January 4, 2022Deborah RogalPhotographs & Photobooks Fine Photographs: Celebrating 70 Years of Photographs at Swann Read more about Fine Photographs: Celebrating 70 Years of Photographs at Swann Over 70 years ago, Swann held the first auction dedicated to photography in the United States. This 1952 photography auction was astonishingly early for a sale devoted to a medium…
Read more about Fine Photographs: March 2021 Auction Highlights February 18, 2021 Photographs & Photobooks Fine Photographs: March 2021 Auction Highlights Fine photographs by Diane Arbus, Julia Margaret Cameron, Robert Frank, Adam Fuss, Dorothea Lange, Robert Mapplethorpe, and Irving Penn, portfolios by Ansel Adams, Berenice Abbott, Eugène Atget, Paul Strand, and more.
Read more about California Modernism: Photography from Group f/64 February 20, 2020 Photographs & Photobooks California Modernism: Photography from Group f/64 The perpetual sunshine and endless summer enjoyed by California natives has traditionally been linked to the glamor and film industries. But in the 1920s and thirties, a community of artist-photographers known as Group f/64 developed a photographic vocabulary and visual style that might best be described as California Modernism.
Read more about Records & Results: Photographs & Photobooks April 23, 2019 Photographs & Photobooks Records & Results: Photographs & Photobooks Martín Chambi & Images of South America Lead Classic & Contemporary Photographs at Swann Our sale of Classic & Contemporary Photographs on Thursday, April 18 saw active bidding across all categories with early-twentieth-century photography, Humanist portraits and sublime images of nature…
Read more about Upcoming Highlights: Classic & Contemporary Photographs March 5, 2019 Photographs & Photobooks Upcoming Highlights: Classic & Contemporary Photographs At Auction April 18 Complete Catalogue Our diverse April auction bridges classical and contemporary visual idioms with important work, including Robert Mapplethorpe’s Lisa Lyon, Dorothea Lange’s emotive Korean Child,…
Read more about Records & Results: Photographs & Photobooks February 27, 2019 Photographs & Photobooks Records & Results: Photographs & Photobooks A Record for Malick Sidibé in Swann Photo SaleVernacular albums of nineteenth-century India bring $30k Our sale of Photographs: Art & Visual Culture on February 21, a curated sale celebrating photographs as physical objects, saw success across the board with contemporary, twentieth-century and…
Read more about Upcoming Highlights – Photographs: Art & Visual Culture January 21, 2019 Photographs & Photobooks Upcoming Highlights – Photographs: Art & Visual Culture At Auction February 21 Complete Catalogue This auction features Robert Frank’s Yom Kippur, East River, New York, 1955, printed 1971; Robert Mapplethorpe’s Roy Cohn, 1981; André Kertész’s signed…
Read more about 2018: Year in Review December 21, 2018 Swann 2018: Year in Review A year of records, debuts and rediscovered works. As we reflect on 2018, we look back at an excellent year of auctions. In April we held our highest-grossing African-American Fine Art…
Read more about Records & Results: Photographs & Photobooks October 22, 2018 Photographs & Photobooks Records & Results: Photographs & Photobooks Brâncusi Breaks $100k at Photographs Auction Records for DeCarava & Sidibé Swann Auction Galleries’ Thursday, October 18 sale of Photographs & Photobooks, which boasted historical and contemporary fine art…
Read more about Records & Results: The Knowing Eye: Photographs & Photobooks April 23, 2018 Photographs & Photobooks Records & Results: The Knowing Eye: Photographs & Photobooks Our April 19 auction The Knowing Eye: Photographs & Photobooks was led by the only known extant print of River Rouge Plant, Detroit (with Ford signage on freight car), 1947,…
Read more about A Look Inside the Catalogue: The Knowing Eye: Photographs & Photobooks March 1, 2018 Photographs & Photobooks A Look Inside the Catalogue: The Knowing Eye: Photographs & Photobooks At Auction April 19 The Knowing Eye: Photographs & Photobooks features a rare vintage print of Alfred Eisenstaedt’s iconic Premier at La Scala, Milan, circa 1933, and Robert Frank’s quirky Portrait of art…
Read more about Records & Results: Icons & Images: Photographs & Photobooks February 28, 2018 Photographs & Photobooks Records & Results: Icons & Images: Photographs & Photobooks We opened the 2018 season with a $1.6M auction of Icons & Images: Photographs & Photobooks on February 15. Important rare and unique work, both fine art and vernacular, brought…
Read more about Records & Results: Art & Storytelling: Photographs & Photobooks October 21, 2017 Photographs & Photobooks Records & Results: Art & Storytelling: Photographs & Photobooks On October 19 our sale of Art & Storytelling: Photographs & Photobooks combined works spanning the lifetime of the medium into an auction intended to “highlight the interrelationships between fine art, documentary and…
Read more about Do You Speak Photography? October 10, 2017 Photographs & Photobooks Do You Speak Photography? This post was written by our Vice President and Director of Photographs & Photobooks, Daile Kaplan. Photography is ubiquitous in visual culture. Whether you prefer contemporary works by Alec…
Read more about Black and White All Over: The Riddle of Classical Photography August 17, 2017 Photographs & Photobooks 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 love looking at photographs in both black-and-white and color iterations. Long before streaming…
Read more about Identifying Types of Photographic Prints August 11, 2017 Photographs & Photobooks Identifying Types of Photographic Prints Our Photographs & Photobooks department has put together a cheat sheet for identifying some of the more common types of photographs we handle. A cyanotype print is made by…
Read more about Records & Results: Images & Objects: Photographs & Photobooks April 23, 2017 Photographs & Photobooks Records & Results: Images & Objects: Photographs & Photobooks On Thursday, April 20, our sale ofImages & Objects: Photographs & Photobooks set multiple records for early and modern works, with 71% of works offered finding buyers. Nearly all…
Read more about Ansel Adams in Color! March 22, 2012 Photographs & Photobooks Ansel Adams in Color! Known for his attention and passion for the technical aspects of print making, Ansel Adams became a consultant for Edwin Land and the Polaroid Corporation in 1948. He tested film…
Read more about Daile Kaplan on Ansel Adams & the Value of a Photograph August 24, 2010 Photographs & Photobooks Daile Kaplan on Ansel Adams & the Value of a Photograph With the unfolding story surrounding a box of photographic negatives discovered in California, which were originally reported to have been taken by esteemed photographer Ansel Adams, many questions have popped…
December 2, 2009 Photographs & Photobooks Ansel Adams’s ‘Moonrise’ at Auction December 2009 Ansel Adams’s position in the pantheon of master photographers is assured by his magisterial studies of the American landscape. Swann is pleased to offer Moonrise Over Hernandez in two iterations—a…