19th & 20th Century Art

Swann Auction Galleries Sale #2748: This season’s 19th & 20th Century Art sale is a fluid cross-continental dialogue across artistic periods that celebrates throughlines. We will be offering over 200 paintings, sculptures, and works on paper by American, European, and Latin American artists.

Included in the sale are three beautiful early works on paper by Charles Burchfield. "Poplars in May" depicts the edge of Wade Park, in Cleveland in 1916, and bears color notes within the composition, before Burchfield abandoned this practice. Collectors will appreciate the watercolor's colorful, patterned quality and minute, pointed brush strokes. "A Little Cabin (Statesburg, S.C.)" and "Dead Pine Branch," both 1918, come from a point in Burchfield's career when his work became more conscious of and empathetic to the hardships around him, especially while stationed in Camp Jackson, South Carolina.

A small, dynamic watercolor by Paul Cadmus, which is a preparatory work for his 1936 "Venus and Adonis, will feature in the sale. Swann sold the oil on canvas in June 2015, and it’s a lovely full-circle moment to "also offer a work so intimately linked with the final.

European highlights are led by another preparatory sketch: "Tête de femme" by René Magritte is an inception of an enigmatic portrait, with the artist's grid lines to translate the final image.

A Modern Latin-American master represented in our sale is Rufino Tamayo, whose "Tres sandías," 1968, is a playful work on paper. During his early career, Tamayo's still lifes were inspired by the Surrealists and Cubists, but his inclusion of the watermelon made them uniquely Mexican.