NYC-Focused Collection Shines at Swann
New York - Swann Auction Galleries opened the fall season with a marathon sale of 19th & 20th Century Prints & Drawings, earning more than $2.4M. The September 20 auction offered 600 examples of fine and museum-quality works to a flurry of online and phone bidders.
The top lot of the sale was a brown and black linoleum cut by Pablo Picasso titled Grand nu Dansant, 1962, which sold for $70,000, an auction record for the print. Two other works by Picasso were top lots, including the etching Taureau ailé contemplé par Quatre Enfants, 1934, which sold for $35,000, and a second color linoleum cut, titled Mère, Danseur et Musicien, 1959-60, which sold for $30,000. Additionally, La Folie, 1958, a lithograph after the artist, sold for $11,250, more than double the original estimate.
Other notable lots included Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s The Embrace, a pencil drawing which sold for $27,500, and a Henri Matisse drypoint titled Mile Landsberg au viage rond, 1914, selling for $20,000.
Todd Weyman, Director of Prints & Drawings at Swann Galleries, noted of the auction, “collectors clearly have an appetite for American printmakers, as Architectural Splendor was a standout.”
The entire Architectural Splendor collection, which featured iconic views of New York, more than doubled its total estimate of $40,000, bringing over $80,000. The auction’s cover lot of John Taylor Arms’ etching, Downtown, New York, 1921, and John Marin’s etching of Downtown, The El, 1921 each doubled their original estimates selling for $9,375 and $8,750, respectively. Joseph Pennell’s Brooklyn Bridge at Night, 1922, exceeded expectations selling for $7,250 after being originally estimated at $1,800.
Several works by Edmund Blampied surpassed their predicted sales range: Chrysanthemums, 1930, which sold for $5,750; Anemones, 1930, which sold for five times its original estimate with a price realized of $10,625; and, Bar Scene, 1924, selling for $30,000.
The next auction of Prints & Drawings at Swann Galleries, Old Master Through Modern Prints, is scheduled for November 1, 2018. Swann Galleries holds at least seven prints & drawings auctions each year and is currently accepting quality consignments for auctions in 2019.
