NEW YORK, NY.- 20th Century Fine Art closed out the spring 2025 season at Swann on June 26. The sale was a collaborative effort among the department’s specialists and brought $522,987, achieving a 75% sell-through rate by lot. Of the auction lead specialist, Sarah McMillan noted, “We had strong bidding, particularly among collectors who drove sales for an eclectic mix of twentieth-century artists including M.C. Escher, Mark Tansey, Benny Andrews, Natalia Goncharova and Loren MacIver. The success of the sale shows the strength and breadth of Swann’s fine art offerings, with our specialists handling premier artists and works of art from the twentieth century and beyond.”

American prints were led by Martin Lewis’ Wet Night, Route 6, drypoint, 1933, at $25,000, a classic, moody I age from the artist. Also of note was Thomas Hart Benton’s Wreck of the Ol’97, lithograph, 1944, which earned $11,250, and Rockwell Kent’s Starlight, wood engraving, 1930, at $8,125.

Original artwork by American artists included Mark Tansey’s Waiting in Line to Look, pen and ink on paper, 1980, at $15,000; Paul Cadmus’s Male Nude, crayon on paper, circa 1979, at $13,750; Benny Andrews’s Blue and White Still Life, oil and canvas collage on canvas, 1962, at $10,625; and Norman Rockwell’s Portrait of My Teacher, Tom Fogarty, chalk on paper, 1913, at $10,000. Original works by Frank Stick, Loren MacIver, Romare Bearden, Horace Clifford Westermann, and Alexander Smith also performed well.

European prints earned some of the top slots in the auction, with works by M.C. Escher, Pablo Picasso, Salvador Dalí and Marc Chagall among the top ten lots sold. Escher’s Up and Down, lithograph, 1947, earned $25,000, and well as the artist’s Vase, woodcut, 1931, at $11,250; Picasso’s Tête d’Histrion (Le Danseur), color linoleum cut, 1965, brought $13,750; Dalí’s portfolio Les Songes drôlatiques de Pantagruel, color lithographs, 1973, at $13,750; and Chagall’s Soleil de Paris, color lithograph, 1977, also earned $13,750.