Swann Galleries launched the fall auction season with a successful sale of 19th & 20th Century Prints & Drawings on September 22. Director Todd Weyman said, “This sale saw increasingly competitive bidding for original works by influential printmakers, ranging from Camille Pissarro and Paul Signac to Salvador Dalí and George Grosz, underscoring consistently strong results for important prints.” Categories that did especially well included works by Latin American artists and twentieth century urban scenes.

The top lot of the sale was a pencil drawing by Fernand Léger titled La Lecture, 1924. The work sold for $125,000*. Each of the eleven terre de faience ceramics by Pablo Picasso offered in the sale sold after fierce competition between bidders on the phone and online. Two vases depicting human faces led the run: Laughing-eyed Face, 1969, fetched $42,000, while Bearded Man, 1953, went for $25,000.

Gritty scenes of early twentieth-century New York City by Edward Hopper, Martin Lewis and Stow Wengenroth performed well, the majority selling better than expected. Martin Lewis in particular received a lot of attention from collectors, achieving three of the top prices in the sale, crowned by the richly-inked drypoint Relics (Speakeasy Corner), which sold for $52,500. Swann Galleries holds the auction record for a print by Lewis with Wet Night, Route 6, drypoint, selling for $72,500 on November 3, 2015.

The next auction of Prints & Drawings at Swann Galleries, Old Master Through Modern Prints, Featuring Camille Pissarro: Impressionist Icon, will be held on November 3, 2016. For more information, or to consign materials, contact specialist Todd Weyman at tweyman@swanngalleries.com or via phone (212) 254-4710, ext. 32.