My friend Kristin was staring at a painting when I walked up to her. That looks like a woman’s hat, she said, nodding to a fuzzy mix of flowers on a canvas before us. As soon as she said that, I saw it, too.
The painting was titled “Bouquet,” but it could easily have been mistaken for an impressionist view of a fancy hat. In fact, we both could’ve been sitting in a church pew behind a woman wearing that hat on her head. The flowers sat on a round platter that resembled a brim and the base looked like a woman’s neck. Click on the photo below for a full view.
A group of us were attending a preview of the Swann Auction Galleries’ African American Fine Art auction in New York recently, and I wondered if the auction house had guessed at the title. Sometimes, artists do not name their works, so someone has to conjecture the title based on the image in the painting. Checking the catalog, though, I learned that the artist had penciled it on the back.
The painting was a still life by Felrath Hines, far different from a painting I was itching to see after previewing it on the web. That piece was a literal representation of a vase of flowers by Charles Ethan Porter, and it was beautiful. I’m not much of a still-life connoisseur, but I love what moves me – and Porter’s painting did. (I was at an art sale in September and saw a still life of white peonies by artist Evan Wilson that were just lovely.)
These still lifes were two of almost a half-dozen on sale at the Swann auction. I had not noticed that many before, but they piqued my interest.
Swann holds its African American art auction twice a year, and I’m always there – to meet new artists (through their works), greet old ones, and to be surprised and dazzled. This time was no different; there’s always a collage of artists, subject matters and mediums.
Still lifes
The Porter painting was titled “Untitled (Peonies in a Blue Vase),” but they surely didn’t look like peonies to me. Peonies are among my most favorite flowers – I grow them in my garden – but these resembled carnations. No matter, because the painting was awesome. Porter actually painted peonies, as seen here.
Porter is considered a master of still lifes, his works richly colored and highly detailed. A Connecticut native, he attended the National Academy of Design in New York in 1871. He taught art lessons to support himself and later opened a small studio in New York. Porter went to Paris (with a letter written by Mark Twain), painted the countryside there, returned to Connecticut and painted landscapes. He apparently was a protege of Twain’s for a while. Porter died in 1923.
The “peonies” painting – produced between 1881-1884 – sold for $24,000, and another “Untitled (Bag of Cherries),” circa 1885, sold for $7,500. Here are others of his works.
Hines was a member of artist Romare Bearden’s Spiral Group of 16 African American artists that was formed in 1963. He was involved in the civil rights movement, knew Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and participated in the March on Washington. He didn’t want to be pigeonholed as only an African American artist; he wanted his works to be seen as universal. Hines was an art conservator for some of the country’s major museums.
The oil painting “Bouquet,” completed in 1958, sold for $3,000.
Another still life was an oil painting by another of my favorites, Lois Mailou Jones, titled “Still Life with Grapefruit (1928).” This was her first oil painting after graduating from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, according to the auction catalog. It did not sell.
A still life titled “Untitled (Still Life with Vegetables)” by Hazel Shearer Thomas Gray didn’t get any takers, either.
Gray was one of those artists who painted prolifically but very few people knew her name. She taught in the New York school system for 40 years, and most of her works were not discovered until after she died. She was a contemporary of Jones, and they may have been friends on Martha’s Vineyard where both of their families had homes for years.
Charles White’s J’Accuse series
The black people in Charles White’s works are larger than life, full-bodied, some with mournful sad faces, but emitting a simple grace. Life is hard and weary for them, but they trudge through it with hope and dignity.
That seemed to be the artist’s aim in the drawing “J’Accuse! No. 10 (Negro Woman),” which sold for $170,000.
The drawing is one in a series of charcoal on paper that White created in 1966. The series was based on a letter headlined “J’accuse” published in a Paris newspaper in 1898 and written by Emile Zola. A noted writer, Zola accused the French government and its military of anti-Semitism in what he considered the unjustified imprisonment of a French military officer of Jewish descent named Alfred Dreyfus. White saw the same oppression and discrimination enacted on black people during his time.
The lot included a special issue of Ebony magazine in August 1966 on the black woman. The cover was White’s illustration of the painting. The magazine included an article by Lena Horne, and others on civil rights, politics, sex, family, entertainment and more.
Note to self: Be on the lookout for this magazine at auction.
Affordable art for the masses
One of the noble characteristics of Elizabeth Catlett and Romare Bearden is that their art is affordable. Yes, you can buy some of their works in the five figures – much more than many of us can afford. But you can also buy a lithograph or a screen print for much much less. Several of those were up for sale.
Catlett’s “Restaurant Patron (For Colored Only),” from 1946 sold for $5,200. ‘Survivor,” a linoleum cut from 1983 that I used to see often in galleries, sold for $1,500. Other prints went for $1,200 and $1,800.
“Sharecropper (1970),” one of her iconic prints, sold for $26,000. When it first came out, it probably went for $500 or less.
The same is true of Bearden: The screen print “Family (Mother and Child),” circa 1980, sold for $2,600; the lithograph “Roots (1977)” for $4,000. Others sold for $8,000 and $9,000.
Showing African Americans as ordinary people
That was the goal of artist Allan Rohan Crite. His drawing of a coal cart on a Boston street was a very simple slice of life, of a man doing his work, going about his day. I especially liked this quote from Crite in the Swann catalog:
“My intention in the neighborhood paintings, and some drawings, was to show aspects of life in the city with special reference to the use of the terminology ‘black’ people and to present them in an ordinary light, persons enjoying the usual pleasure of life with its mixtures of both sorrows and joys … I was an artist-reporter, recording what I saw.”
The painting “Boston Street Scene (1937)” sold for $22,000.
