Swann Galleries returns with its annual fall sale of African American Art on Thursday, October 19. One of the only major auction houses with a team dedicated to African American fine art, the department handles a range of material spanning the late 19th-century to the Harlem Renaissance, as well as modern and contemporary art. The genre consistently breaks auction records for established artists as well as those with no previous auction history.
Norman Lewis (1909-1979), Moon Madness, 1959. Oil on canvas, 36¼ x 60¼ in. Estimate: $600/900,000
Leading the October sale is Moon Madness, a processional painting by Norman Lewis (1909-1979). Born in New York City, Lewis was an abstract expressionist painter known for his gestural brushwork, expressive renderings of line and bold use of color. In the earlier portion of his career, he employed a more realist style before transitioning to the abstract. An example of his later work, Moon Madness is part of a series of nocturnal compositions made by the artist in the late 1950s. It has an estimated value of $600,000 to $900,000.
Additional highlights include two paintings from 1954. Known for his realistic and slightly surreal paintings of figures in desolate landscapes, Hughie Lee-Smith ’s Untitled (Two Young Men on a Beach) is an evocative oil painting that epitomizes the artist’s career-defining body of work. The piece is expected to achieve between $120,000 and $180,000.
Hughie Lee-Smith (1915-1999), Untitled (Two Young Men on a Beach), 1954. Oil on board, 18 x 24 in. Estimate: $120/180,000
Romare Bearden’s The River Merchant’s Wife is a significant example of his period of abstraction which, until recently, has been largely overlooked. With a high estimate of $150,000, the title and technique point to Bearden’s interest in poetry and Asian art at the time.
An early work of note is Edward M. Bannister’s oil painting, At “Smith’s Palace”, Narragansett Bay. Executed circa 1881, it is a prime example from the artist’s mature phase of New England landscapes and will be offered at $60,000 to $90,000. Bannister was one of the best-known landscape painters associated with Rhode Island in the late 1800s, and one of the earliest recognized African American artists.
Perhaps the first African American artist to received international acclaim, Henry Ossawa Tanner (1859-1937) was born in Pittsburgh into a well-educated and devoutly religious family, the influence of which can be seen in much of his work. Tanner’s oil on wood panel painting, Untitled (Flight Into Egypt), created around 1923, is also among the highlights of the sale, and reflects the transformation in the artist’s style that occurred after visiting the Holy Land. The richly textural impasto study is in line with Tanner’s many nocturnal scenes of biblical subjects and is quite possibly a study for Tanner’s famous painting, Flight Into Egypt, 1923, now in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. It has a high estimate of $60,000.
Romare Bearden (1911-1988), The River Merchant’s Wife, 1954. Oil on canvas, 40 x 31 in. Estimate: $100/150,000
Edward M. Bannister (1828-1901), At “Smith’s Palace,” Narragansett Bay, ca. 1881. Oil on canvas, 22 x 30 in. Estimate: $60/90,000
The auction also contains works on paper, including Alma Thomas’s Transcendental, a large and colorful 1966 watercolor that was included in the artist’s first solo exhibition in a commercial gallery and has been valued at $75,000 to $100,000. Contemporary highlights include Samuel Levi Jones’ Construct of Colour Vision, 2018, which illustrates his technique of assembling deconstructed books into grid-like compositions.
The complete auction catalogue and bidding information will be available at www.swanngalleries.com a month prior to the sale.
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