NEW YORK, NY.- Swann Auction Galleries closed their Spring 2017 season with a climactic sale of American Art on Thursday, June 15. The annual auction offered exclusively original or unique works by artists living or working in North America over the last 200 years.
The top lot of the sale, and the Spring 2017 season at Swann Galleries, was William Glackens's The Beach, Isle Adam, 1925-26. The bright canvas, depicting bathers at a popular locale outside of Paris, is one of the artist's most significant works from the mid-1920s. A collector purchased the oil painting over the phone for $581,000*.
Half of the top lots in the sale appeared at auction for the first time, indicating a market interest in unseen material, according to the director of the department, Todd Weyman. One of the highlights was a recently rediscovered watercolor by John Marin, titled Small Point, Maine, from the Bumper, 1928. Before the work was lost to scholarship, it was included in the inaugural exhibition at Alfred Stieglitz’s final gallery, An American Place. The painting was purchased by a collector for $50,000.
Twentieth-century works dominated the sale, with multiple works by Milton Avery and Charles Burchfield receiving some of the highest bids. Avery’s bright watercolor Lakeside Trees, 1953, was purchased by a collector for $65,000, while Reclining Bathers, 1950, a unique color monotype with hand coloring in oil and gouache, reached $13,750. All four watercolors by Burchfield found buyers. The 1917 watercolor Untitled (House on a Hill) led the pack, selling for $30,000, above a high estimate of $18,000. Untitled (Rainbow on Roof of House), 1916, achieved its high estimate of $20,000.
Institutions were active throughout the sale, securing several fine works for their collections.
Weyman added, “The American art market continues to climb, with Swann Galleries’ sales steadily growing. This was the best auction we’ve held by value, including our top lot ever in an American Art sale. We look forward to continuing this upward trend in 2018.”
The next sale of American Art at Swann Galleries will be held in Spring 2018.
