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Vintage Posters

March 1, 2019|Lauren Kristin|Vintage Posters

Upcoming Highlights: Graphic Design

At Auction May 23 Complete Catalogue Coming Soon Graphic Design continues to be a favorite among our poster auctions, with work by important designers like A.M. Cassandre, Charles Loupot, Ludwig…

February 13, 2019 | Vintage Posters

Records & Results: Vintage Posters

Alphonse Mucha & Art Nouveau Lead Vintage Posters at Swann Our February 7 sale of Vintage Posters saw numerous firsts and records. Nicholas D. Lowry, Swann President, noted: “Lively bidding for ski posters and Art Nouveau images set…

January 31, 2019 | Vintage Posters

The Posters on Your Shelf: Scarce Books & Portfolios

At the end of the nineteenth century, the craze of poster collecting was at an all-time high. As a result, publishers formed subscription services in limited runs so that the…

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 31, 2018 | Vintage Posters

A Look Inside the Catalogue: Rare & Important Travel Posters

At Auction October 25 Complete Catalogue A breathtaking presentation of rare and unexpectedly beautiful images from around the world, this sale features numerous destinations and locales. Trains, planes, automobiles…

August 7, 2018 | Vintage Posters

Records & Results: Vintage Posters

Poster Passion Leads to a Successful Auction Our August 1 Vintage Poster sale set at least six auction records, including a new high price for Sutro Baths. The exhibition for…

July 30, 2018 | Vintage Posters

Keep It Under Your Stetson

Wartime propaganda can serve a variety of purposes, from recruitment and morale-building to conservation. During World War II all of these played a role in the Office of War Information’s…

July 27, 2018 | Vintage Posters

Thirsty? Wine & Liquor Posters May Satisfy

We may be at the height of the craft beer renaissance, but the history of alcoholic beverages goes way back. Humans have proven, over millennia, that we like a good…

July 10, 2018 | Vintage Posters

The Hot Bid Interviews Nicho on Cassandre’s “Best Way”

Sheila Gibson Stoodley, author of The Hot Bid, interviewed our President & Principal Auctioneer Nicholas D. Lowry about the most expensive travel poster ever sold. Sheila’s blog, The Hot Bid showcases…

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.…

May 11, 2018 | Vintage Posters

A Look Inside the Catalogue: Vintage Posters

At Auction August 1 Complete Catalogue Wine & Liquor Advertisements Numerous posters by Leonetto Cappiello and Luciano Achille Mauzan, including rarely-seen works, capture the essence of their styles.…

May 9, 2018 | Vintage Posters

Records & Results: Graphic Design

Our auction of Graphic Design on May 3 offered vintage posters that defined the styles of the twentieth century. In a highly-curated selection of just over 250 lots, the highlight…

April 25, 2018 | Vintage Posters

How Car Posters Drove Graphic Design

In the dawn of the motor car, most automobile purveyors relied on a “keeping up with the Joneses” mentality, touting ever-evolving technology and styles to drive car sales. A selection…

March 30, 2018 | Vintage Posters

A Look Inside the Catalogue: Graphic Design

At Auction May 3 Graphic Design This auction celebrates innovation in the field of graphic design, with a colorful offering of vintage posters, along with a coterie of fine…

March 23, 2018 | Printed & Manuscript African Americana

Huey Newton’s Portraits & The Founding of the Black Panthers

New findings in our March 29 auction of Printed & Manuscript African-Americana clarify information behind iconic portraits of Black Panthers co-founder Huey P. Newton. Ensconced in a wicker…

March 9, 2018 | Vintage Posters

Records & Results: Vintage Posters Featuring Highlights from the Gail Chisholm Collection

Vintage Posters Featuring Highlights from the Gail Chisholm Collection offered premier examples of advertising and propaganda from around the world, and broke several auction records. Nicholas D. Lowry, President of…

February 23, 2018 | Vintage Posters

Erik Nitsche’s Modernist Vision

One of many highlights in our March 1 sale of Vintage Posters is a run of posters designed by Erik Nitsche in a series of campaigns for General Dynamics. Nitsche’s…

February 16, 2018 | Vintage Posters

Gail Chisholm: A Life in Posters

Nearly a quarter of our March 1 auction of Vintage Posters was devoted to highlights from the collection of renowned poster dealer and aficionado Gail Chisholm. The sale opened with more…

January 23, 2018 | Vintage Posters

Vintage Posters 101

So you’ve fallen in love with a vintage poster. What next? Here are some of the most important things to consider when talking about, looking for, and decorating with vintage…

October 30, 2017 | Vintage Posters

Records & Results: Rare & Important Travel Posters

Our annual auctions of Rare & Important Travel Posters are destinations in and of themselves. On October 26, we offered more spectacular examples that embodied a century’s worth of technological development.…

October 25, 2017 | Vintage Posters

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 the public via promotional posters. Some of the most influential works from this…

August 23, 2017 | Vintage Posters

Specialists in the Field: Sarah Shelburne at Dia: Beacon

One of the best parts of working at Swann is the ability to be surrounded by incredible varieties of art collecting and witness their intersection within our gallery. Our specialists…

August 4, 2017 | Vintage Posters

Records & Results: Vintage Posters

More than 600 colorful advertisements and announcements crossed the block at our sale of Vintage Posters on Wednesday, August 2. The encyclopedic selection represented a century’s worth of development in…

July 27, 2017 | Vintage Posters

The Symbiotic Relationship Between Tattoos & Posters

An unusual lot in our upcoming auction of Vintage Posters features a colorful individual: Captain Costentenus, a Greek Albanian man tattooed from head to foot. Captain Costentenus was…

July 19, 2017 | Vintage Posters

Isle Adam: Timeless & Inspiring

Shrewd perusers of our sales may notice a familiar eave lurking in the catalogue for our upcoming auction of Vintage Posters: the iconic orange roof of the beach house at…

July 17, 2017 | Vintage Posters

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 have ever offered. As England prepared to enter World War Two,…

July 10, 2017 | Vintage Posters

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 the centennial anniversary of the U.S.’s entry into the fray. More…

June 16, 2017 | Swann

Records & Results: Spring 2017

The spring 2017 season at Swann Galleries marked the 75th anniversary of our first auction. On March 27, 1942, Benjamin Swann held an auction dedicated to rare and antiquarian books.…

June 1, 2017 | Vintage Posters

Records & Results: Graphic Design

Our May 25 auction of Graphic Design offered a cornucopia of inspired works spanning fin de siècle Art Nouveau masters to modernist posters. The top lot of the sale was Col…

May 23, 2017 | Vintage Posters

Graphic Design in the Vienna Secession

This post includes notes from the catalogue of our May 25 auction of Graphic Design, featuring an extensive selection of works out of the Wiener Werkstätte, the design school for the…

May 12, 2017 | Vintage Posters

Psychedelic Concert Posters

This post was written by Sarah Shelburne of the Vintage Posters department using examples from the May 25 auction of Graphic Design. Few art forms have been as…

March 19, 2017 | Vintage Posters

Records & Results: Vintage Posters

On Thursday, March 16, Swann Galleries offered Vintage Posters, featuring dynamic selections of graphic art from the end of the nineteenth century through the middle of the twentieth century. The…

March 14, 2017 | Vintage Posters

Ski Posters Swoosh into Swann

Our March 16 sale of Vintage Posters will offer 91 early twentieth-century ski posters, representing all areas of interest avid ski poster collectors seek, from geographic variety to stylistic innovation. The…

January 31, 2017 | Vintage Posters

Records & Results: Alphonse Mucha

On Thursday, January 26, we opened the 2017 season with a landmark sale of Alphonse Mucha & Masters of Art Nouveau: The Harry C. Meyerhoff Collection, the largest private collection of…

January 18, 2017 | Vintage Posters

Notes from the Catalogue: Harry C. Meyerhoff

What makes Alphonse Mucha & Masters of Art Nouveau: The Harry C. Meyerhoff Collection so special? Amazingly, this is the first auction dedicated to a private collection of posters and…

January 12, 2017 | Vintage Posters

Alphonse Mucha: Behind the Magic

Even those unfamiliar with Alphonse Mucha’s name will recognize the tendrils of hair and profusion of delicate flowers surrounding his seraphic models. But what of the man himself? How did these ethereal…

January 9, 2017 | Vintage Posters

Sarah Bernhardt, Mucha’s Muse

This post was written by Associate Cataloguer & Administrator for Vintage Posters Sarah Shelburne for our January 26 auction, Alphonse Mucha & Masters of Art Nouveau: The Harry C. Meyerhoff Collection. …

December 19, 2016 | Swann

Records & Results: Fall 2016

Fall 2016 has been a successful season at Swann. In 13 sales, we set more than 50 auction records and offered 4,497 lots, including a rediscovered illustration by Dr. Seuss, a…

November 4, 2016 | Vintage Posters

Records & Results: Rare & Important Travel Posters

Our October 27 sale of Rare & Important Travel Posters set at least ten auction records. The selection reflected the rapidly changing technology and styles that epitomized the beginning of the…

October 21, 2016 | Vintage Posters

California Dreaming? Travel Posters Can Take You There

Every autumn we continue our tradition of offering the finest travel posters available. On October 27, the selection reflects the excitement and globalization of the early- to mid-twentieth century, with posters featuring…

October 20, 2016 | Vintage Posters

The Short & Riveting History of Zeppelins, as Told Through Posters

The annual Rare & Important Travel Posters sale demonstrates the diversity of locomotive options available in the twentieth century. In anticipation of the October 27 auction, Associate Cataloguer & Administrator…

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…

August 16, 2016 | Swann

2015-16: A Year of Records

Last year Swann Galleries saw 95 records and first appearances across 31 sales with some of our departments even breaking their own records. Treasures ranging from previously unknown works to…

August 8, 2016 | Vintage Posters

Records & Results – Vintage Posters

Swann Galleries’ August 3 sale of Vintage Posters finished the 2015-2016 season for the house, breaking three auction records in the process. Alois Hans Schram’s Jubilæums – Ausstellung /…

July 27, 2016 | Vintage Posters

WWI Armistice Signaled Change in Recruitment Posters

One of the most invigorating sections of our 3 August Vintage Posters sale is the tremendous selection of war propaganda. We examine how these posters changed as the first world…

July 25, 2016 | Vintage Posters

The Greatest Show on Earth: How Circuses Reused Effective Design

In the summer heat, it’s hard to imagine performing acrobatic feats and superhuman demonstrations. At Swann we get our exercise vicariously by investigating some of the circus posters from our…

Jan Tschichold, Der Berufsphotograph, 1938.

May 9, 2016 | Vintage Posters

Photomontage in Graphic Design

Our Vintage Posters department has expanded and renamed their annual Modernist Posters sale. Now called Graphic Design, this auction features posters and ephemera that highlight the shifting trends in imagery and typography…

February 10, 2016 | Vintage Posters

Drama on Paper: Early American Theatrical Posters

Posters were designed to grab attention with a combination bright colors, bold typography and iconic imagery, but when it comes to posters advertising early American theater productions, the more dramatic…

January 25, 2016 | Vintage Posters

Specialist Selections: Nicholas Lowry’s Favorite American Ski Posters

As a skier (in all fairness I was an avid skier in my youth and now fondly recall those carefree winter excursions, as I sit behind my desk with my…

December 17, 2015 | Vintage Posters

Records & Results: Rare & Important Travel Posters

This mid-November sale of Rare & Important Travel Posters had an excellent sell-through rate of 77%, bringing multiple auction and artist records for posters of all modes of travel. …

Vintage Posters

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