I saw the chair first. It had thick gray cushions, curved arms and a dip in its back that looked like the tail of a whale. It offered an open invitation for me or anyone else to sink…
Author: sherry
Before me were small sheets that had been cut from newspapers, stacked side by side in a thick double pile. The cartoon atop the left stack was titled “Believe It or Not!” and I recognized it as…
The small embossed pictures were in no sensible order in the box on the auction table. I suspected that they had been removed from an old Victorian scrapbook where they had been carefully placed and perfectly…
Oversized figures of Christ, African female & Marlboros
Posted in Advertising, Asian, Carvings, collectibles, furniture, and Lighting
One week, the auction house had a larger-than-life figure of Jesus Christ that looked as if it had been taken from a church. A few weeks later, it offered a larger-than-life figure of an African…
Did you see the memory jug, my auction-buddy Rebecca asked as I was examining items in the back room of the auction house. To be honest, I had no idea what a memory jug was…
From $170,000 to $600,000 – record-breaking African American art sale
Posted in Art, and Uncategorized
The audience seemed to be ho-hum as artist Charles Ethan Porter’s beautiful yellow sunflowers went for $40,000. I didn’t observe much stirring when William H. Johnson’s jitterbug dancers sold for $90,000. But when Elizabeth Catlett’s…
Artifacts tell their own story of Martin Luther King’s life
Posted in Black history, civil rights movement, Ephemera/Paper/Documents, Photos, and theater
One artifact was a photo of Dr. Martin Luther King and Malcolm X, two men who sought freedom for African Americans in their own ways. Another was a large pinback button from the Southern Christian…
Promise of fair treatment made & broken at 1939 NY World’s Fair
Posted in Black history, Ephemera/Paper/Documents, and history
The newspaper pages were tucked behind a seemingly unrelated art print of a stone church. I was a bit interested in the artwork but was more intrigued by the newspaper. I assumed that it contained an…
The auction house had played the portrait prominently on its website. That was understandable since the artist who painted it and the subject were both famous African Americans. The auction house expected it to bring in…