The woman in the back was apparently so excited that she started waving her hand. Auctioneer Nicholas D. Lowry, wearing another of his trademark plaid suits, jokingly warned that he might include her in the bidding.
I turned slightly to my right to see a woman who was all smiles, her face glowing. The auctioneer was in the midst of a bidding war for a painting titled “The Last Farewell” by Dindga McCannon. The bids were climbing and that’s what had presumably set her off.
The woman was McCannon herself, and she seemed to be overcome with joy as the price for the painting rushed headlong past $100,000 and kept rising. By the time the auction was over, the hammer price was $130,000 – a new world record for her work, Lowry noted. (The realized price, after a 25 percent premium, pushed the amount to $161,000.)
The audience members, who had filled practically every chair in the room, clapped loudly for her and her painting, whose astonishingly high price was representative of many other pieces in the Swann Auction Galleries’ sale of works from the Johnson Publishing Company collection. Paintings, sculptures and prints that Swann estimated at very low prices attracted bids that were unexpectedly higher.
Many of us in the audience were stunned but elated that these pieces of African American art were pulling in such top prices. African American artists have long been denied their place in history, and the value of their work has never been on par with white artists of similar talents and strengths. That is changing very slowly as we hear about the millions of dollars garnered by a Kerry James Marshall or hundreds of thousands for a Charles White. Those are exceptions, not the norm.
The works at this auction did extremely well because of their provenance, or history: They were purchased by Johnson Publishing starting in the 1970s after the publisher of Ebony and Jet magazines built its spanking new headquarters in Chicago. I suspect that the buyers were both private collectors who got bragging rights about having a work of art owned by John H. Johnson and his empire, and museums who could add some major African American artworks to their collections.
The auction was estimated to bring in about $1.2 million but reportedly topped off at nearly $3 million. The proceeds will be used to pay off claims against Johnson Publishing. One of the recipients is former CEO Desiree Rogers who reportedly loaned the company $2.7 million during its financial troubles. Rogers attended the auction, as well as Audrey Smaltz, a former Ebony Fashion Fair commentator. Actor Hill Harper was also there, sitting in the front row.
The auction included some big names whose works always sell well: Henry Ossawa Tanner ($365,000); Lois Mailou Jones ($75,000); Richard Mayhew ($233,000), Elizabeth Catlett ($149,000), Walter H. Williams ($125,000) and Carrie Mae Weems ($305,000).
Many of the pieces were by local Chicago artists whose estimated prices appeared to be affordable. I saw quite a few folks in the audience with paddles hoping to score a print or painting. But that was not the case. A woman sitting to the left of me had a paddle that she never raised. My art-auction buddy Kristin had her eye on Walter J. Williams Jr.’s “Corner Bar,” and stayed in the bidding until she felt it was too high. She kept figuring the 25 percent premium in her head. The painting had a hammer price of $5,000 and a final price of $6,250 with premium.
Very few of the paddles were raised on the floor. The excessive bidding came over the phone and the internet, and Swann had a cadre of people manning both.
I sat next to a man who had come to bid often. Early on, though, he saw where the prices were headed. After the bidding ended on the oil painting “Africa: The Source” by Larry Erskine Thomas, he said, “That’s my retirement fund.” The hammer price was $42,000, but the final price with premium was $52,500. Even the auctioneer was a bit surprised, pointing out the estimate of $1,000 to $1,500.
The man raised his paddle on at least a half-dozen artworks but gave up after the prices went past $1,000. He wanted to buy two fabric artworks by Jim S. Smoote that had an estimate of $500 to $750. The pair sold for $13,000 ($16,250 with premium).
“I’m having heart palpitations from these prices,” he said after Leon Meeks’ “The Abstract Beauty of Earth” sold for $5,800 (final: $7,250). At one point, he mentioned that a buyer wanted to sell him a Ben Jones piece titled “Head” that both had bidded on.
According to the auctioneer, one painting sparked strong interest prior to the sale: Barbara Johnson Zuber’s “Jump Rope,” a huge rectangular painting of little black girls jumping rope. The audience clapped when it sold for $70,000 ($87,500 with premium). It had an estimate of $1,000 to $1,500. “Unbelievable,” the man said.
The prices set records for many of the artists, and I’m sure collectors who have their other works are expecting theirs to be just as valuable. Not so fast, though, because these prices may boost the value of some the artists’ works but not all. The value always depends on a number of factors, including who is interested in the piece at a given point in time.
This auction has given many of these artists a presence on the web, something I try to do when I come across local artists – African Americans, especially – with unfamiliar names. They are the ones who may have credentials from major (and minor) art schools or are self-taught, but never rose to the stature of some of their peers. Some of the artists in the Johnson Publishing collection studied at the Art Institute of Chicago, which, like the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia, accepted black students when other institutions would not.
Every one of the 87 lots of artworks sold, and there were even some pieces that went for less than $5,000.
Here’s a sampling of the artworks and prices:
