Swann Galleries News

Regardless of how we feel about the dangers of tobacco today, cigarette advertisements from the last two centuries are some of the most beautiful and captivating images on the poster market. There is an entire section of the Julius Paul Collection of Posters devoted to cigarette and rolling paper posters--and Paul himself was a rolling paper distributer.

Lot 13 is an almost creepy image by an unknown artist--are those bat wings?

Lot 22, by an unknown artist, shows how cigarettes were a part of dining out for many gentlemen.

Lot 15, from 1924, predates much of the public's distaste for smoking.

Lot 16 is a colorful image by poster design great Leonetto Cappiello.

Lot 1 is an image that was parodied later by an unknown artist for a beer advertisement (see lot 219)

Lot 11 features a repeating image of a well-dressed woman–a theme that was very popular in this era.

Lot 24 is one of the most playful images for rolling papers in the Paul Collection.

Lot 23 is by Albert Hoppler.

This poster designed by H. Gray pays homage to the work of Alphonse Mucha.

Lot 5's depiction of butterfly-winged fairies is divine.

Lot 18 is one of Mihaly Biro's designs for Abadie.

Lot 19, Andreas Farkas's design, was used by Modiano in many ads in the 1920s and 30s.

Swann is very pleased to offer a handful of original illustrations by Dr. Seuss--also known as Theodor Geisel--in our January 23 auction of 20th Century Illustration , including some early advertisements by the beloved children's book author and artist.

An early example is a circa 1930s original drawing for one of Seuss's well known Flit Insecticide advertisements. It depicts two grimacing insects facing off against one another with Flit guns darting from their eyes. This drawing is all the more rare as it does not include the famous tagline, "Quick Henry, the Flit!" and is titled The Mortal Enemies.

From the dawn of the Second World War, is a pen and ink advertisement for New Departure Ball Bearings, a division of General Motors. In it, a pipe-smoking man operates a motorized contraption that employs smiling dogs on a treadmill to dig holes. The published ad was captioned, "Mechanization Gets in the Groove." Interestingly, two of the canines and the harnesses drawn for this ad are similar to those seen in book The Grinch Who Stole Christmas, published 16 years later.

There is a superb original gouache for an advertisement--likely a billboard--of a somewhat skeptical-looking goat munching on some Seussian machine parts. The collaged bag of sugar and the accompanying tagline, "All it needs is ... Holly Sugar," suggest a dubious palatability, even for a goat. Geisel executed several adverts for Holly Sugar over the course of many decades. This one is circa 1950s.

Predating these advertisements is a rare early published Seuss drawing from 1929 that is signed with his short-lived "Dr. S." signature. The pen and ink with watercolor, which appeared in Judge magazine, is accompanied by a preliminary pencil sketch. The caption reads "Ups-a-bellis-perennis-leucanthemum!" the Latin version of "Ups-a-Daisy!"

Our January 23 Illustration sale boasts an abundance of original book-cover art that became iconic images of the literary works they graced and, in some cases, defined an era.

In keeping with the book's second-person voice, the main character of Jay McInerney's Bright Lights, Big City is never named and his face is not shown on the famous dust jacket.

Lot 247 is Marc Tauss’s multimedia work created in 1984 for Jay McInerney’s first published novel, Bright Lights, Big City, the quintessential tale of New York City’s hedonistic, drug- and money-addicted twenty-somethings of the 1980s. McInerney called Tauss’s cover, showing the main character paused in anticipation of the evening before the neon sign of The Odeon and glimmering Twin Towers “incredibly evocative and haunting . . . absolutely emblematic of the book.” The first edition was released as a paperback via the groundbreaking Vintage Books format and the image remained on the cover for 25 years.

Fred Marcellino's cover art for The Golden Notebook appealed to us as
booklovers so much we put it on the cover of the latest Swann newsletter

Additional iconic cover art of the 1980s by master of graphic images, Fred Marcellino, is on offer. Four primary colored notebooks set at an angle remain a visual link to the 1984 reissue of Doris Lessing’s The Golden Notebook (lot 158), as does the surreal window on the front of T. Coraghessan Boyle’s novel World’s End, 1987 (lot 159). Swann sold the first cover art by Marcellino at auction in last January's 20th Century Illustration Art sale for $6,720--a mixed media composition for Thomas Pynchon's Slow Learner, 1984.

A trio of covers by Max Ginsburg are featured: A Separate Peace, Beyond the Cellar Door and Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry

There are three oil paintings by Max Ginsburg for classic coming-of-age novels. While his name may not be immediately recognizable, these works certainly are. John Knowles’s emotionally charged story of private school boys on the eve of World War II, A Separate Peace (lot 85), dominated high school reading lists for decades. And, no cover captured its readers as Ginsburg’s for Bantam Books in 1982--nearly every Generation X-er (and those born later) remembers its ghostly, autumnal image. Another of the artist’s works helped visually define the Newbery Medal Award winning Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry (lot 87) by young adult literature guru Mildred D. Taylor. Her story about prejudice in Depression-era Mississippi is boldly depicted by Ginsburg who “tried to illustrate the courage and vulnerability of these heroic children” as they huddle together on their porch, braving a blaze set on their property.

Lot 96: Edward Gorey's ink and watercolor dust jacket design for The Spector From the Magician's Museum by John Bellairs and Brad Strickland, 1998

2014 will be a very Edward Gorey-centric year for Swann beginning with several of his gothic and witty dust jacket designs for the mystery novels of John Bellairs and Brad Strickland from the 1990s. Most are accompanied by the ink layout of the cover and spine lettering which he also drew. Keep an eye out for our May 7 auction of Art, Press & Illustrated Books for more Gorey.

B. Cory Kilvert's mixed-media on paper captures the fashions of the 1920s.

Numerous other illustrated “faces” include those for The New Yorker; turn-of-the-20th-century women’s magazines; B. Cory Kilvert’s dust jacket design for the P.G. Wodehouse novel Indiscretions of Archie, 1921 (lot 138), E.H. Shepard’s colorful cover for Punch Almanack, 1937 (lot 230), and a dynamic cover by David Bowers for the 2001 tween time-travel fantasy novel A Tale of Time City by Diana Wynne Jones (lot 25), an oil on panel, reminiscent of Dutch Old Master paintings.

Painter David Bowers uses the 15th-century Netherlands technique of alla prima, which blends wet on wet pigments and glazing to create a luminosity without visible brushstrokes.

There are some truly charming and familiar images in our January 23 auction of 20th Century Illustration, and there are a few rarities, as well. One of these highly scarce items is Lot 51, a W.W. Denslow illustration from The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. The signed original pen and ink and pencil drawing of the Scarecrow and two Munchkins from 1900 was published as the first in-text illustration of the classic book's chapter 4.

The majority of the original Denslow drawings for The Wonderful Wizard of Oz are preserved in the Print Collection of The New York Public Library. Only two other drawings for the iconic book have ever been sold at auction, one of Dorothy looking at the feet of the Wicked Witch of the East, the other half a double-page spread of the Cowardly Lion being saved by the Field Mice.

Few comic strips are more beloved than Charles M. Schulz's Peanuts, and few characters more enduring than Charlie Brown and his irrepressible beagle Snoopy. Schulz, a dog lover, even coined the phrase, "Happiness Is a Warm Puppy,"which provided an ironic counterpoint to the Beatles song, Happiness Is a Warm Gun, and was the title of a self-help book filled with aphorisms with illustrations of the Peanuts gang.

In Swann's upcoming auction of 20th Century Illustration, there are four Peanuts-related lots illustrated by Schulz, including a presentation copy of the 1962 first edition of Happiness Is a Warm Puppy, inscribed and with an ink drawing of Snoopy on front free endpaper.

There is also a copy of the 1967 book Snoopy and the Red Baron inscribed with a drawing of Snoopy as the World War I flying ace on the front free endpaper.

And, there is a full four-panel Peanuts comic strip featuring Charlie Brown and Lucy from 1956 that also displays an inscription--this one with an interesting back story. It offers "sincere best wishes" to Freya Hulmer, a longtime California schoolteacher who befriended Schulz, as described in a local newspaper, "when she began taking her daughter to ice skating practice at Schulz's Redwood Empire Ice Arena in Santa Rosa ... she graded homework and assignments and had occasional coffee and conversations with Schulz himself, with the late cartoonist picking her brain for insight into her young students."

Renewed interest in and appreciation of so-called genre illustration art has resulted in the growth of colorful and not-so-colorful descriptives for this type of material: Pulp, Pin-Ups, Nudies and Calendar Girls, Fantasy and Sci-Fi, Bodice-Rippers, Weird Americana, Beefcake and Sports, Comix and so on. In the interest of consolidating all of these in a pithy catch-all, we propose a new collecting category for the illustration art enthusiast: “Man-Cave-iana.”

We charitably chalk this phenomenon up to reinvigorated contact with our idyllic youth rather than the celebration of the increasing infantilization of the American male. For the specialist and amateur alike, Man-Cave-iana is both impossible to define and easy to spot. Just as one judge famously said to the other regarding the criteria for identifying pornography, “I know it when I see it,” so too will you know Man-Cave-iana.

Lot 61: Howell Dodd's pulp fiction illustration epitomizes the "girl in distress" genre.

Lot 77: Frank Frazetta's Lord of the Rings drawing no doubt appeals to an entire generation of men (and women) who grew up reading the Tolkien books.

Lot 67: Merlin Enabnit's oil on canvas of a nude pin-up dates from the 1940s--his WWII
"Merlin Girls" were popular among British GI's, i.e. Tommies.

Lot 81: Bernard Fuchs's oil on canvas of a 1970s-era tennis player captures the excitement and dynamism of the sport--not to mention the cool hairstyles.

Lot 82: John Gannam depicted the wanton characters involved in Suburban canoodling in this circa 1950s watercolor.

Lot 38: Al Capp's satirical comic Li'l Abner poked fun at the counter culture in this series of four strips from October 1970.

Lot 251: One of Richard Taylor's amusing magazine illustrations in the sale, this one for Playboy, shows three men nervously waiting outside a hospital maternity ward. The punchline: "We've only got one patient here!"

Lot 263: Torchy creator Bill Ward's ironic--and sexualized--twist on women's lib comes with two captions, including, "why shouldn't a gal express her natural aggressive tendencies."

Thanks to Literature specialist John D. Larson for this post!

Among the featured artists in Swann’s February 13th auction, Shadows Uplifted: The Rise of American-American Fine Art, are Pauline Powell Burns and Beulah Ecton Woodard. These early Californian artists stand out for their accomplishments at a time when being African-American, and female, meant considerable obstacles on the road to success.

Pauline Powell Burn's oil painting Violets, circa 1890, is one of her first to come to auction.

Born in Oakland in 1876, Pauline Powell Burns’s story is steeped in American history. The granddaughter of a slave from Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello, Pauline would be go on to become the first African American to exhibit artwork in the state of California. In 1890 she exhibited her paintings at the Mechanics Institute Fair in San Francisco. Burns’s work is extremely scarce, not only because of the time in which she lived, but also because she lived a relatively short life, dying in 1912. The largest known collection of her paintings is at the Oakland Museum of California. The work by Burns coming up for auction, an oil on cardstock of Violets, circa 1890, is one of the first by this pioneering artist to appear at auction.

Beulah Ecton Woodard is known for her sculptures employing a variety of media, including terra cotta, bronze, wood and papier-mâché. Born in Ohio in 1895, her family soon moved to southern California. At the age of 12, the family was visited by a native African, and this sparked a lifelong interest in Woodard to portray Africans and African Americans in her work. She hoped her realistic portrayal of these subjects would help to influence African Americans to take pride in their heritage.

African Woman is a fine example of Beulah Woodard's sculpture.

Woodard struggled to pursue art, due to family expectations and racism, but she did study at the Los Angeles Art School, Otis Art Institute and the University of Southern California. Woodard went on to become the first African-American artist to show at the Los Angeles County Museum with a solo exhibition in 1935, and she also organized the Los Angeles Negro Art Association in 1937. Included in Shadows Uplifted is African Woman, a superb example of Woodard’s African subjects. This is not the first time Woodard’s work has come to auction at Swann. Seven of Woodard’s works were auctioned in the 2007 auction of The Golden State Mutual Life Insurance Company African-American Art Collection.

Swann's 2007 auction of the African-American Art Collection of the Golden State Mutual Life Insurance Company featured a rare painting by Woodard, which brought $19,200.

The Golden State collection also featured this terra cotta bust of Maudelle,
which sold for $14,400

Thanks to Alaina McEachin of Swann's African-American Fine Art Department, for this post.

Dana Jennings wrote about the surge in reprints of vintage comic strips in the Books section of January 9 issue of the New York Times, and made the argument for preserving the childhood ritual of reading the Sunday funnies.

Many of the strips and artists mentioned in Jennings's piece are featured in Swann's upcoming auction of 20th Century Illustration.

There's Little Nemo creator Winsor McCay's pen and ink The Last Day of Manhattan, a preliminary drawing illustrating a story in the New York Herald from February 26, 1905.

Capturing all the surreal hijinks George Herriman was known for is a 1933 watercolor in which Krazy Katgazes at an enormous brick in the distance with a thought balloon reading, "If only Ignatz could handle one that size... ooy..." while behind his back Ignatz is preparing to hurl a brick at him, and Offisa Bull Pupp watches from nearby.

For fans of what Jennings describes as the "pulpy adventure" found in Milton Caniff's Terry and the Pirates, there's a hand-colored proof of Terry with pals Pat Ryan and Connie from 1936.

There's also a group lot containing drawings and autographs by prominent cartoonists of the Depression era, including Harold Knerr (Katzenjammer Kids), J. Carver Pusey (Benny), C.D. Small (Salesman Sam), Frank Owen (Philbert) and Frank O. King (Gasoline Alley).

And, the enduring appeal of Charles M. Schulz's lovable underdog Charlie Brown is evident in an original four-panel Peanuts comic strip in pen and ink from 1956 that features Charlie with Lucy van Pelt.

Christine von der Linn, Swann's Art & Illustrated Books expert, shares some insight into this week's 20th Century Illustration auction:

One of the challenges of putting together a sale of original illustration art is the research and time that goes into determining the authenticity of a work. Knowledge of previous ownership--i.e. provenance--is helpful and interesting to buyers but is also very important in cases where forgery or theft may be a concern.

There are famous forgers, such as Yves Chaudron who notoriously faked the Mona Lisa (more than once!) and Han van Meegeren, who duped the Nazis into buying his Vermeers and was the subject of many books on the forgery of famous Old Master paintings. But, some "artists" have found much easier targets, faking the signatures and drawings of collectible 20th-century artists and illustrators. These thieves cleverly construct their fraudulent works after the death of artists to avoid any dispute by their creators. One recent case is that surrounding Maurice Sendak, the great children's book illustrator and author most famous for Where the Wild Things Are, who died in 2012.

This Thursday, Swann is proud to offer original drawings by Sendak, all with stellar provenance. Most come from the private collection of Peter Caponera. When Sendak and his partner, Eugene Glynn, moved to their country home in Ridgefield, Connecticut in 1972, Caponera became their gardener and groundskeeper at the request of the previous tenants. They befriended him and his sister, Lynn, then still a child--who would become the artist's trusted aide. The four remained very close over the years and the Caponeras were at Sendak's bedside when he died on May 8, 2012.

Lot 215 is a charming watercolor of Peter Rabbit, Inscribed "For Peter" to Caponera, chosen by Sendak both for the recipient's name and as an homage to the artist's greatest influence, Beatrix Potter, for whom he had great respect and admiration.

Lot 216 is a later edition of Where the Wild Things Are with an amusing ink drawing of "Wild Thing" monster Moise donning a sweater with the letter "P" (for Peter) and holding a robust plant, a nod to Caponera's green thumb.

Caponera's collection includes additional Sendak titles with inscriptions and drawings of famous characters from his books.

Lot 219 is a first German edition of Wild Things with an adorable drawing inscribed to musicologist Robert W. Gutman who wrote the first important biography of Richard Wagner. Sendak, a great fan of opera, depicted Max, in his wolf suit, singing from the score of Das Rheingold with the inscription "thank you for all the great Wagner!"

The top-priced lot in yesterday's auction of 20th Century Illustration at Swann Galleries was Lot 229, a pen and ink by Ernest H. Shepard for A.A. Milne's beloved 1928 children's classic, House at Pooh Corner. It brought $47,500.

This picture illustrates a line from Chapter Three, "While Piglet was dreaming this happy dream, and Pooh was wondering again whether it was fourteen or fifteen, the Search for Small was still going on all over the Forest." The characters Rabbit and Owl are depicted prominently as they seek out their friend Very Small Beetle, called "Small" for short.

The drawing is signed by Shepard in ink in the image, titled in pencil "Their Search for Small" in the lower margin, and signed again on the back, in brown ink, with: "Ernest H. Shepard / Shamley Green/ Guildford."

Alaina McEachin, of Swann’s African-American Fine Art Department, writes about the catalogue cover image for the upcoming auction Shadows Uplifted: The Rise of African-American Art.

The cover for our February 13 auction catalogue is a self-portrait of James Amos Porter, who is often described as the father of African-American art history. In addition to his notoriety as an artist and the author of Modern Negro Art, he was an influential teacher at Howard University for more than forty years.

After reading a brief account of a forgotten African-American artist, Robert S. Duncanson, Porter decided to search for more information about neglected African-American artists. Porter’s research on African-American artists and artisans became the basis of his master’s thesis while studying at New York University. Using his thesis as a foundation, Modern Negro Art was published in 1943. The book would become the first comprehensive history of African-American art and is still considered a classic. It places African-American art in the context of American art history.

Self-Portrait dates to his first sabbatical year in 1935, when he studied at New York University and the Sorbonne, University of Paris, and is the first portrait painting by Porter to come to auction. This image is one of the best-known self-portraits by an African-American artist, and has been extensively exhibited and reproduced. For instance, this very image was reproduced in the catalogue of Swann’s February 25, 2010 auction of Printed and Manuscript African Americana. In that particular sale, Swann auctioned Porter’s archive, which consisted of artist files documenting his research into artists in the African Diaspora, with a primary focus on African-American artists. The archive included correspondence, photographs, and printed material. Self-Portrait was pictured above the description of the archive in the catalogue. The archive is now in Emory University’s Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library.

Unlike the mild early months of recent years, this winter has been–for lack of a better word–winter. Even the Deep South couldn’t escape the season, with snow falling in Texas and the now infamous shutting down of Atlanta last week. Swann's African-American Fine Art department couldn’t help but notice that winter weather had also made an appearance in some of the artwork in our February 13 auction Shadows Uplifted: The Rise of African-American Fine Art.

Geraldine McCullough, Rowhouses in the Winter, watercolor and gouache, circa 1945-50.
Estimate $1,000 to $1,500.

One such work is by Chicago artist Geraldine McCullough. Originally trained as a painter at the Art Institute of Chicago, McCullough became well known later in life as a sculptor, and went on to win the George D. Widener Gold Medal for Sculpture in 1965 for her steel and copper structure Phoenix. Rowhouses in the Winter, created during or right after her time at the Art Institute, is a pleasant scene of the back of rowhouses after a snowfall. The pale grayish hue of the sky and snow atop the trees and windows recalls very similar scenes in New York City this winter, particularly on the brownstone and townhouse lined streets of Brooklyn and Upper Manhattan.

Aaron Douglas, Snow Storm, charcoal, circa 1950-55.
Estimate $8,000 to $12,000.

Snow Storm is a charming drawing by one of the most celebrated African-American artists of the Harlem Renaissance, Aaron Douglas. The drawing was likely made during the artist’s time spent in Nashville while teaching at Fisk University, where Douglas would go on to found the school’s art department. In the drawing, one can see a person trudging through a blizzard-like scene. Though snow in Nashville happens occasionally, this year the city got more than its typical share of snow and harsh winter weather. One can imagine that when Douglas was in Nashville it was rarity to get heavy snow, so when it happened, it was worth documenting.

Thanks to Alaina McEachin, of the African-American Fine Art Department here at Swann Galleries, for contributing this post.

On May 7, Swann will auction one of the top private collections of Edward Gorey books, illustrations and ephemera as part of our Art, Press & Illustrated Books sale. Below, Christine von der Linn, Swann's Art & Illustrated Books specialist, offers some insight into the Sam Speigel collection--the best and largest Gorey collection ever to come to the auction block.

Speigel set out decades ago to procure every available (and elusive) item by the beloved author/illustrator, not just recorded, but also those that were purportedly recorded, but unseen, by bibliographers. Our May 7 sale features the Holy Grails of any Gory collection, including:

Amphigorey, New York, 1972. Gorey's most famous and highly sought-after book, this is one of only 50 copies containing an original drawing.

The Sopping Thursday, New York, 1970. The second most desirable and rare work by Gorey, this is one of 26 lettered copies also containing an original drawing.

A fun poke at the joys and excesses of cocktail culture is Son of the Martini Cookbook, with five rare publisher's promotional cards, New York, 1967--two pages shown here.

An obscure and beguiling work of fine art is Elephantômas, a suite of nine dark and shadowy monoprints of an elephant/man figure, plus one separate signed and numbered color print in sanguine, from an edition of only 10 numbered sets, Brewster, MA., 1986.

More elephants (among other creatures) appear in stuffed animal form, along with amusing pieces of ephemera including postcards, buttons, lithographs and serigraphs, some original pen-and-ink drawings and printed material for the stage productions of Dracula--above.

A large selection of posters, many signed, feature his illustrations for the wildly popular PBS series Mystery!, which introduced many people to Gorey's work, and others showcasing his stunning graphic designs for stage performances like The Mikado.

On February 27 Swann will auction the Library of Bill Diodato, comprising an excellent assortment of photobooks and photographs. Diodato--a prominent commercial and fine-art photographer--shares his thoughts on collecting in an introduction to the auction catalogue:

I started collecting photographic literature more than 20 years ago. As a young photographer, in 1990, I received a small scholarship and applied the monies to what was then a new passion, the photobook. As a student of this exciting medium, I was inspired by well-produced monographs by 20th-century masters.

Like many collectors, the impetus for buying books was to educate myself about the visual history of photography. As a young artist interested in aesthetic styles, I acquired examples of books by artists whose works I had discovered in surveys and or museum publications. Early on, I recognized that the beautifully produced book was an autonomous work of art. I was enchanted with the idea that I could enjoy an artist’s complete body of work in a highly accessible and intimate fashion. This direct experience was more rewarding than owning a single print and displaying it on a wall.

Even before I identified myself as a collector, I understood the special nature of the book as a fully realized artistic object. The fact that every book is a unique experience and the choices each artist makes in creating their book moved me. The basic ingredients: sequencing, sizing, format, paper stock, binding, graphic design and overall production values contextualize the pictures and immediately set a tone. It wasn’t long before I realized I was hooked, and decided to build a comprehensive 20th-century library representing the finest examples of extraordinary titles.

Initially, my focus was not directed to a particular genre of photography. I assembled books by important artists who made significant contributions in their respective genres. Books have long life spans and are found everywhere. But, it’s amazing that, long after they’ve been published, they continue to affect new generations, thousands of photographers (and readers). The idea that the bookmaker functions as a curator and selects pictures is also important given the picture-obsessed environment in which we live. It’s hard to imagine how historical figures would react to the millions of images created and the new milieu of ebooks and books-on-demand.

I’m part of a global community of photography and book lovers who owe a great debt to Alfred Stieglitz, who brought recognition and attention to the field as a serious art form. Stieglitz was also a master printer of the hand-pulled photogravure, examples of which appeared in the art magazine he edited and published, “Camera Work,” and continue to highlight publications today. He would be pleased to see that every major museum has a photographic collection and the entire contemporary art scene is populated with artists who employ photography. In fact, the diverse historical and contemporary figures responsible for photography’s widespread popularity will never be forgotten as long as photobooks are produced.

I have always thought of myself (and for that matter any collector) as a custodian of these works. I knew that, eventually, they would need to be shared. I have learned and enjoyed a great deal from these books. Now it is time to pass them on to new collectors, the next generation of aficionados or, perhaps, even museums that will share them with young, curious eyes. “ Early on, I recognized that the beautifully produced book was an autonomous work of art.”

Photography begins with the birth of the photobook. Long before the white wall or editioned print--and more than century before galleries and museums exhibited pictures--photographers recognized the book as an art form and used it to distribute, sequence and share their work. Although the experience of the book is intimate and personal, photographers boldly employed it, insisting the world take notice of photography’s powerful range of expression.

Alexey Brodovitch's Ballet, contains 104 photogravures of several dance companies
including the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, 1945.

The book serves as a distinct representation of the maker’s unique sensibility and methodology. Generally a small object, it nonetheless has a monumental and incomparable purpose: to allow us to hold in our hands the visions of towering figures of 19th and 20th century photography.

William Klein highlights include his books Life is Good & Good for You in New York, 1956; Moscow, 1964; Tokyo, 1964 and Rome: The City and its People, 1959.

Each of the books in Bill Diodato’s collection stands as an exceptional example of a rare, out-of-print title, while also serving as a distinct, vital entry point into the perspective of the photographer.

Robert Frank's The Lines of My Hand, 1972.

Here we see William Klein’s freshly dynamic sequencing, Robert Frank’s revolutionary blending of observer and interpreter, Alexey Brodovitch’s artful and kinetic designs, Henri Cartier-Bresson’s careful 35mm eye, the expansive preoccupations of Andy Warhol’s Factory and the explosive world of the mid-century color photographers.

This copy of Andy Warhol's Index (Book), 1967, comes in the original printed plastic wrapper (unopened).

We watch history move, see our collective identity change, see the world reflected, revolutionized, reexamined and renewed. Here we see photography emerge as powerful, necessary force in the world.

William Eggleston

The vast American scene has long captivated photographers. Some took to the road while others focused on the urban street. The portrait studio also emerged as a site of aesthetic investigation.

Richard Avedon’s stunning portraits of the working class in the West counterpose Lewis Baltz’s unsettling views of the social landscape. Aaron Siskind brought his quintessentially American abstract expressionist style to image making, just as Harry Callahan rendered America with visual poetry. Lee Friedlander asked us to both embrace and feel repelled by the banality of our culture. Their photographs are both sublime and cool. They are straight, interpretive, loving, harsh, jaded and tender.

Nowhere is this more evident than in the books made in New York City. Berenice Abbott’s bold diagonally oriented dust jacket proclaiming her Changing New York, William Klein’s own take on the American typeface (in neon this time), Lewis Hine’s document of the Empire State Building that is both affectionate and awe-filled and Weegee’s photographs of the city at its most raw—these books attempted to document, to understand, to frame what is essentially unframable. Their design is powerful, pulpy, sensitive, gasping and yet many of the images are tender and careful. These contradictions, these portraits, are America at its best and most true.

One of the most significant items from the Bill Diodato collection is a suite of 12 Industrial Facades photographed by Bernd and Hilla Becher, the German artists known for their images of industrial buildings. Their work, typically grouped by subject and presented in a grid, was a tremendous influence on Minimalism and Conceptual Art. Diodato himself reflects that their work, "moved me in their formal scientific approach and their notion of the photograph-as-record. I never get tired of looking at their work."

The auction also features a copy of the Bechers' 1970 book Anonyme Skulpturen, Eine Typologie technischer Bauten [A Typology of Technical Constructions].

The Bechers, a husband-and-wife team, captured architectural forms throughout northern Europe and the U.S., which they referred to as "anonymous sculpture." Their extensive series of water towers, blast furnaces, coal mine tipples and other vernacular industrial architectural sites comprise an in-depth study of the intricate relationship between form and function, a principle that has dominated modernity since the 1920s.

Another Becher title is Typologien Typologies.

Their distinct signature style relies on a frontal depiction of a building or structure against a cloudless sky. Using a large-format (film) view camera for absolute clarity and precision, each unit is centered in the picture frame and printed in a neutral tone. The cool objectivity of the pictures recalls the dynamic visual presentations of engineers.

Diodato's copy of Fabrikhallen is signed by the Bechers.

The Bechers taught at the Arts Academy of Düsseldorf, in Germany, where they influenced Andreas Gursky, Thomas Struth, Candida Höfer and Thomas Ruth. Since her husband's death, Hilla Becher has continued to photograph and exhibit their work.

We asked photographer and collector Bill Diodato to share the story of putting together his photobook and photograph collection. In this 11-minute video, he relates how he began collecting photographic literature, which artists were his greatest inspiration and how he came to own images by Sally Mann, Irving Penn and Bernd and Hilla Becher.

Photographer and Collector Bill Diodato Discusses His Photobook Library from Swann Galleries on Vimeo.

For more on Bill and his collection, check out the online catalogue for the February 27 auction.

In belle epoch France, posters were used to advertise everything from goods and services to exhibitions and magazines. The result was an all-out poster craze, with collectors putting aside images by favored artists, advertisements for beloved performers and just beautiful works of art.

In a self-referential twist, Swann Galleries' upcoming auction of Vintage Posters features select images promoting the process of lithography and other forms of printing themselves.

Lot 41 is F. Hugo D'Alesi's design for an exhibition celebrating the first 100 years of lithography, 1895.

Lot 48 is Pierre Bonnard's advertisement for an exhibition launching Ambroise Vollard's portfolio, L'Album des Peintres Graveurs, which established him as one of the finest, most influential printers in Paris.

Lot 67 is Ferdinand Louis Gottlob's poster for the second Les Peintres Lithographes exhibition, 1898.

Lot 71 is Jules-Alexandre Grun's Société des Peintres-Lithographes, 1901.

It's a question we hear all the time in the auction business: Why is the owner of this piece of artwork, or rare book or hard-to-find map selling it? And, most of the time it's a hard question to answer. Sometimes the reasons are simple, mundane even, other times it's personal business and the consignor prefers not to say.

In 2008, Swann auctioned a wonderful assortment of Art Nouveau posters consigned by Bob and Peggy Marcus, who were retiring to Hawaii and didn't want to risk taking a paper-based collection to such a humid climate, which was one of the more interesting reasons we've heard. And, the sale did quite well, bringing $300,000 for Toulouse-Lautrec's Moulin Rouge / La Goulue.

Because we had the privilege of interviewing Bill Diodato about the upcoming sale of his Photobook Library, we asked him to answer this common question, and we find his answer quite perfect:

why sell2 1280x720 from Swann Galleries on Vimeo.

Beautiful Images for an Ugly Habit: Cigarette Posters

Seussian Advertisements: The Early Work of Theodor Seuss Geisel

Judging a Book by Its Cover

Off to See the Wizard

Happiness Is a Warm Inscription

Man-Cave-iana: The Birth of the Drool

A Tale of Two Women: Pioneering Californian Artists Pauline Powell Burns and Beulah Woodard

The Glory Days of Comic Strips in Reprints (and The New York Times)

Of Provenance & Peter Rabbit

Their Search for Small: House at Pooh Corner Illustration Sells for $47,500

The Cover Image: The Father of African-American Art History

The Forecast Calls for a Wintry Mix ... of Artwork

The Glory of Gorey: Swann to Offer the Sam Speigel Collection

Bill Diodato on Collecting

The Photobook Library of Bill Diodato: Provocateurs & Innovators

The Photobook Library of Bill Diodato: An Eye on the American Scene

From Functional to Conceptual: The Influence of Bernd and Hilla Becher

A Collector on Collecting: Bill Diodato Discusses his Photobook Library

The Art of Self Promotion: Posters for Lithography

Why Collectors Sell Their Collections