NEW YORK CITY — African American fine art sales at Swann Galleries offer the opportunity to see marketplace history happen, and the October 4 auction was no exception, with a significant selection of works by Robert Colescott, Eldzier Cortor, Elizabeth Catlett and others. A timely run of works by Charles White (1918–1979) featured the significant and powerful “Nobody Knows My Name #1,” 1965, a mid-career drawing that was exhibited extensively in the late 1960s.

Estimated $100/150,000, the charcoal crayon on illustration board soared to $485,500. The title was likely inspired by James Baldwin’s Nobody Knows My Name: More Notes of a Native Son, 1961.

White’s composition shows a young African American man’s head in a swirling, atmospheric space, a deeply symbolic response to the height of the civil rights movement. The work bore provenance to a private collection and had been acquired directly from the artist.

A full report on the sale will follow.