American Icons Feature with Roy DeCarava, Dorothea Lange, Alma Lavenson, Robert Frank & more.
Exploring the thematic and visual diversity of the photographic medium, Swann Galleries’s auction of Photographs & Photobooks on Thursday, May 27 covers twentieth-century masters, as well as contemporary practitioners and items from the visual vernacular: albums, archives, and individual objects.
Significant chroniclers of the American scene include Robert Frank’s Covered Car, Long Beach, California, silver print, 1955–56, printed 1971, which leads the sale ($50,000-70,000); Roy DeCarava with Catsup Bottles, Table and Coat, New York, silver print, 1952, printed 1982 ($20,000-30,000); and O. Winston Link’s Hotshot Eastbound, Iaeger, West Virginia, silver print, 1957, printed 1988 ($7,000-10,000). Also of note are works by Diane Arbus, George A. Tice, Elliott Erwitt, and Garry Winogrand among others.
Important social documentary images from Europe, as well as the Americas feature. Early American and WPA-era photography includes a group of nine silver prints dating from 1908 to 1914 depicting young workers across America during the Second Industrial Revolution by Lewis W. Hine ($12,000-18,000); Dorothea Lange’s Woman of the High Plains, Texas Panhandle, silver print, circa 1960, which comes to auction through a former student and darkroom assistant of Lange’s ($15,000-25,000); and Walker Evans’s Barber Shop, New Orleans, silver print, 1935, printed 1960s ($3,000-4,500). From Manuel Álvarez Bravo is Fifteen Photographs a 1929 to 1972 portfolio edited by Lee Friedlander, complete with numerous highlights from Bravo’s extraordinary career, and printed in 1974 ($20,000-30,000). Twentieth-century Europe is present with August Sander’s Handlanger [Bricklayer], silver print, 1928, printed 1970s, with Gunther Sander’s August Sander Lichtbildner hand stamp on the verso ($15,000-25,000); W. Eugene Smith’s Spinner, from Spanish Village, silver print, 1950, printed 1960s ($5,000-7,500); and a group of four Parisian scenes by Eugène Atget dated 1905 to 1926, and printed 1940s to 1960s ($4,000-6,000).
The sale will feature vintage and rare work by several important women practitioners, including Imogen Cunningham, Alma Lavenson, and Berenice Abbott. Highlights include Lavenson’s Pump and Trough, Hornitos—with Lavenson having only printed from the negative of this image twice, it is a rare 1940 silver print, and comes to auction descendent from Lavenson’s estate ($10,000-15,000). From Cunningham is Shell Collection 3, silver print, circa 1930 ($15,000-25,000), and Agave, silver print, 1920, printed 1970s ($7,000-10,000); and from Abbott is Bernice Abbott’s New York, a complete 1931–38, printed 1979, portfolio with 12 of Abbott’s iconic New York City views ($25,000-35,000), as well as Faces of the 20s, a complete portfolio with 12 of the photographers early portraits, printed in 1981 ($10,000-15,000).
Contemporary portraits feature Peter Hujar’s Portrait of Henry Lyon Young, silver print, 1981 ($8,000-12,000), offered alongside a pair of photographs of Gregory Hines from 1985 by Robert Mapplethorpe ($12,000-18,000). Color photography is included with Steve McCurry’s Afghan Girl (Sharbat Gula), chromogenic print, 1985 ($10,000-15,000); Michael Wolf’s Night #1, Hong Kong, chromogenic print, 2005 ($5,000-7,500); Eliot Porter’s In Wildness, a portfolio with 10 elegant dye-transfer prints of natural scenes from across the United States ($5,000-7,500); and Joel Meyerowitz’s Storm Over Corn Hill Beach, Truro, Cape Cod, chromogenic print, 1976, printed 1979 ($3,000-4,500).
The vernacular section will offer a Japanese album with nearly 50 hand-colored photographs showcasing life in the 1890s ($3,000-4,500); World’s Fair material from the 1904 fair in St. Louis, including official souvenir playing cards with vignette reproductions of photographs of the Louisiana Purchase exposition ($800-1,200); African Americana with images of influential leaders and photos of the Harlem bus boycott ($600-900); and more.
Swann Auction Galleries
104 East 25th St.
New York, NY 10010
