New York — Swann Galleries will offer a live online sale of Old Master Through Modern Prints on Thursday, May 21. With the largest selection of old master prints to be found at auction in America as well as important modern works, this sale offers an impressive array of fine material, including a special section dedicated to fine old master prints and drawings from the collection of the late art dealer Matthew Rutenberg.

Matthew Rutenberg was a respected figure within the art world with an extraordinary knowledge of Western art history, particularly Old Master works. Notable drawings include a late-sixteenth-century sheet of studies of flying putti from the Sienese School ($3,000-5,000); Standing Female Nude, a 1916 black and white chalk study by Julio González ($7,000-10,000); and Ruins of the Temple of Diana, Nimes, a watercolor, pen and ink drawing by Jacob Philipp Hackert ($4,000-6,000).

Included among the Old Masters are exceptional examples by Albrecht Dürer and Francisco José de Goya. Highlights from the selection include woodcuts by Dürer Hercues Conquering the Molionide Twins, 1946-98, and The Vision of the Seven Candlesticks, 1498, estimated at $15,000 to $20,000 apiece; and a first edition of Goya’s circa 1834 aquatint and etching Modo de Volar carrying an estimate of $7,000 to $10,000. There are many fine works by Rembrandt van Rijn, including lifetime impressions of the etchings Self Portrait with Raised Sabre, 1634 ($30,000-50,000); Landscape with an Obelisk, circa 1650 ($25,000-35,000); and The Good Samaritan, 1633($10,000-15,000). Prints by Pieter Bruegel, Hendrick Golzius and Giovanni B. Piranesi round out the superb offering.

Nineteenth-century works include Mary Cassatt’s two drypoints Hélène of Septeuil, circa 1890, and Baby’s Back, 1890, both expected to bring $7,000 to $10,000. Also featured is a remarkable run of etchings by James A.M. Whistler, most notably works from the artist’s first and second Venice etchings: The Two Doorways, 1879-80 ($12,000-18,000), and San Biagio, 1879-80 ($10,000-15,000).

Modernists are represented by Die Brück artists Erich Heckel, with Männerbildnis, color woodcut, 1919 ($40,000-60,000), and Edvard Munch, with Den Tykke Horen, color woodcut, 1899 ($25,000-35,000). Further Modernist stalwarts include Pablo Picasso with Faune Dévoilant une Femme, a 1934 etching from the Vollard Suite ($50,000-80,000); and Jacques Villon with Monsieur D. Lisant, 1913, is among the last of the major Cubist prints Villon created between 1911 and 1914 ($25,000-25,000). Henri Matisse, Joan Miró and Salvador Dalí also feature.

Rufino Tamayo leads a run of Latin American art with Galaxia, a 1977 color mixografía set to come across the block at $10,000 to $15,000. Also of note is Roberto Matta with Etoile des Jardins, color etching, 1995 ($8,000-12,000); a group of five color lithographs dating to 1968 and 1969 by David A. Siqueiros ($2,000-3,000); and Miguel Covarrubias’s Rice Granary, Bali, lithograph, circa 1943 ($1,500-2,500).

While current restrictions will not allow for in-person examination of the material, Swann Galleries staff will prepare condition reports and provide additional photographs of material on request. Advance order bids can be placed directly with the specialist for the sale or on Swann’s website, and limited, pre-arranged phone bidding eill be available. Live online bidding platforms available will be the Swann Galleries App, Invaluable, and Live Auctioneers. The complete catalogue and bidding information is available at www.swanngalleries.com and on the Swann Galleries App.

Additional highlights can be found here.

New York — Jenny Gibbs, Executive Director of the IFPDA, and David Tunick, President of the IFPDA, have announced a new digital initiative -- the IFPDA Fine Art Print Fair Online: Spring 2020. The online exclusive fair will feature approximately 150 exhibitors, all vetted members of the IFPDA. Originally scheduled to be held at the Javits Center in New York in October with 70 exhibitors, the IFPDA has moved the fair online, invited all members to participate, and waived all exhibitor fees in response to the current economic and health crises. The fair will be accessible through the IFPDA Fine Art Print Fair website and on Artsy.com.

The IFPDA is a non-profit association representing a world-wide community of 150 galleries and print publishers. The IFPDA Fine Art Print Fair is the world’s largest international art fair; it celebrates more than 500 years of printmaking, from the 15th century to new editions by today’s best-known artists. Mr. Tunick talked about the IFPDA going online with its fair: “Without the space constraints of a physical fair we are able for the very first time to open up the IFPDA Online Fine Art Print Fair to all our esteemed members. The range of graphic works available with nearly 150 exhibitors will be unprecedented.”

Speaking of the decision to offer the fair online in the spring, Ms. GIbbs said, “We felt the need to be nimble and responsive to the current global health and economic crises and to help sustain the members of our arts communities. By waiving all fees to participate, we hope to relieve some of the financial stress on our members right now, and we are very excited to see what’s possible without the logistical limitations of a physical fair.”

The IFPDA Fine Art Print Fair is offering a sneak peek at a selection of exhibitor highlights scheduled for display available HERE.

Dallas, TX – From a 1908 Little Nemo in Slumberland Sunday comics strip to beloved images by the influential artists whose superheroes revolutionized comic books, there was something for every collector in the Platinum Session that kicked off Heritage Auctions’ April 30-May 3 Comics & Comic Art Auction Thursday afternoon, and when final hammer fell in the first of five sessions, the haul was $3,648,300.
 
Results from the second session, which began immediately after the Platinum wrapped and included everything from collectible comics to Star Wars action figures, pushed the first day’s total pull past the $5.1 million mark.
 
“The bidding was as deep and as active as we’ve ever seen in one of our Platinum Sessions,” said Todd Hignite, Vice President of Heritage Auctions. “Prices were strong across the board, and there were a handful of lots that nearly doubled our pre-auction estimates.”
 
And not a single lot went unsold – no surprise when the offerings included Frank Frazetta's The Serpent, painted for a 1967 paperback novel, and the original front endpapers for Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley's Frankenstein by the legendary Bernie Wrightson.
 
The Serpent – referred to by the Frazetta family as “Aros” – sold for $300,000. That it sold at all was extraordinary: “Frank would never part with it while he was living,” Heritage Auctions Comics & Comic Art Director Joe Mannarino said. “It was always greatly appreciated by the fans.”
 
And, now, its new owner.
 
Wrightston’s front endpapers for Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley's Frankenstein sold for $240,000 – by far, the highest price Heritage Auctions has realized for a piece by the artist best known for his work on Swamp Thing. Bidding opened at $75,000 Thursday and quickly skyrocketed toward the final sale price.
 
Frankenstein’s opposite – Carl Barks' 1994 Surprise Party at Memory Pond, a painting done to commemorate Donald Duck's 60th anniversary – was another big hit at the Platinum session. It sold for $156,000.
 
One of the runaway hits of the Platinum session came from Barry Smith – otherwise known, now, as Barry Windsor-Smith, who, in 1969, channeled his inner Jack Kirby for the cover to X-Men No. 55. The piece, featuring Havok front and center on an issue that told Alex Summers’ origin story, sat at $17,000 when the auction began – then slowly climbed toward $55,000. The bidding appeared to die down, nearly closing the auction, at $55,000 – only to wind up closing at $132,000.
 
Another piece that saw heated bidding was John Romita Sr. and Mike Esposito’s splash page for Amazing Spider-Man No. 41, which sold for an extraordinary $180,000 – higher, even, than many of Romita’s Spider-Man covers that have come to auction in recent years. Published in 1966, the piece features Spidey and The Rhino and the promise of "a great new era" in the life of the "amazing web-spinner."

Speaking of Spider-Man …

Amazing Fantasy No. 15, that web-spinner’s very first appearance, sold for $180,000 – well above book value for an issue graded CGC VF 8.0, and Amazing Spider-Man No. 39, published in 1966, sold Thursday for $31,200 – which almost tripled the previous record brought for this issue.
Those titles were among many to outperform market value Thursday. For instance, a Batman No. 1 from 1940 graded CGC FR/GD 1.5 sold for $78,000.

Almost all the lots saw heavy bidding, from the website and phones, during the two-hour event. Every piece was significant; every sale, too, no matter the artist or origin – whether it was Bill Everett’s complete 10-page story “Into the Dimension of Death” from Strange Tales No. 152 or Bill Elder’s eight-page “Dragged Net!” parody from MAD No. 3, each of which sold for $78,000.

Page 10 from Watchmen No. 10 by Dave Gibbons, featuring a twisted back-and-forth between Nite Owl and Rorschach, sold for $31,200 – in part because it served as the basis for the acclaimed HBO mini-series, in part because it's signed by Gibbons and writer Alan Moore and in part because it’s The Most Influential Comic Book of the last 40 years, alongside …

The Dark Knight Returns by Frank Miller and Klaus Janson was represented in this auction by Page 24 from Issue No. 4. The page upon which Batman convinces the Mutants to help save Gotham City – because of "community spirit" – sold for $66,000.

Only 20 years ago, in his film Unbreakable, M. Night Shyamalan made the comic-art gallery owner the story’s strange, silly outsider. Time would prove Elijah Price’s character only prescient – the fanboy collector is now a legitimate curator of serious and valuable art, which should come as no surprise. The items in Thursday’s Platinum session are the raw, handmade images that sparked countless kids' imaginations, those singular moments before they were mass-manufactured for spinner racks and comic shops.

“More so than many areas of the larger art market, comic art appeals to collectors on so many levels, often based on a strong emotional investment," Todd Hignite said. "There's a nostalgic attachment to those stories and images that have now become important cultural touchstones."

And, of course, they're the golden building blocks of now-inescapable movie and television franchises. What was once a hobby has become industry and investment, at the very moment when comic conventions have been put on hold.

Heritage Auction’s April 30-May 3 Comics & Comic Art Signature Auction continues with its third session at 11 a.m. C.S.T. May 1, with collectible video games heading to the block. The auction continues through Sunday afternoon. The full schedule is available here.

Visit Heritage Auctions’ Sunday & Monday Comics, Animation, & Art Weekly Online Auction #122018 May 3-4 to browse high-resolution images of the auction’s 684 lots of comic books, original comic book art and memorabilia. Bidding opens at 6 p.m. (Central Time) on HA.com.

Washington, D.C. — Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden has appointed Joy Harjo to serve a second term as the nation’s 23rd Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry for 2020-2021. During her second term, Harjo will launch a new Library of Congress collection and online map featuring Native poets and poetry.

“Joy Harjo is such an inspiring and engaging poet laureate,” Hayden said. “I’m thrilled she said yes to a second term to help the Library showcase Native poets from coast-to-coast. Her profound musical and literary talents are a gift to the nation.”

Harjo’s second term will begin Sept. 1 and will focus on her signature laureate project, “Living Nations, Living Words: A Map of First Peoples Poetry.” This digital project, developed in conjunction with the Library’s Geography and Map Division, will be created using ARCGIS StoryMaps, a web mapping application geared toward storytelling, to showcase contemporary Native American poets from across the country.

The project will include Native poets’ biographies and recordings of them reading and discussing one of their poems. It will also help build a new collection in the Library’s American Folklife Center featuring the recordings of the Native poets.

“It is an honor to serve a second term as poet laureate, especially during these times of earth transformation and cultural change,” Harjo, who is the first Native poet to serve in the position, said. “Poetry reminds us that we are connected beyond words, and to communicate through poetry has the potential to expand the conversation into wordless depths, to help us move collectively into fresh cultural vision. To get there in understanding, we begin with the roots. In this country, the roots are found in the poetry of the more than 500 living indigenous nations.”

During the coronavirus pandemic, Harjo’s work was recently featured in The Poetry of Home, a new video series from The Washington Post and the Library featuring four U.S. poets laureate on the theme of “home” at a time when so many people are sheltering in place.

About Joy Harjo

Harjo was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma, on May 9, 1951, and is the author of nine books of poetry — including most recently “An American Sunrise,” (W.W. Norton, 2019). Harjo has also written a memoir, “Crazy Brave” (W.W. Norton, 2012), which won the 2013 PEN Center USA literary prize for creative nonfiction, as well as a children’s book and a young adult book. She is the editor of “When the Light of the World Was Subdued, Our Songs Came Through: A Norton Anthology of Native Nations Poetry,” to be published by W.W. Norton in August 2020.

Harjo’s many literary awards include the PEN Open Book Award, the American Indian Distinguished Achievement in the Arts Award, the New Mexico Governor’s Award for Excellence in the Arts and the Arrell Gibson Lifetime Achievement Award from the Oklahoma Center for the Book, an affiliate of the Library of Congress. Harjo has received fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the Witter Bynner Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts. Her collection “How We Become Human: New and Selected Poems 1975-2001” (W.W. Norton, 2002) was selected by the National Endowment for the Arts for its Big Read program. Her recent honors include the Jackson Prize from Poets & Writers (2019), the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize from the Poetry Foundation (2017) and the Wallace Stevens Award from the Academy of American Poets (2015). In 2019, she was elected a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets.

Harjo has taught at UCLA and was until recently a professor and chair of excellence at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. She has returned to her hometown, where she holds a Tulsa Artist Fellowship.

About the Poet Laureate Position

The Library of Congress Poetry and Literature Center is the home of the Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry, a position that has existed since 1937 when Archer M. Huntington endowed the Chair of Poetry at the Library. Since then, many of the nation’s most eminent poets have served as Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress and, after the passage of Public Law 99-194 (Dec. 20, 1985), as Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry — a position that the law states “is equivalent to that of Poet Laureate of the United States.”
During his or her term, the Poet Laureate seeks to raise the national consciousness to a greater appreciation of the reading and writing of poetry. In recent years, Laureates have initiated poetry projects that broaden the audiences for poetry.

For more information on the Poet Laureate and the Poetry and Literature Center, visit loc.gov/poetry/. Consultants in Poetry and Poets Laureate Consultants in Poetry and their terms of service can be found at loc.gov/poetry/laureate-2011-present.html. To learn more about Poet Laureate projects, visit loc.gov/poetry/laureate-projects.html.

The Library of Congress is the world’s largest library, offering access to the creative record of the United States — and extensive materials from around the world — both on-site and online. It is the main research arm of the U.S. Congress and the home of the U.S. Copyright Office. Explore collections, reference services and other programs and plan a visit at loc.gov, access the official site for U.S. federal legislative information at congress.gov, and register creative works of authorship at copyright.gov.