No Holding Back
The online African-american Fine Art sale at Swann Auction Galleries was a major success
The African-american Fine Art sale at Swann Auction Galleries was a major success despite its online format
Swann Auction Galleries held an online sale of African American fine art on June 4 with fantastic results—the summer sale topped its high estimate with a total of $3.5 million in sales. In addition, the auction had an 88 percent sell-through rate by lot as well as numerous auction records.
Leading the sale was Richmond Barthé’s Feral Benga, a bronze with dark brown patina of a man in a dynamic pose, wielding a blade.the bronze, modeled in 1935 and cast in 1986, sold for more than ten times its high estimate when it hammered at a stellar $629,000.“We had a number of interested parties who together, swiftly bid the lot up to around $100,000, but the bidding quickly became a battle between two very determined collectors,” says Nigel Freeman, director of African-american Fine Art at Swann Auction Galleries. “Feral Benga is the sculptor’s best-known work and a notable artwork from the Harlem Renaissance making it a desirable work for collectors.”
Other notable lots include John Biggers’ oil on masonite board painted around 1960, Women, Ghana. The piece, which depicts a group of women preparing baskets of goods by the side of the road, bested its high estimate of $180,000 when it sold for $269,000.
Among three-dimensional works, Untitled
(Standing Woman), a carved mahogany sculpture by Elizabeth Catlett, was another stand-out piece in the sale.the carving achieved $125,000 against
an estimate of $100,000 to $150,000. In addition, David Hammons’s 1965 paper collage of two raised fists was the earliest of the artist’s works to be seen at auction, ultimately selling for $137,000 (est. $120/180,000). Aphrodite, a collage and acrylic created by Romare Bearden in 1973, sold for $106,250, nearly doubling its high estimate of $60,000.
“I am very pleased with what was an exciting and successful auction.the African-american secondary art market showed its resilience in Thursday’s sale.we saw continued strong results for artists like Romare Bearden, John Biggers, Elizabeth Catlett, Sam Gilliam and David Hammons, generally across the post-war market,” says Freeman.“we also set new auction record price levels for Richmond Barthé, Ernie Barnes, Betty Blayton, Emilio Cruz and Lucille Malakia Roberts.”