SWANN AUCTION GALLERIES
JUNE 13
American Art
$876,055
American modernism led Swann Auction Galleries’ June 13 American Art sale, which saw three new auction records including two from the category.among them was Attilio Salemme’s 1945 piece Rivalry at $21,250 and Joseph Lambert Cain’s Nautical Composition with an Anchor at $11,250.The third record, at $7,500, went to Victor Pierson’s group of 10 Mexican cowboy and horse-riding scenes from circa 1870. Topping the day was Ben Shahn’s Men on a Bench, circa 1940, which achieved $50,000. The second-highest earning piece was the modernist work Act Three, 1942, an oil and collage on board by Suzy Frelinghuysen.the work sold squarely within its presale estimate at $40,000.A pencil drawing by Marsden Hartley, estimated at $5,000 to $8,000, soared to $30,000, to come in as the No. 3 lot of the sale. Rounding out the top five were Charles E. Burchfield’s Cloud and Trees Under Blue Skies, a circa 1920s watercolor that sold for $23,750 against an estimate of $15,000 to $20,000, and Albert Bierstadt’s Rocky Mountain Landscape at $22,500.