The almanac cover was much too busy with small animals and jesters and big red and blue letters and a scene of three men chasing pigs. It looked and felt like a circus, and perhaps that’s…
Author: sherry
Several of the paintings and prints in my collection of African American art are musicians with saxophones. I’ve always loved this instrument that sounds like an anguished soul. So when I see artwork at auction with a saxophone,…
I was digging around in a box lot of disparate items at auction when I spotted some small wooden blocks. I brushed aside red heart-shaped nesting boxes, a new Rolfs man’s wallet, a Gillette razor and a Tissot…
Photos of diner & lesbian wedding tell their own stories
Posted in Black history, history, Photos, and Women
The black and white photos were part of a stack in a low-cut cardboard box in a glass case at the auction house. I pick up early photos like these from time to time, and…
Black footprint in America came way before slavery
Posted in Black history, Books, and history
At auction some years ago, I stumbled across a worn, beaten-down and scruffy book whose title faintly included the word “Negroes.” Opening it, I saw that it was children’s book titled “The First Book of…
19th-century portrait of African American woman
Posted in Black history, and Photos
I started to call you, the female auction-house staffer told me as I stood there waiting for a bidder’s number. She had seen an African American-related item for sale that day and immediately thought of…
Telling the story of Toni Stone as 1st woman in Negro Leagues
Posted in African American women, Black history, Plays, and Sports
Some years ago when I met Mamie “Peanut” Johnson at one of those events where former Negro Leagues players sign autographs, I was surprised and delighted to learn that black women were Negro Leaguers, too.…
I couldn’t tell whether the photos of dogs and their owners had been collected by someone as a group or pulled together from disparate lots by the auction house. But there they were, about a dozen…
I had gone through the glass cases at the auction house once and came up empty-handed. When I passed by again, an auction-house assistant stood behind them. Did you see anything interesting, I asked the…
In 1923, Augusta Savage applied for a summer program at the Fontainebleau School of Fine Arts, a newly opened American-owned school in France. The all-white and all-male selection committee rejected her because she was black. Savage…