NEW YORK, NY.- This year’s Focus on Women auction gathers together important archives, first edition books, fine art, craft art, vernacular photography and more in a sale that celebrates women’s grit and power. The sale will be a timed online auction open for bidding Friday, May 1 through Thursday, May 15 and will begin closing at 12 PM EST. Bidding is available on the Swann Galleries App and on live.swanngalleries.com.
The sale is led by a large archive related to groundbreaking dancer and choreographer Katherine Dunham which includes correspondence, material related to her extensive European and American tours, and photographs ($20,000-30,000). Additional manuscript material of note is a collection of 160 letters written by golden-age actress Olivia de Havilland while in Paris to her Lady in a Cage co-star Bill Swan is on offer ($5,000-7,000), as well as an autograph letter signed by American journalist Margaret Fuller ($3,000-5,000).
Rare book highlights include a first edition signed presentation copy of Gertrude Stein’s Portrait of Mabel Dodge at the Villa Curonia, Florence, 1912, with the photograph of Stein ($8,000-12,000); a first edition of Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse, London, 1927 ($6,000-8,000); a signed first trade edition of the first ever graphic novel by a woman—Helena Bochoráková-Dittrichová’s Z Mého Destvi Drevoryty, Prague, 1929, with a small collection of original correspondence and art ($4,000-6,000); and a first edition of Margaret Fuller’s Woman in the Nineteenth Century, New York, 1845 ($4,000-6,000).
The fine art selection features works by Jaune Quick-to-See Smith, Hannah Wilke, Sonia Delaunay, Margaret Patterson, Joan Snyder, Pat Steir and Faith Ringgold. Of note is Smith’s El Moro, pastel on paper, 1981 ($20,000-30,000); a deluxe, limited edition of Delaunay’s Juste Present, 1961, a suite of eight illustrations ($20,000-30,000); and a pastel, ink and pencil early 1960s drawing by Wilke ($20,000-30,000).
Flor Garduño’s limited edition photobook The Sonnets of Shakespeare, South Dennis, MA, 2006, is featured ($6,000-8,000). Further photography high spots include a 1974 limited edition folio by Judy B. Dater ($2,000-3,000), and Helen Levitt’s Mexico, (Couple), 1941, printed circa 1980 ($1,000-1,500).
Rounding out the sale is a 1930s Depression-era handmade dress and shawl heavily decorated with buttons ($1,000-1,500), a 1958 catalogue of women’s hat designs ($600-800), early newspapers discussing the suffrage movement, collections of political posters, pamphlets and buttons, press photos of women at work and playing sports, and more.
