New York—Swann Galleries’s spring sale of African American Art will take place on April 22. The sale will present quality works spanning mediums and movements within the canon. Absentee and Internet live bidding will be available through LiveAuctioneers.

Artists of the Harlem Renaissance feature in the sale, with a run of works by Richmond Barthe and prints by Aaron Douglas. African Boy Dancing, 1937, is an important and strikingly beautiful bronze by Barthe, which represents the culmination of the artist’s significant study of the male figure in sculpture, anatomy, and African dance in the 1930s and his pioneering realization of an ideal male nude. This is the first time this sculpture has come to auction, and only the second time that an original 1930s cast by Barthe has appeared at auction. The sculpture is expected to bring $150,000-$200,000.

Also by Barthe is Stevedore, conceived in 1937 and cast in 1985, an important and large bronze made at the peak of Barthe’s career. It carries an estimate of $75,000-$100,000. Head of a Dancer (Harald Kreutzberg), 1937, a well-known portrait of the Czech-born German dancer Harald Kreutzberg, is estimated at $20,000-$30,000. From Aaron Douglas is a scarce 1926 woodcut portrait of a young Langston Hughes, estimated at $5,000-$7,000, and Oak Bluff (Vineyard Haven), a circa-1955 etching and aquatint estimated at $4,000-$6,000.

Standout works by Elizabeth Catlett, Frederick Eversley, and Vanessa German are also featured. Catlett pieces include Pensive, a 1946 cast bronze bust estimated at $50,000-$75,000, and Standing Mother and Child, a 1980 cast bronze statue estimated at $15,000-$25,000. Eversley is represented by a 1969 translucent open disk in cast polyester with aqua and pink tones, which was made in the first years of what would become the artist’s trailblazing body of work in the medium. It carries an estimate of $15,000-$25,000. Vanessa German’s 2013 mixed-media assemblage sculpture You Bring Out the Savage in Me #1 is present ($15,000-$25,000).

Post-war abstraction features throughout the sale with a vibrant and large circa 1973 Norman Lewis oil on paper composition in blue and red from his final body of work in abstraction, estimated at $50,000-$75,000, as well as a 1967 example of Hale Woodruff’s abstract landscapes Primordial Landscape, estimated at $120,000-$180,000. Romare Bearden’s Girl in a Garden, executed in 1972 in the artist’s celebrated collage medium, carries an estimate of $150,000-$250,000. Following the record-setting sale of Charles Alston’s Black and White #8 for $197,000 in a December 2020 Swann auction, the house is poised to offer Alston’s City at Night, a circa 1956–60 oil on canvas urban abstraction with an estimate of $100,000-$150,000.

Conceptual artist Carrie Mae Weems is set to cross the block with High Yella Girl, a 1989 toned gelatin silver print with Prestype text from an edition of three, and estimated at $50,000-$75,000. The work comes from the artist’s sought-after Colored People series, which focuses on the cultural emphasis that has been placed on the color of African Americans’ skin and the division that arises from it. Howardena Pindell’s Oval Memory Series: (Rhinoceros) Heaven, 1980–81, created after a serious car accident that left Pindell with acute memory loss, is the first of the series to come to auction. The Pindell piece is estimated at $50,000-$75,000. Recent works by Rashid Johson, Dindga McCannon, Latoya Ruby Frazier, Julie Mehretu, Danny Simmons, Deanna Lawson, and Wosene Worke Kosrof conclude the sale.

[av_button label=’Click to view the auction catalog and sign up to bid’ icon_select=’no’ icon=’ue800′ font=’entypo-fontello’ link=’manually,https://www.liveauctioneers.com/catalog/200216_african-american-art/’ link_target=’_blank’ size=’small’ position=’center’ label_display=” title_attr=” color_options=” color=’theme-color’ custom_bg=’#444444′ custom_font=’#ffffff’ btn_color_bg=’theme-color’ btn_custom_bg=’#444444′ btn_color_bg_hover=’theme-color-highlight’ btn_custom_bg_hover=’#444444′ btn_color_font=’theme-color’ btn_custom_font=’#ffffff’ id=” custom_class=” av_uid=’av-8tabyqr’ admin_preview_bg=”]

View top auction results on LiveAuctioneers here: https://www.liveauctioneers.com/pages/recent-auction-sales/