African American art at Swann achieves $2.1M. Hale Woodruff leads the offering
Hale Woodruff, Primeval Image, oil on canvas, circa 1970. Sold for: $139,200.
NEW YORK, NY.—
Swann Galleries’ fall offering of African American Art took place on Tuesday, October 7, and achieved $2.1M. The auction boasted nine auction records and nine auction debuts, with Hale Woodruff leading the offering.
Abstraction was a top priority for collectors, with Hale Woodruff’s Primeval Image, oil on canvas, circa 1970, leading the auction at $139,200. Ed Clark’s large, 1981-82, dry pigment abstraction, inspired by Pueblo sand paintings, achieved $120,650, as well as a smaller dry pigment work from 2001, earning $30,480. Also of note was the 1980 acrylic on canvas To Crab Island by Sir Frank Bowling, OBE RA, at $53,240.
Figurative scenes included James A. Porter’s The American Family (The Family), oil on canvas, 1940, which earned a record for the artist at $50,800. Of the sale, Nigel Freeman, Director of Fine Art at Swann, and the Specialist for the sale, noted, “James A. Porter’s record is a long-time coming. The Family is the first large portrait to come to auction, and we’re happy to see it sell to a large institution.”
Additional auction records included those for Roy LaGrone, Frank E. Smith, John Outterbridge, Nefertiti Goodman, Marva Pitchford Jolly, Verna Hart, Willie Birch, and Leroy Johnson.
William H. Johnson’s color screenprints Off to War, 1941-42, sold for $63,500, and Breakdown, circa 1941, for $55,88, alongside Elizabeth Catlett’s Sharecropper, color linoleum cut, 1952, at $50,800, and Richmond Barthé’s Josephine Baker, bronze with dark brown patina, at $82,550.
Belkis Ayón, Melvin Edwards, Noah Purifoy, and Glenn Ligon represented the Contemporary offering. Highlights from the selection included a 1999 collograph by Ayón, which sold for $43,180; Edwards’ Prepared (Lynch Fragment), welded steel, 1995, which come to auction from the Collection of Lucinda H. Gedeon, sold for $50,800; a 2002 assemblage of various found materials by Purifoy, at $38,100; and Ligon’s Runaway’s, lithograph, 1993, and Untitled: Four Etchings, etching, 1992, both at $35,560 each.
Auction debuts included those for Stephen Towns, Jay Golding, Clayton Singleton, Ronald Washington, Sana Musama, Debra Priestly, Femi J. Johnson, Sheena Rose, and Alma Roberts.
