NEW YORK, NY.- Swann Galleries’ auction of Atelier 17, Abstract Expressionism & The New York School on Thursday, October 27 offered approximately 140 prints and other works by Stanley William Hayter and the artists he taught and inspired through his work at the Paris Atelier, and later in New York.

Prints by Robert Motherwell and Willem de Kooning sold for record prices, and the sale’s top lot was a circa 1944-45 Untitled drypoint and engraving by Jackson Pollock, printed by Gabor Peterdi and inscribed “2nd proof 1967,” which brought $102,000, making it the most expensive Pollock print ever sold.

A second impression of the same work, one of 50 produced for the MoMA, sold for $19,200. Other highlights of the Atelier 17 sale were Willem de Kooning’s Quatre Lithographies, color lithograph, 1986, a record $19,200; Robert Motherwell’s The Red Queen, color aquatint and lift-ground etching and collage, 1989, and Orange Lyric, color aquatint and carborundum, 1989, both of which set records at $22,800 and $20,400 respectively; as well as Max Ernst’s Le Sonneur / Carte de l’Océan, color etching and embossing, 1950, and Stanley W. Hayter’s Unstable Woman, color engraving, soft-ground etching, scorper and screenprint on Japan paper, circa 1946-47, $7,800 each.

The day before, Swann offered an excellent assortment of Old Master through Modern Prints, which saw record prices for works by Rembrandt, Whistler and Picasso.


*All prices include buyer’s premium.