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Beautiful Images for an Ugly Habit: Cigarette Posters
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...
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Seussian Advertisements: The Early Work of Theodor Seuss Geisel
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...
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Judging a Book by Its Cover
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...
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Off to See the Wizard
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....
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Happiness Is a Warm Inscription
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,...
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Man-Cave-iana: The Birth of the Drool
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...
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A Tale of Two Women: Pioneering Californian Artists Pauline Powell Burns and...
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...
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The Glory Days of Comic Strips in Reprints (and The New York Times)
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...
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Of Provenance & Peter Rabbit
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...
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Their Search for Small: House at Pooh Corner Illustration Sells for $47,500
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...
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The Cover Image: The Father of African-American Art History
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...
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The Forecast Calls for a Wintry Mix ... of Artwork
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...
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The Glory of Gorey: Swann to Offer the Sam Speigel Collection
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,...
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Bill Diodato on Collecting
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...
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The Photobook Library of Bill Diodato: Provocateurs & Innovators
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...
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The Photobook Library of Bill Diodato: An Eye on the American Scene
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...
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From Functional to Conceptual: The Influence of Bernd and Hilla Becher
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...
View ArticleA Collector on Collecting: Bill Diodato Discusses his Photobook Library
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...
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The Art of Self Promotion: Posters for Lithography
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...
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Why Collectors Sell Their Collections
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...
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