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Photographs & Photobooks

February 27, 2019|Kelsie Jankowski|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…

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…

August 13, 2018 | Photographs & Photobooks

A Look Inside the Catalogue: Photographs & Photobooks

At Auction October 18 Complete Catalogue Can cameras capture ghosts? Find out on October 16, from 6 to 8 pm, when writer Allison C. Meier will be at Swann…

June 25, 2018 | Swann

2017-18 Year in Review

The 2017-18 auction season at Swann Galleries was replete with record prices and rediscovered paintings, offering works created as early as the fifteenth century and as recently as last year.…

December 28, 2017 | Swann

2017: Year in Review

In our diamond anniversary year, we offered a star-studded roster of 30 auctions, setting nearly 100 records and introducing countless items to the market, including a previously unknown photograph of Harriet…

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…

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…

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…

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…

April 19, 2017 | Photographs & Photobooks

William Bradford & The Arctic Regions

The following are notes from the catalogue for our April 20 sale of Images & Objects: Photographs & Photobooks. William Bradford, a celebrated American painter, was also a…

April 13, 2017 | Photographs & Photobooks

Modern Daguerreotypes & More

While we live in a digital age, faced with a tsunami of photographs on all manner of devices, many modern artists have returned to the earliest photographic techniques. These were delicate, time-consuming…

April 7, 2017 | Photographs & Photobooks

Danny Lyon & New Photojournalism

Keavy Handley-Byrne of the Photographs & Photobooks department contributed to this post on Danny Lyon’s eponymous portfolio in our April 20 auction of Images & Objects: Photographs & Photobooks. …

February 3, 2017 | Photographs & Photobooks

Lucien Clergue’s Unpublished Photobook of Picasso

A fine example of the photobook as an art object will appear in our February 14 sale: Icons & Images: Photographs & Photobooks. It is the maquette for Clergue’s unpublished book…

February 1, 2017 | Photographs & Photobooks

Lunar Photography Through The Ages

This guest post was written by Keavy Handley-Byrne of the Photographs & Photobooks Department, for our February 14 sale of Icons & Images: Photographs & Photobooks. The moon has…

November 3, 2016 | Photographs & Photobooks

Records & Results: Art & Storytelling: Photographs & Photobooks

Our Tuesday, October 25 sale of Art & Storytelling: Photographs & Photobooks earned nearly $2 million. The top lot of the sale was Julia Margaret Cameron’s Portrait of…

October 18, 2016 | Photographs & Photobooks

Ed Ruscha: “I Want To Be The Henry Ford of Bookmaking”

We asked Oliver Lott from the Photographs department to talk about twentieth century photography’s man of mystery, Ed Ruscha: Edward Ruscha is a pioneer of the American photobook. Between…

October 7, 2016 | Photographs & Photobooks

Edward Curtis & Alfred Stieglitz: Two 20th Century Masters

Twentieth century photography didn’t follow one single trend. Instead, new technologies were often used in markedly different ways to convey unique perspectives. We asked Daile Kaplan, our Director of Photographs &…

October 6, 2016 | Early Printed Books

A Monumental Collection: Early Adventure Literature from the Estate of Timothy Treacy

This year we are honored to offer material from the collection of Timothy Treacy. So prolific was Treacy as a collector that material from his estate can be found in multiple…

April 13, 2016 | Photographs & Photobooks

Notes from the Catalogue: Vernacular Photographs of New York

Our upcoming auction Images & Objects: Photographs & Photobooks features a compelling section of vernacular photographs; among them are some fascinating images of New York from bygone eras. …

Cover of the Catalogue for America's first Photographs Auction

February 24, 2016 | Photographs & Photobooks

The First Auction of Photographs in the United States

February 14, 1952 Much has changed over the course of our 75-year history here at Swann Galleries, from new departments to the expansion our exhibition space. One small but…

February 18, 2016 | Photographs & Photobooks

A Storied Photograph: Ansel Adams’ “Moonrise, Hernandez, New Mexico”

Our upcoming auction Art & Storytelling: Photographs & Photobooks taps into the dual nature of the photographic medium as a vehicle for both fine art and narrative. The top lot of the…

February 17, 2016 | Photographs & Photobooks

Material & Process: Elaine O’Neil Shares the History of Her Cyanotype Quilt

The following post was written by the artist, Elaine O’Neil, whose cyanotype quilt “Rather See Than Be One,” is featured in our upcoming auction, Art & Storytelling: Photographs & Photobooks. The…

February 10, 2016 | Photographs & Photobooks

Wilson A. Bentley: Photographing the Fleeting Snowflake

The media has long painted a picture of the obsessed sculptor or painter, but the idea that photographers may share this intense personal and passionate focus is less familiar to…

February 9, 2016 | Photographs & Photobooks

Wilson A. Bentley: Photographing the Fleeting Snowflake

The media has long painted a picture of the obsessed sculptor or painter, but the idea that photographers may share this intense personal and passionate focus is less familiar to…

October 7, 2015 | Photographs & Photobooks

Daile Kaplan’s Top Five Picks from Icons & Images: Fine & Vernacular Photographs

Our specialists lovingly assemble hundreds of images into multiple sales every year, but there are always a few items in each auction that catch their attention in a different way.…

September 8, 2015 | Photographs & Photobooks

Introduction to Icons & Images: Fine & Vernacular Photographs

The following introduction was written by Swann Vice President and Director of Photographs & Photobooks Daile Kaplan. The title of our sale reflects the broad range of materials one…

September 8, 2015 | Photographs & Photobooks

On Sally Mann

The piece below was written by Keavy-Handley Byrne in our Photographs and Photobooks Department. Sally Mann grew up in rural Virginia, with an influential father who, as an amateur photographer…

Photographs & Photobooks

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