Swann Auction Galleries – African American Art
March 31, 2022
SWANNGALLERIES.COM
104 East 25th Street NYC
212 254 4710

NEW YORK CITY — African American art is on offer Thursday, March 31, at Swann Galleries. The spring offering will feature many scarce and significant Modern, postwar and contemporary artworks, including 28 lots from a private collection.

The sale is led by a large 1948 painting by Norman Lewis ($350/500,000). This organic abstraction is based on the rhododendron plants from his New York studio. As an anthophile and plantsman, Lewis revisited the subject matter a number of times in the late 1940s, using the subject matter as a means to explore his use of black and a darker color palette, as well as natural forms that characterize his earliest abstract period. Also on offer by Lewis are several oil and ink works on paper: “Jazz Quartet,” 1952 ($30/40,000); and two untitled works from 1957 and 1972 that reflect the evolution of his practice ($10/15,000, apiece).

Additional Modern and postwar highlights include “The Chase,” oil on board, by Bob Thompson ($30/40,000). This expressionist painting is a scarce and early work from Thompson’s brief but important period in Provincetown in the summer of 1958. Kenneth Victor Young is on offer with “Night Push,” a quintessential stained 1972 abstract canvas with dark, floating orbs and vivid colors in deep hues of magenta, blue and black ($50/75,000), and a similar 1971 acrylic on paper in blue and yellow ($15/25,000). Also of note is Ed Clark’s “Spatial Image III,” a large 1982 example of his “push-broom” abstract work in pigment on paper ($100/150,000), and works by Alma Thomas, Beauford Delaney, Thomas Sills and Sam Gilliam, among others.

Among the figurative works is James Lesesne Well’s “Interlude,” oil on canvas, 1949 ($30/40,000); Elizabeth Catlett’s untitled (Young Woman Looking Up), tempera on paper, mounted to board, 1954 ($75/100,000); and a selection of works by Hughie Lee-Smith that acutely capture the loneliness and absence of people, including “Quandary,” oil on canvas, 1997 ($40/60,000), and “Aftermath,” oil on canvas, 1960, formerly in the collection of the Johnson Publishing Company ($120/180,000).

Contemporary art will feature a selection of works from a private collection, including paintings, photographs and prints. Highlights include Mequitta Ahuja’s “Bramble,” oil on canvas, 2009; Mickalene Thomas’s “Liz and Chair with Zebra,” c-print, 2013 ($30/40,000); and Awol Erizku’s “Boy Holding Grapes,” digital c-print, 2012 ($15/25,000), as well as works by Kara Walker, Carrie Mae Weems, Barbara Bullock. Glenn Ligon, Hank Willis Thomas and more. Other Contemporary highlights include two early 1980s mixed media assemblages by Howardena Pindell:” War Games Disguised II,” 1980-81, and “Mask,” 1980-82 ($40/60,000, apiece); Emma Amos’s “Highstep,” a 1983 mixed-media work on paper ($30/40,000); and “Intolerancia,” a 1998 collograph with Surrealist overtones by Belkis Ayón ($35/50,000).
Exhibition hours are noon to 5 pm, March 28-30.

Swann Auction Galleries is at 104 East 25th Street. For more information, 212-254-4710 or www.swanngalleries.com.

Charles Alston, Family in Cityscape, oil on canvas, circa 1964-66. Estimate $80,000 to $120,000. At auction March 31.
Banneker’s . . . Almanack and Ephemeris, for the Year of our Lord,  1792, Benjamin Banneker’s first almanac, Baltimore, 1791. Estimate $15,000 to $25,000. At auction March 24.
Martin Luther King, Jr., Why We Can’t Wait, first edition, signed and inscribed to civil rights lawyer Jack Greenberg, New York, 1964. Estimate $20,000 to $30,000. At auction March 24.
Upcoming Auctions: MAR 24 Printed & Manuscript African Americana, MAR 31 African American Art, APR 7 Printed & Manuscript Americana, APR 14 Fine Photographs, APR 28 Old Master Through Modern Prints.
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