne-Claude. The couple’s works are ephemeral, installed in public spaces for a limited time, and are survived only by photographs and the planning drawings that proceeded them, which provide insight into the often years-long process that goes into these monumental installations. 

Richard Hamilton, Sign, enamel on steel plate, 1975. Sold November 14, 2013 for $35,000.

London-born Richard Hamilton is widely credited as one of the earliest Pop artists. His seminal, 1956 collage Just What is it that Makes Today’s Homes so Different, so Appealing?, showing a scantily-clad, gym-chiseled couple set in a 1950s living room, is considered by many scholars to be among the first Pop Art works. Hamilton trained during mid-century in London and had his first exhibition at the Hanover Gallery, London, in 1955. His early paintings, collages and projects reveal a deep influence from the Dadaists to modernists such as Kurt Schwitters and George Grosz. Hamilton also had a close association with the music industry. From the mid-1960s, he was represented by the London art dealer and socialite Robert Fraser, and produced a series of screenprints documenting the arrest of Fraser and Rolling Stones frontman Mick Jagger for possession of drugs, in 1967. Through his friendship with Paul McCartney, Hamilton came to design the iconic cover and poster for the Beatles’ White Album, 1968.

Vija Celmins, Untitled Portfolio, complete set of four color lithographs, 1975. Sold November 15, 2012 for $45,600.

Latvian-born American artist Vija Celmins creates photorealistic drawings, paintings and prints as well as sculptures of the natural world, ranging from the microcosm of a spider’s delicate web to the vast macrocosm of space. Her work asks the viewer to take a deeper, perhaps more abstract look at the familiar, calling attention to everyday objects and natural scenes in new ways. Celmins work is represented among the collections of the Art Institue of Chicago, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Whitney Museum of American Art. 

Harland Miller, Incurable Romantic Seeks Dirty Filthy Whore, oil on canvas, 2007. Sold June 14, 2012 for $52,800.

Writer and artist Harland Miller blurs the line between the visual and literary arts, which showcase both his interest in literature and his sardonic wit. Born in England, Miller has exhibited extensively in both the United States and Europe, and has received acclaim for both his visual art works and his writing with the success of his first novel, Slow Down Arthur, Stick to Thirty. 

Carl Andre, Irregular Rectangle Composed of Four Unequal Parts, steel sculpture in four parts, 1985. Sold November 12, 2014 for $25,000.

Carl Andre is one of the foremost Minimalist sculptors. After studying art at Phillips Academy in Andover, and serving in the U.S. Army, Andre arrived in New York in 1956, where he reconnected with his former classmate Frank Stella. Together with their contemporaries, Donald Judd, Sol LeWitt and Ellsworth Kelly, the artists departed from Abstract Expressionism, the dominated movement of the late 1950s, to pioneer a more objective, geometric aesthetic. Andre’s sculptures, consisting of separate pieces of unaltered material, are easily dismantled and rearranged, realizing their intentioned form only as an installation. 

Niki de Saint Phalle, Nana, plaster with acrylic and gouache, 1968. Sold November 14, 2013 for $37,500.

French multi-disciplinary artist Niki de Saint Phalle‘s works are characterized by their bright colors, patterns and forms, many of which are feminist explorations of the roles of women and their struggles within society. 

Keep an eye out for more from these and other rising stars in the art market in our upcoming auctions of Contemporary Art. Our next Contemporary art auction will be held on May 12, 2016. We accept consignments of Contemporary Art on a rolling basis. For inquiries, or to consign material to an upcoming auction, contact the department. 

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