Swann Galleries Africa-American Fine Art Live Auction

This auction, African-American Fine Art, starts at 2:30 PM EST on Tuesday, December 15 and will feature 150 lots of exclusive artwork. Invaluable is teaming up with Swann Auction Galleries to allow remote bidding online. The style of art in this auction includes cityscapes, portrait, abstract.

Here are a few noteworthy lots:

Lot 49: Norman Lewis (1909-1979), Untitled

Estimated Price: $250,000 – $350,000

Oil on linen canvas, circa 1958. 1295×1625 mm; 51×64 inches. Signed in oil, lower left. This masterful mid-century composition is a newly discovered and important example of Norman Lewis’s painting. In 1955 Norman Lewis won the Carnegie International Award in Painting making him the first African-American artist to receive this prestigious prize. Then in 1956, Lewis was selected to represent the United States in American Artists Paint the City, an exhibition of 46 works by 36. Lewis joined fellow Willard Gallery artists Lionel Feininger and Mark Tobey; he and Jacob Lawrence were the only African-American artists included.

Lot 33: Romare Bearden (1911-1988), The Annunciation

Estimated Price: $120,000 – $180,000

Oil on linen canvas, 1946. 851×622 mm; 33 1/2×24 1/2 inches. Signed in oil, upper right recto. Signed and tilted in pencil, upper stretcher bar verso. Bearden is known for working primarily on paper. Having enjoyed incredible success, both critically and commercially with his first exhibition at the Kootz Gallery in 1945, Romare Bearden’s career was launched. He also further extended his exploration of Old Masters or Renaissance depictions of religious subjects, deftly synthesizing them into Cubism and abstraction.

Lot 52: Romare Bearden (1911-1988), Wine Star

Estimated Price: $120,000 – $180,000

Oil on linen canvas, circa 1959-60. 1450×1050 mm; 59×42 inches. Signed in oil, upper left recto. Titled in oil, upper left verso. This beautiful, large canvas is an excellent and scarce example from Romare Bearden’s period of abstract color field painting in the late 1950s. Romare Bearden’s abstraction was influenced by non-Western intuitive approaches to imagery. His late 1950s works display less of an interest in the activity of action painting of expressionism.