NEW YORK, NY.- Swann Galleries will present a sale of American Art on Wednesday, June 30. The auction will include notable works from prominent artists working in America beginning in the mid-1800s and continuing through the contemporary era.
The sale is led by George Tooker with Untitled (Young Man Facing a Woman), egg tempera and ink, 1950 ($100,000-150,000), alongside a selection of Mid-Century Modernism, Symbolic and Social Realism. Tooker worked alongside the artist trio PaJaMa resisting the Magic Realist moniker assigned to him and his works. In Young Man Facing a Woman the features of the male bear a striking resemblance to Tooker in his twenties, while the style of the dress shown in the image is one frequently modeled by Margaret French in numerous 1940s and 50s PaJaMa photographs, and the scene with its scaffolding and playground-like frame also strikes a strong resemblance to the ones seen in PaJaMa photographs of the time. Additional highlights include male figure studies by Paul Cadmus, works on canvas by Emil Bisttram, Dennis Burlingame, Eugene Francis Savage and more.
Landscapes abound with scenes that span multiple periods of art history, from the nineteenth century through the modernist movements of the twentieth century. Highlights include Albert Pinkham Ryders Houses by the Sea, oil on panel ($10,000-15,000); Alice Beach Winters Pond, Gloucester, oil on canvas, circa 1920 ($8,000-12,000); Charles Burchfields Untitled (The House in the Woods), watercolor, gouache and charcoal ($5,000-8,000); Larry Riverss View on Fire Island, New York, oil on canvas, circa 195152 ($10,000-15,000); Fairfield Porters Fairview, North Carolina, watercolor and pencil, 1964 ($7,000-10,000); and Neil Wellivers Shaled Trees, Alagash, oil on canvas, 1994 ($15,000-20,000).
Works of note from the early twentieth century include Arthur B. Carless Nude with Red Background, oil on canvas, circa 1925 ($30,000-50,000); Stuart Daviss Faun and Girl from The Puritans, gouache, pencil and ink, 1923 ($15,000-20,000); and Rockwell Kents Irish Lad, watercolor and pencil, 1927 ($10,000-15,000).
Artists of the Ashcan school, as well as a standout offering of sculpture, and New York scenes by Reginald Marsh, Leon Kroll, Guy Wiggins, among other familiar names, feature throughout the sale.