NEW YORK, NY.- In the seventh iteration of the LGBTQ+ Art, Material Culture & History auction on Thursday, August 21 features an exciting selection of twentieth- and twenty-first-century fine art, photography and ephemera from the community’s most prominent artists, authors, taste makers and activists. “I’m thrilled to be in my second year at the helm of this sale,” said Corey Serrant, Associate Director of Swann’s LGBTQ+ department. “This year’s offering will include a selection of works from the estate of notable LGBTQ+ rights advocate Dr. Charles Silverstein with the proceeds of these works benefitting the NYC LGBT Community Center.”

The sale is led by a 1987 Hugh Steers oil-on-canvas of Carl George—friend and collector who worked freelance for New York-based florist and party planner with Steers. Executed in George’s kitchen between April and May of 1987 before Steers’ diagnosis with HIV, Steers utilized a lighter palette to portray his sitter. George was the first collector to acquire Steers' work. He collected a suite of oil-on-paper works overtime. The work is expected to bring $40,000 to $60,000.

Additional fine art and photography include works by Beauford Delaney with Portrait of a Bearded Young Man Reading, oil on canvas, 1971-72 ($20,000-30,000); Glenn Ligon with Black Like Me, oil stickj and gesso on paper, 1993 ($30,000-40,000), and Untitled (My Fear is Your Fear), screenprint, 1995 ($2,500-3,500); Robert Mapplethorpe with a mixed-media assemblage from 1968 ($25,000-35,000). Photography includes Laura Aguilar’s Nature, Self-Portrait #11, silver print, 1996 ($6,000-9,000); Iké Udé’s Untitled (#2), Beyond Decorum: Shirts, C-print, 1999, printed 2001 ($3,000-4,000), and Untitled, Beyond Decorum: Shoes, C-print, 1999, printed 2001 ($3,000-4,000); and Jimmy DeSana’s Mustard & Ketchup, cibachrome print, 1985, printed 1999 ($4,000-6,000).

A section of works has been generously donated by the Estate of Dr. Charles Silverstein. Proceeds from the sale of these items will benefit the NYC LGBT Community Center. Dr. Silverstein (1935–2023) was an American writer, therapist, and LGBTQ+ rights advocate who was best known for his 1973 graduate student presentation to the American Psychiatric Association, which led to the removal of homosexuality as a mental illness from the organization’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual. He also penned the text The Joy of Gay Sex in 1977. Highlights from the estate’s offering include works by Deni Ponty, Michael Leonard, and Bruce Kamerling.

Illustration art from the leather community include works by Tom of Finland with a 1961 graphite drawing ($30,000-40,000), The Hun with Torro Calendar, 12 graphite drawings, one for each month plus a drawing for the calendar cover, 1969 ($8,000-12,000); and Domino with Stompers Set Two, a portfolio of four offset lithographs, circa 1977 ($2,500-3,500).

Important manuscripts, archives, and books contain a large archive of lesbian and gay pulp fiction books; a large selection of physique pictorials including a collection of signed photographs and catalogues from David Randolph Hurles’s Old Reliable Studios ($3,000-4,000); a pair of circa-1903 postcards depicting Jack Brown, a noted female impersonator, performing the cakewalk ($1,000-1,500) and a first edition, presentation copy of James Baldwin’s Giovanni's Room, 1956 ($1,000-1,500).