Swann Galleries: African-American Fine Art Sale 2338

Swann Auction Galleries' upcoming African-American Sale, Shadows Uplifted: The Rise of African-American Fine Art, focuses on 19th century, Works Progress Administration (WPA), and Harlem Renaissance artists whose work helped to shape the landscape of American art. Shadows Uplifted: The Rise of African-American Fine Art, Sale 2338, will be held on February 13, 2014. It includes 82 lots of paintings, sculptures, drawings, fine prints, and photography by artists who emerged from the shadows of academic and genre painting, and defined a new visual culture during the Harlem Renaissance and WPA eras. These treasures capture many of the earliest, select, and scarce works from this time period.

According to Swann Galleries, "the auction's title is taken from Frances Harper's 1892 book , Iola Leroy or Shadows Uplifted, one of the first novels written by an African-American female author. The struggles faced by African-American visual artists at the turn of the century mirror those of the book's protagonist-- a young woman in antebellum South. 


Some highlights of Shadows Uplifted follow:

Lot 14
Henry  Ossawa Tanner (1859-1937)
Study for Disciples Healing the Sick

Henry Ossawa Tanner, Study for Disciples Healing the Sick. Oil on thin plywood panel, circa 1930, 10½"x 13¾"
Image: Swann Auction Galleries

Study for Disciples Healing the Sick, a wonderfully modern and painterly oil, is an excellent example of Tanner's late studies for his Biblical scenes. As preliminary works, Tanner experimented in palette, medium and composition in these small scale paintings. This Study, Lot 14, was one of the studies made in preparation for the much larger painting, Disciples Healing the Sick, circa 1930, 36"x 48", in the collection of the Clark Atlanta University Art Galleries.

Study for Disciples Healing the Sick has an estimate of $60,000 - $90,000.


Lot 25
Nancy Elizabeth Prophet (1890-1960)
Untitled (Head)

Nancy Elizabeth Prophet, Untitled (Head). Stained and oiled wood, circa early 1930s, 12½"x 6½"x7"
Image: Swann Auction Galleries

Untitled (Head) is the first work by early modern sculptor Nancy Elizabeth Prophet, who studied at Rhode Island School of Design, to come to auction. This enigmatic and imposing untitled carved wood head dates from the early 1930s.

This androgynous head is most similar in its material, and simplified polished features to Prophet's polychrome wood Discontent, circa 1929. Instead of a skull cap, Discontent is cloaked in a cowl but shares the distinctive Roman nose and features of this untitled head. Lot 25 has an estimate of $35,000 - 50,000.

Additional sculpture highlights are Beulah Ecton Woodward's African Head, Lot 58 (estimate $10,000 - $15,000); Augusta Savage's iconic Lift Every Voice and Sing, Lot 59 (estimate of $12,000 - $18,000); Sargent Claude Johnson's The Knot and the Noose, Lot 79 (estimate of $40,000 - $60,000); and William E. Artis' Michael (Head of a Boy), Lot 82 (estimate of $8,000 - $12,000).


Lot 28
James A. Porter (1905-1970)
Self-Portrait

James A. Porter, Self-Portrait.
Oil on linen canvas, circa 1935, 14"x 12" 
Image: Swann Auction Galleries

James A. Porter, artist, art historian, and head of the Howard University Art Department, shows himself here as a young artist at his easel. Porter was widely exhibited in the 1930s at such venues as the Corcoran Gallery of Art, the Detroit Institute of Arts, the Museum of Modern Art, the Baltimore Museum, and the Harmon Foundation (New York). In 1943, Porter's seminal Modern Negro Art was published; it was one of the first comprehensive academic studies of African-American art.

This work, Self-Portrait, is the cover image for Sale 2338, and it is the first portrait in oil on canvas by Porter to come to auction. Its estimate is $12,000 - $18,000.


Lot 55
Hughie Lee-Smith (1915-1999)
Coal Breakers

Hughie Lee-Smith, Coal Breakers. Oil on canvas, 1938, 30¼" x 25¼" 
Illustrated: King-Hammond, Leslie. Hughie Lee-Smith, plate 5, page 17. Image: Swann Auction Galleries

Lot 55 is a scarce early painting by Hughie Lee-Smith from the late 1930s, and it is one of his earliest paintings to come to auction. Coal Breakers (1938) is Lee-Smith's first known social-realist oil painting, and an important early manifestation of his long interest in depicting figures in desolate landscapes. Coal Breakers is the top lot in Sale 2338 and has an estimate of $80,000 - $120,000.

Printmakers are represented in Sale 2338 by Dox Thrash, Claude Clark, Allan Freelon, Hayward L. Oubre, Albert Alexander Smith, and others, including a collection of approximately 200 linoleum cut blocks (Lot 47) by Allan Rohan Crite.

An illustrated auction catalogue, with information on bidding by mail or fax, is available for $35 from Swann Galleries, Inc., 104 East 25th Street, New York, NY 10010. View online catalogue.

Live online bidding is available. Also, you may make advance arrangements to bid by telephone during the auction, please call Swann's bid department (212-254-4710, ext. 0) during business hours (Monday - Friday, 10 AM - 6 PM). For further information, please contact Nigel Freeman, Director (African-American Fine Art Department) at 212-254-4710, extension 33, or via e-mail at nfreeman@swanngalleries.com.

Results of Swann's African-American Fine Art Sale 2290

Swann Auction Galleries' African-American Fine Art Sale 2290 on October 18, 2012 brought in $1,268,502 with buyer’s premium, falling short of its pre-sale low estimate of $2,098,200. Of the 154 lots that were offered at auction, 107 sold (69% sell-through rate by lot). According to Nigel Freeman, Director of African-American Fine Art at Swann Galleries, “Collectors sought out top-quality paintings by the masters. Norman Lewis and Henry Ossawa Tanner works brought high prices, in particular.”

The top 5 lots based on selling price with buyer's premium are as follows:

Lot 53, Charles White's Songs of Life, pen and ink on board, 1953-54 sold for $144,000 to a collector. Although this work passed the $100,000 mark, it did not reach its low estimate of $150,000.

Lot 34, Norman Lewis' Magenta Haze, oil on canvas, 1947 sold for $96,000 to a dealer.

Lot 41, Norman Lewis, Untitled (Circular Procession of Figures), oil on canvas, 1953 sold for $90,000 to a collector.  Of the top 5 lots, this is the only work that reached its high estimate ($75,000).

Lot 9, Henry Ossawa Tanner's Christ and Nicodemus (Early Study), oil on cardstock, circa 1923 sold for $90,000 to a collector.

Lot 8, Henry Ossawa Tanner's Flight Into Egypt, oil on wood panel, circa 1916-22 sold for $84,000 to a dealer.

Allan Rohan Crite, Douglass Square

In addition to the previously mentioned five lots, it is worth noting those artists who achieved an artist record in Sale 2290. Those four artists and their works follow: Allan Rohan Crite, Douglass Square ($36,000), Rex Goreleigh ($31,200), Richard Mayhew ($28,800), and Louis Delsarte ($24,000).

Rex Goreleigh, Spring Pruning

Richard Mayhew, Sacred Path    

Louis Delsarte, Reunion

Select Art Exhibitions: Highlights for 2012

This begins the ninth year that the Black Art Project has presented on a national scale art exhibitions of artists of African descent. This post will simply highlight a few of those exhibitions that will have an opening date during the first quarter of 2012. Quarterly posts will follow, featuring subsequent exhibitions, as they approach their opening dates. These quarterly posts will assure a freshness and currency of information for the exhibition aficionado. Because this post is simply a highlight, look to the right sidebar of the blog for a more comprehensive feature of exhibitions in 2012. This sidebar is updated on a weekly basis by either adding newly discovered exhibitions or removing those that are closely approaching their expiration date.  

A number of important traveling exhibitions from the previous year are still on tour in 2012. Although they are not featured in these highlights, they are accessible from the sidebar. 

Black Art Project (BAP) welcomes any information or leads that you might have relating to Black art exhibitions, particularly regional exhibitions that are not traditionally marketed on a national scale. BAP will verify the accuracy of any information submitted. Thank you for any assistance that you provide.


 

Atlanta, Georgia

High Museum of Art



Bill Traylor, Untitled, ca 1939 - 1942,
Poster paint and pencil on cardboard,
11¾" x 7¾", High Museum of Art, Purchase
with funds from Mrs. Lindsay Hopkins, Jr.,
Edith G. and Philip Rhodes,
and the Members Guild



This traveling exhibition, Bill Traylor: Drawings from the Collections of the High Museum of Art and the Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts, premieres at the High Museum of Art on February 5, 2012 and will be on view through May 13, 2012. The exhibition, featuring more than 60 works drawn from both collections, highlights some of the best examples of Traylor's work that is rarely seen outside of the southeastern United States. Bill Traylor "features representative works from Traylor's various genres, including human and animal figures and depictions of his memories of plantation life."

William Traylor was born into slavery sometime between 1852 and 1856, and he died in 1949. The artist began drawing when he was eighty-five years old, and produced more than 1,200 drawings within the next decade of his life. Traylor’s work has been represented in at least 30 solo exhibitions and 85 group shows since the late 1970s.  

Chapel Hill, North Carolina

The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Ackland Art Museum

Thornton Dial: Thoughts on Paper is on view March 30 - July 1, 2012 at the Ackland Art Museum. Thornton Dial's drawings are his most prolific body of work, and this exhibition features 50 of his earliest drawings from 1990-1991 which is defined as a pivotal moment in his artistic career. "The works in the exhibition - characterized by flowing lines, color washes, and images of women, fish, and tigers - provide a touchstone of Dial's creative process."

Thornton Dial is most recognized for his large scale, multi-media assemblages, as was reflected in two recent exhibitions: Thornton Dial: Disaster Areas (Bill Lowe Gallery, 2011) and Hard Truths: The Art of Thornton Dial (Indianapolis Museum of Art, 2011). This current exhibition, at the Ackland Museum of Art, provides an opportunity for the viewer to explore the drawings, which are a lesser known but important portion of Dial's oeuvre.


A fully-illustrated catalogue accompanies Thornton Dial: Thoughts on Paper.

Charlotte, North Carolina

Harvey B. Gantt Center for

African-American Arts and Culture

James Phillips, jitterbug Waltz Series: CT,
Acrylic on paper, 30" x 40"

Rhythm-A-Ning: James Phillips, Charles Searles and Frank Smith is on view through June 30, 2012 at the Harvey B. Gantt Center. Works by the three artists featured in this exhibition "visually reflect the qualities and characteristics of jazz. Each artist - in his own way - has improvised with color , rhythm, patterns, and forms to abstractly produce work which can soar and challenge...."



  Montgomery, Alabama

Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts 



Mose Tolliver (Mose T), Model T with creature,
Acrylic on plywood



Paintings by Mose Tolliver will be on view through March 4, 2012 at the Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts. This exhibition includes a selection of the twenty-six paintings from the 1970s to the 1990s that are owned by the Museum. 

Mose Tolliver, who is usually referred to Mose T, was one of Montgomery’s most prolific and best-known self-taught artists.  "The subjects of Tolliver’s paintings were largely established by the early 1980s, and included first birds, then animals, people, and fantastic creatures that were products of his vivid imagination.  Unable to stand without crutches due to an industrial accident in the 1960s, he usually painted small works that could be supported on his lap, or laid flat on the floor."




Newark, Delaware
University of Delaware

University Museums

Mechanical Hall

Barkley L. Hendricks, Iconic Dexter,
2008/9, Archival pigment inkjet, 60" x 42",
Courtesy of the artist and Jack Shainman Gallery,
New York

Magical Visions: Ten Contemporary African American Artists is on view February 1 - June 29, 2012 in Mechanical Hall at the University of Delaware / University Museums. This exhibition brings together the work "of artists who have pioneered significant changes in media, including assemblage, fiber, painting, photography, printmaking, quiltmaking, and sculpture to video with performance." The following artists are included in Magical Visions...: Terry Adkins, Sonya Clark, Melvin Edwards, Sam Gilliam, Barkley L. Hendricks, Kalup Linzy, Odili Odata, Karen Olivier, Faith Ringgold, and Williams T. Williams. 

There will be an opening reception with Guest Curator Keith Morrison on Wednesday, February 15, 2012 from 5 – 6:30 pm. Please RSVP at universitymuseums@udel.edu or 302/ 831-8037. 

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts (PAFA)

Samuel M. V. Hamilton Building

Fisher Brooks Gallery

Henry Ossawa Tanner: Modern Spirit is on view January 28 - April 15, 2012 in the Samuel M. V. Hamilton Building, Fisher Brooks Gallery at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. This much anticipated and long awaited exhibition will elevate Tanner's reputation through scholarship and bring his works together for the first time in a generation.



Henry Ossawa Tanner, The Seine, Looking
Toward Notre Dame, 1896, Oil on canvas,
14 7/8" x 20 1/8", Courtesy of Michael Rosenfeld
Gallery, LLC, New York, NY

Henry Ossawa Tanner... focuses on the career and life of the artist that includes "the pioneering African-American artist’s upbringing in Philadelphia in the years after the Civil War; the artist’s success as an American expatriate artist at the highest levels of the international art world at the turn of the 20th century; Tanner’s role as a leader of an artist’s colony in rural France and his unique contributions in aid of American servicemen to the Red Cross efforts in WWI France; his modernist invigoration of religious painting deeply rooted in his own faith; Tanner’s depictions of the Holy Land and North Africa interpreted through comparison with contemporary French orientalist painting and photography; and the scientific and technical innovations of the artist’s oeuvre."

A catalogue accompanies this traveling exhibition. See gallery images and letters from the PAFA Archives; and Henry Ossawa Papers at the Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution: Archives. 

For information regarding the reception and ticket(s) to view the exhibition, see: event

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts

Samuel M. V. Hamilton Building

Annenberg and Tuttleman Galleries

After Henry Tanner: African American Artists since 1940 is on view January 28 - April 15, 2012. This exhibition is a permanent collection installation drawn from PAFA's examples of work by African American artists. After Henry Tanner complements the Tanner retrospective and speaks to Tanner's enduring legacy for artists working today. 

NOTE:  Take a look at the right sidebar of the BAP blog for a more comprehensive listing of exhibitions in 2012; over 60 exhibitions are currently featured. Enjoy!