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Nigel Freeman • Sabina Paellmann
African American Art @swanngalleries

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We are sad to hear about the recent passing of the great Danny Simmons. A celebrated poet, painter, muralist, collector, community leader, philanthropist and producer, Danny Simmons was an incredibly influential, inspirational, creative force for African American and contemporary art. Simmons was the co-founder of the Def Poetry Jam performance series and the Rush Philanthropic Arts Foundation. The community has lost an incredibly talented generous and dedicated cultural leader. We are grateful to have had the opportunity to work closely with him throughout the years.🕊️ by @swannaafa

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Today’s Contemporary Art auction features many fantastic prints by African American artists. These dynamic works are an affordable way to collect original artworks by these important artists.Lot 59Robert Blackburn(1920-2003)Walk in the Shade (Penumbra).Color woodcut, 1977Lot 62Sam Gilliam(1933-2022)Lattice IV.Color lithograph and etching on handmade paper, 1982.Lot 179Sanford Biggers(b. 1970)Transolitude.Color screenprint with hand coloring in watercolor on Sekishu paper, 2008. Lot 217Julie Mehretu(b. 1970)Among the Multitude III.Color digital print on thin gloss poster paper, 2022.Register to bid now online on our @swanngalleries homepage or app - sale begins at 12 pm EST! by @swannaafa

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Our Contemporary Art auction @swanngalleries tomorrow features several exciting contemporary artists including the debut at auction of the painting of Harmonia Rosales. This striking portrait embodies this artist’s transformative approach to portraiture and mythology.Lot 204Harmonia Rosales(b. 1984)El Nanego.Oil on Belgian linen, 2017.23 x 17 1/8 in. (58.4 x 43.5 cm.)Harmonia Rosales is a Los Angeles-based Afro-Cuban American artist who creates paintings that center Black and Latinx figures in reimagined Renaissance and Baroque masterpieces. Born in Chicago, Rosales work aims to empower Black women in Western art and honor the African diaspora. Rosales’s paintings are inspired by Renaissance masters’ skill and composition, but challenge Eurocentric perceptions of beauty and white hierarchy. Rosales had a traveling solo exhibition, Harmonia Rosales: Master Narrative, shown at Art, Design & Architecture Museum (AD&A) at UC Santa Barbara, the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art and the Spelman College Museum of Fine Art in 2022-23. She was recently featured in the Scholl Lecture series, organized by the Pérez Art Museum Miami, Florida, in the fall of 2025. #harmoniarosales @swanngalleries by @swannaafa

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This striking artwork in Thursday’s Contemporary Art auction is an excellent example of the midcareer works of paper of recently deceased artist Melvin Edwards. Lot 46Melvin Edwards(1937-2026)A Page From the Poet.Watercolor and ink on paper, 1975.Signed, titled and dated in pencil, verso.22 7/8 x 35 in. (58.1 x 88.9 cm.)His A Page from the Poet explores the complex relationship between beauty and cruelty found in American history. In a number of these 1970s works on paper, Edwards juxtaposes bright expressive colors with imagery of barbed wire and chains - referencing our history of enslavement and oppression. In 1975, he married poet and activist Jayne Cortez (1934–2012). They collaborated on many projects with Edwards illustrating a number of her publications; Edwards often referred to Cortez as “the poet” in his work.#melvinedwards @swanngalleries by @swannaafa

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A sale highlight and our “cover lot” in Thursday’s Contemporary Art auction @swanngalleries is Carolina Sunset, an excellent example of Romare Bearden’s collage. This extremely lush and painterly scene is an evocative memory of Bearden’s youth growing up in Charlotte, North Carolina.Lot 85Romare Bearden (1911-1988)Carolina Sunset.Collage with watercolor, printed paper and pencil on Masonite, 1984.Signed in ink, upper right.9 x 11 7/8 in. (22.9 x 30.2 cm.)Provenance: Essie Green Galleries, New York (label).Exhibited: “Recollections,” Essie Green Galleries, New York, November 2017.The vividly colored and richly layered composition displays Bearden’s mastery of many techniques - using hand colored, printed and distressed papers with watercolor and other media. #romarebearden @swanngalleries by @swannaafa

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A featured highlight in next week’s Contemporary Art auction is Soquel, a beautiful, luminous painting by Richard Mayhew. Lot 128Richard Mayhew (1924-2024)Soquel.Oil on canvas, 1994.Incised signature, lower right.34 x 38 in. (86.4 x 96.5 cm.)Provenance:The artist (label).Stella Jones Gallery, New Orleans (label).Private collection, Florida.Exhibited:“Richard Mayhew: Illusions of Time and Space,” Stella Jones Gallery, New Orleans, Louisiana, June 1 - 29, 1997.“African-American Artists in Paris,” Masur Museum of Art, Monroe, Louisiana, February 7 - March 10, 1999 (label).Soquel is from the artist’s 1994 Spiritual Space series. Soquel is the Californian town in Santa Cruz County, on the northern coast of Monterey Bay, where Mayhew lived and worked until his recent passing. He moved there in 1991; he first encountered the area while teaching at San Jose State University in the mid-1970s. This painting epitomizes the painter’s abstract approach to the landscape - reflecting his emotional response in form and color, instead of a direct observation of nature. “What I do with landscapes,” Mr. Mayhew said in a 2020 interview with the culture website Hyperallergic, “is internalize my emotional interpretation of desire, hope, fear and love. So, instead of a landscape, it’s a mindscape.” Mayhew’s colorful and atmospheric paintings push the limits of the genre, and almost embrace abstraction.Our Contemporary Art exhibition opens Saturday, May 30; the auction is Thursday, June 4th. #richardmayhew @swanngalleries by @swannaafa

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A highlight in the June 4th Contemporary Art auction is an excellent example of the groundbreaking printmaking of Cuban artist Belkis Ayón.Lot 124Belkis Ayón (1967-1999)Untitled.Collograph on Rives BFK, 1998.Signed, dated and numbered 37/45 in pencil, lower margin. Published by Segura Publishing Company, Tempe, and Armstrong-Prior Inc. Phoenix, with the blind stamp lower right.Image: 21 5/8 x 21 3/8 in. (54.9 x 54.3 cm.), full margins.Belkis Ayón (1967-1999) was an Afro-Latina printmaker and professor born in Havana, Cuba. Ayón is best known for her innovations in collagraphy. Ayón studied engraving at the prestigious Instituto Superior de Arte in Havana (ISA) and joined its faculty after graduation. Ayón’s formative years as an artist were plagued by the periodo especial in Cuba which began with the collapse of the Soviet Union. This most difficult era in Cuba was a time when vital resources, let alone art supplies, were not readily accessible. Despite these many obstacles, Ayón rose to prominence in the contemporary art world. Ayón’s work was exhibited at the 16th Venice Biennale, the Havana Biennial and the Bharat Bhavan International Biennial of Prints in India. In 1999 she was awarded four residencies including with the Brandywine Workshop, the Tyler School of Art at Temple University, the Bronski Center at the Philadelphia College of Art, and the Bensen Hall Gallery, Rhode Island School of Design. Tragically, 1999 was also the year Ayón committed suicide, leaving behind a body of work that has broken barriers between US-Cuban relations and pioneered discourses regarding African iconography and influence on Cuban culture and society.#belkisayón @swanngalleries by @swannaafa

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We are excited to announce that our June 4th Contemporary Art auction catalog is now online at @swanngalleries This sale features many outstanding artworks by African American artists. Highlights include:Lot 85, Romare Bearden, Carolina Sunset. Collage and mixed media, 1984.Lot 128, Richard Mayhew, Soquel. Oil on canvas, 1994.Lot 212, Simone Leigh, Untitled.Salt-fired porcelain, 2012.Lot 213, Vanessa German, Untitled.Mixed media assemblage, circa 2012. (Detail)More info in our linktree above & @swanngalleries by @swannaafa

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We were saddened to hear of the passing of Mary Lovelace O’Neal this week; we have lost a great painter, printmaker and art educator.Mary Lovelace O’Neal is known for her daring abstractions, paintings that balance Abstract Expressionism with a sharp social and political consciousness. Her provocative titles announce her interests extend beyond formal concerns - a 1993 lithograph is entitled Racism is like Rain, Either It’s Raining or It’s Gathering Somewhere.Born in Jackson, Mississippi, O’Neal grew up throughout the segregated South as her father’s career as a music professor took her family to various college towns and campuses. O”Neal received a BFA from Howard University in Washington, DC, studying with David Driskell, Loïs Mailou Jones and James A. Porter in 1964, O’Neal then attended Columbia University, studying with Aja Junger, Stephen Greene, Leon Golden and Andra Ratz, and receiving her MFA in 1969. O’Neal was an associate professor of visual art at University of California, Berkeley from 1978-2006 - she was tenured in 1985, and was the Chair of the Department of Art Practice from 1999 until her retirement in 2006. O’Neal has had numerous solo exhibitons, and her work is in the permanent collections of the Art Institute of Chicago, IL; the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; the de Young Museum, San Francisco, CA; the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, CA; the Smithsonian Institutions, Washington, D.C., the Brooklyn Museum, NY; the Baltimore Museum of Art, MD; the Mott-Warsh Collection, Flint, MI; and the National Museum of Fine Arts, Santiago, Chile, among others. In 2020, the Museum of the African Diaspora mounted a solo exhibition of O’Neal’s Whales Fucking series from the 1970s. In 2024, O’Neal was included in the 2024 Whitney Biennial, “Even Better than the Real Thing.” Her work was included in the 2024 exhibition Making Their Mark: Works from the Shah Garg Collection at the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive.MARY LOVELACE O’NEAL (1942 - 2026)Running Freed More Slaves Than Lincoln Ever Did.Oil and mixed media on cotton canvas, 1995. 84x60 inches.Sold on April 4, 2019 @swanngalleries #marylovelaceoneal by @swannaafa

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Another highlight of African American abstraction in Thursday’s Modern & Postwar Auction is a stirring landscape by Felrath Hines. Lot 93Felrath Hines (1913-1993)Brown Landscape (Autumn Eve).Oil on canvas, circa 1950.Signed in ink on the backing board, verso. Inscribed as titled in ink on the stretcher.24 x 28 in. (61 x 71.1 cm.)Provenance:Estate of the artist.Notes:In the early 1950s, when Felrath Hines created “Brown Landscape; Autumn Eve,” he was living in New York City and earning his living wages as a writer, fabric designer, China pattern painter and framer. In 1952 he met fellow artist Julian Fishburne who opened his eyes to the possibilities of a career in art conservation. Building on his art education from John Herron Art School, The Art Institute of Chicago, New York University, and Pratt Institute he expanded his knowledge of the plastic arts with an education in art conservation. Hines apprenticed with Caroline and Sheldon Keck soon followed by a decades long supervisory role at the Fine Arts Conservation Lab. He worked with Georgia O’Keeffe as her personal restorer from 1967 until 1979. He went on to serve as Chief Conservator at the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery and The Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden where he retired in 1984 devoting the remainder of his life exclusively to his painting, which was always his main focus. Felrath Hines had a stellar career exhibiting at many major museums and galleries. In 1963 he was a founding member of the Spiral Group, a collective of artists from diverse backgrounds and at varied stages in their careers. All sharing a collective passion for the vision of the Civil Rights Movement. This pivotal moment in history imbued these artists with purpose to their role as influential artists.#felrathhines @swanngalleries auction Thursday May 14 by @swannaafa

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Happy Mother’s Day!! Celebrating all the mothers and mother figures in our lives!ELIZABETH CATLETT (1915 - 2012)Madonna.Lithograph, 1982. 530x405 mm; 21x16 inches, full margins. Signed, titled, dated and numbered 69/180 in pencil, lower margin. Sold in our auction on Oct, 7, 2021.#elizabethcatlett @swanngalleries by @swannaafa

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Abstraction by African American artists is at the forefront of our upcoming sale of Modern & Post-War Art, next Thursday, May 14. This exciting auction is led by Charles Alston’s impressive Demolition (Tenements), circa 1958, an important painting from his postwar period. This painting encapsulates Alston’s modernist vision, distilling the upheaval of the city into a beautifully balanced composition of color and form. Like his friend Norman Lewis, Alston often looked to the architecture, music and rhythm of New York for inspiration.Charles Alston (1907-1977)Demolition (Tenements).Oil on canvas, c. 1958.Signed at lower left. Signed in pencil on stretcher. Inscribed, “End of a Landmark,” in ink on overlap. Inscribed, “City #2 Demolition,” in ink on stretcher. Inscribed, “Wreckage,” in pencil on stretcher.40 x 50 in. (101.6 x 127 cm.)Provenance: The estate of the artist. Randall Galleries, New York. Essie Green Gallery, New York. Private collection, New York. Exhibited: “Charles Alston,” Dunbarton Galleries, Boston, MA, March 24 - April 26, 1962, exhibited as “Tenements.” “Charles Alston, Artist and Teacher,” Kenkeleba Gallery, New York, NY, May 13 - July 1, 1990, exhibited as “City, #2, Demolition.” Literature: Dunbarton Galleries exhibition announcement, 1962 (illustrated). Corrine Jennings, Gylbert Garvin Coker, Harry Henderson. “Charles Alston: Artist and Teacher,” Kenkeleba Gallery, New York, pl. 25, p. 57 and 62 (illustrated).Exhibit opens Saturday, May 9, 12-5 pm. Auction Thursday, May 14, 12 pm #charlesalston @swanngalleries by @swannaafa

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