News
Family Collection Brings Record Results in One of Swann’s Highest-Grossing Poster Sales to Date
The Jimmy Van Heusen Collection of Musical Autographs
Our November 7 auction of Autographs is especially noteworthy for a collection of musical autographs from the estate…
Works from Will Barnet’s Estate at Auction
American artist Will Barnet is known for his intimate, foreshortened views of women with cats, but his oeuvre, spann…
Records & Results: Rare & Important Travel Posters
Our annual auctions of Rare & Important Travel Posters are destinations in and of themselves. On October 26, we …
Marvel at Early Aviation Posters from 1910
The development of manned flight from hot air balloon to heavier-than-air machines was recorded and disseminated to …
Records & Results: Art & Storytelling: Photographs & Photobooks
On October 19 our sale of Art & Storytelling: Photographs & Photobooks combined works spanning the lifetime …
Records & Results: Early Printed Books
Our October 17 auction of Early Printed, Medical, Scientific & Travel Books garnered eager interest from biblio…
The First Accounts of Captain Cook’s Fateful Voyage
A transportive highlight in our October 17 auction of Early Printed, Medical, Scientific & Travel Books is the r…
Magnum Photographs: 70th Anniversary
Magnum Photos, founded as a cooperative agency in 1947, is perhaps the most well-known photographic collective in th…
Records & Results: African-American Fine Art
Four works exceeded $100,000 at our sale of African-American Fine Art on Thursday, October 5. A wealth of unique pai…
Do You Speak Photography?
This post was written by our Vice President and Director of Photographs & Photobooks, Daile Kaplan. Photo…
Records & Results: Printed & Manuscript Americana
Hoards of history-lovers came out to attend the preview for our auction of Printed & Manuscript Americana on Sep…
Records & Results: 19th & 20th Century Prints & Drawings
We opened our fall season with a marathon sale of 19th & 20th Century Prints & Drawings, breaking multiple r…
Four Unique Works by Charles White Debut at Auction
The highlight of our October 5 auction of African-American Fine Art is a series of unique works by Charles White tha…
Alma Thomas’s Journey to Abstraction
Alma Thomas is renowned for her brightly colored abstract works that seem to dance across canvas and paper, but how …
Diary of a Syrian-American Woman, 1908
On a trip to her homeland, a young Syrian-American woman named Mary Arbeely kept a diary recording her attempts to c…
A Nineteenth-Century Honolulu Gossip Rag
The book arrived in Honolulu by ship from San Francisco on New Year’s Day, 1863, and soon caused a stir throug…
John Biggers Mural Damaged by Hurricane Harvey
As Hurricane Harvey roared through Houston last month, an unlikely victim was left behind: the monumental 1953 mural…
Who is Françoise Gilot?
The top lot in our September 19 auction of 19th & 20th Century Prints & Drawings is a masterful lithograph b…
Mexican Revolutionary Emiliano Zapata
Some people made such an impact on history that we see them in multiple sales each season, across widely disparate g…
A Look Inside the Catalogue: Maps & Atlases, Natural History & Color Plate Books
At Auction December 13 Complete Catalogue Maps An example of Abraham Ortelius’s map of Iceland will be includ…
Black and White All Over: The Riddle of Classical Photography
The following was written by Vice President and Director of Photographs & Photobooks, Daile Kaplan: I lov…
Identifying Types of Photographic Prints
Our Photographs & Photobooks department has put together a cheat sheet for identifying some of the more common t…
Records & Results: Vintage Posters
More than 600 colorful advertisements and announcements crossed the block at our sale of Vintage Posters on Wednesda…
Specialists in the Field: Nigel Freeman at the Tate
Nigel Freeman, founder and director of our African-American Fine Art department, is in London this week visiting som…
The Symbiotic Relationship Between Tattoos & Posters
An unusual lot in our upcoming auction of Vintage Posters features a colorful individual: Captain Costentenus, a Gre…
Isle Adam: Timeless & Inspiring
Shrewd perusers of our sales may notice a familiar eave lurking in the catalogue for our upcoming auction of Vintage…
Abram Games’s Sultry Poster Causes a Stir
Our August 2 auction of Vintage Posters features the largest — and best — selection of war posters we ha…
Daile Kaplan on The Thrill of Photographic Discovery
With the recent NPR coverage questioning whether an anonymous photograph actually depicts Amelia Earhart on a wharf …
Swann Summer Reading List 2017
We spoke to specialists at Swann about their extracurricular activities. Unsurprisingly, their interests are general…
American War Posters, 100 Years Later
Our August 2 auction of Vintage Posters will feature an exceptionally wide array of World War I imagery, honoring th…
Specialists in the Field: The New Museum
Specialists at Swann keep up with the cultural heartbeat by frequenting museum exhibitions. Over the summer, we̵…
Mrs. Stimson Joins Her Husband at the Huntington Historical Society
Mr. and Mrs. Henry Lewis Stimson lived in an estate in Huntington, Long Island. In his memoir, he wrote of her, R…
Records & Results: American Art
We closed our Spring 2017 season with a climactic sale of American Art on Thursday, June 15. The annual auction offe…
Records & Results: Spring 2017
The spring 2017 season at Swann Galleries marked the 75th anniversary of our first auction. On March 27, 1942, Benja…
Records & Results: Art, Press & Illustrated Books
Our June 13 auction of Art, Press & Illustrated Books offered a spectrum of books that doubled as objets d’art, …
Records & Results: Maps & Atlases, Natural History & Color Plate Books
Our June 7 auction of Maps & Atlases, Natural History & Color Plate Books saw strong results with multiple a…
Winslow Homer’s Personal “Bible”
On a visit to his Prout’s Neck studio, Winslow Homer’s friend and fellow artist John W. Beatty picked up…
Grapefruit: Yoko Ono’s Guide to Living Art
Visionary Yoko Ono created “event scores” as a way to encourage people to find art and beauty in their q…
Recently Rediscovered Watercolor by John Marin
A recently rediscovered watercolor by John Marin will be making its auction debut in our June 15 sale of American Ar…
Nahui Olin: Muse & Maker
Nahui Olin, the pseudonym of Carmen Mondragón, was a Mexican Surrealist active in the 1920s and ’30s. She hail…