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Fine Photographs: Highlights by Diane Arbus, Robert Mapplethorpe & Michael...
Auction Date TBA Michael Halsband, Andy Warhol and Jean-Michel Basquiat, silver print, 1985, prints 1997. $20,000 to $30,000. Masterworks of 20th-Century Photography Michael Halsband’s iconic...
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Old Diaries Tell the Stories of Overlooked Americans
The Value of Manuscript Journals Manuscript diaries, that is, diaries written by hand, are a perennially popular collecting category in the Americana realm. Nothing can beat a good diary to bring...
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Collector’s Guide: Photo Editions Explained
Pieter Hugo, Naasra Yeti, Agbogbloshie Market, Accra, Ghana, chromogenic print, edition 4/10, 2009. Sold February 25, 2020 in Classic & Contemporary Photographs for $6,760. With photography’s...
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Romare Bearden’s Letters to Art Historian Harry B. Henderson, Jr.
Swann’s forthcoming sale of Printed & Manuscript African Americana includes a remarkable archive of letters, postcards and greeting cards from Romare Bearden to his longtime friend and...
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What Swann is Reading Right Now
Since Swann was founded as an auction housing specializing in rare and antiquarian books, it should come as no surprise that we love to read. So in addition to spending normal commuting hours...
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The Social Document: Dorothea Lange’s ‘Migrant Mother’
Dorothea Lange’s Migrant Mother is widely recognized as the most popular social documentary photograph of all time. During the course of her 40-year career, Lange’s style as a photographer proposed...
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Beyond Migrant Mother: Five FSA Photographers to Know
While Dorothea Lange—and her portrait of Florence Thompson, Migrant Mother—has become one of the most well-known photographers to come out of the Great Depression and the Farm Security...
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WPA Posters: Favorites from a Vintage Posters Specialist
In addition to the many murals, sculptures, paintings and photos commissioned by the Works Progress Administration during the 1930s and forties, graphic artists designed hundreds upon hundreds of...
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Nigel Freeman on the Legacy of David C. Driskell, 1931-2020
Image Courtesy of The David C. Driskell Center We are greatly saddened to hear the news of David Driskell’s passing yesterday with the email announcement from the David C. Driskell Center at the...
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Etched in History: Printmakers of the Federal Art Project
As jobless Americans eventually found work with Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal Works Progress Administration (WPA), George Biddle, an artist and childhood friend of the president, pushed for...
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Tadanori Yokoo: Pop Visionary
Internationally-renowned graphic artist and designer Tadanori Yokoo, who has been called “the grandmaster of Japanese pop-psych art,” got his start as a stage designer for avant garde theatre in Tokyo....
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What You Should Know About Collecting Exhibition Posters
Purchasing art exhibition posters is an accessible and often affordable entrée into the poster collecting. Of course, anyone can walk into a museum and purchase an exhibition poster of their favorite...
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Cultural Cross-Currents: The Indian Space Painters
At the end of World War II American artists were seeking to create a form of modernism that was uniquely their own. In this quest they coupled the styles of the European Surrealists and abstract...
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Illustrator Profile: William Pène du Bois
William Pène du Bois’ whimsical illustrations and beloved cast of characters made serious themes accessible and engaging for children. The American author and illustrator is among a select few who...
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Why do old books use F’s instead of S’s?
Or, WTſ? It’s a common source of confusion: “I have this book, and it’s really old, and all of the s’s are f’s, so I know it’s really old. It’s called Paradife Loft, by John Milton.” Or my favorite,...
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Meisterstiche: Albrecht Dürer’s Master Engravings
Albrecht Dürer’s Melencolia I, St. Jerome in His Study and Knight, Death and the Devil, all from 1513-14 and related in size, style and technical complexity, have been considered his master engravings...
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A Brief History of AfriCOBRA
The AfriCOBRA movement was borne from the Civil Rights and Black Power Movements. The collective was founded in 1968 by Chicago based artists: Jeff Donaldson, Wadsworth Jarrell, Jae Jarrell, Barbara...
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A New Muse: Robert Mapplethorpe and Lisa Lyon
“I’d never seen anybody that looked like that before. Once she took her clothes off, it was like seeing something from another planet.”– Robert Mapplethorpe on Lisa Lyon Robert Mapplethorpe, Lisa...
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Old Master Through Modern Prints
At Auction May 21* Catalogue Coming Soon *This auction has been rescheduled from its original date, and will now be held on Thursday, May 21, 2020 at 10:30 AM ET, previewing online only. At this...
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Swann in Profile: Laura Polucha
Laura Polucha joined our illustration art department as a cataloguer in the summer of 2019. Here she shares with us what brought her into the auction world, what she can’t get through her work...
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