The Eric C. Caren Collection: How History Unfolds on Paper, at Swann Autumn 2011

Left: Sebastian Bauman, Plan of the Investment of York and Gloucester, engraved hand-colored map, Philadelphia, [February?] 1782. Estimate: $15,000 to $25,000. 

Right: Charles II, King of England, Authorization for Edmund Andros to take possession of New York from the Dutch, Windsor Castle, England, 30 July 1674. Estimate: $100,000 to $150,000.

Early in our fall 2011 season, Swann will offer the first in what will be at least three auctions of historic material from the personal collection of Eric C. Caren, called “How History Unfolds on Paper.” 

The collection has an interesting genesis. Caren has long sought to own a representative document from every important event in modern history, beginning with the earliest days of printing. Having completed this collection to his satisfaction, he began to assemble another one, freeing some of the earlier acquisitions for sale. The material that will be sold comprises just part of Caren’s vast collection, which spans  European and American books, newspapers, manuscripts, photographs, broadsides and more, showcasing important material from the 16th through 20th centuries. 

As proprietor of the Caren Archive, Eric Caren is a well-known collector and dealer of historic collectibles. The Newseum in Washington, D.C.  acquired more than 30,000 of his newspapers to form the core of its permanent collection. He is also the CEO of Retrographics Publishing, author of numerous books, and former director of the Ephemera Society of America. 

Among the highlights: 

• The first printed baseball scorecard, from an 1866 championship game between Brooklyn and Philadelphia
• A rare 1789 illustrated broadside printing of Remarks on the Slave Trade
• An original plan of the R.M.S. Lusitania by its builders, John Brown & Company, 25 November 1907
• An impressive variety of newspapers from the 17th, 18th, 19th and 20th centuries
• A manuscript account of exchanges between George Washington and his personal physician James Craik, detailing the medical care of Washington, his family, and his slaves, 1786-89
• A broadsheet extra of the Boston Post-Boy, describing demonstrations at the Liberty Tree against the newly instituted Stamp Act, 4 November 1765
• Original photographs of 19th-century outlaws including Tiburcio Vásquez (signed), the Dalton Gang, and the James-Younger Gang.

Yesterday's Top Lots

Marc Chagall's illustrated Bible, with complete text and 105 etchings, 1931-39. Sold for $156,000.

Two portfolios were the top lots in yesterday's Old Master Through Modern Prints auction at Swann. Marc Chagall's Bible, with 105 etchings, sold for $156,000, a record price for the set without the hand colored plates. The Musée d’art et d’histoire du Judaïsme in Paris currently has an exhibition, Chagall et la Bible, featuring this immense undertaking. A portfolio of Das Graphische Werk von Egon Schiele, brought $78,000.

The day's highest-selling print was Benton Spruance's Riders of the Apocalypse, lithograph, 1943, which sold for $38,400, also an auction record.

Of Books and Brits

Today, the world crashes the wedding of Will and Kate through the wonders of digital media. And Swann celebrates the mother country in classic, and always collectible, print form.

Agnes Strickland, Lives of the Queens of England (detail), 16 volumes, 1902-03. Estimate: $2,000 to $3,000.

Our upcoming May 12th sale of Art, Press & Illustrated Books and 19th & 20th Century Literature, features a beautiful a 16-volume set of Agnes Strickland's Lives of the Queens of England, with engraved plates and illustrations of English royal figures and their surroundings, bound in rich crimson morocco with colored calf onlays of English coats-of-arms and crowns. 

Charles Dickens, The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club, 1930. Estimate: $600 to $900.

Victorian England's most famous literary son, Charles Dickens, makes numerous appearances in the sale, with a first edition set of Dombey and Son in original parts, a lovely set of the famous Nonesuch Edition of the Works containing an original woodblock for one of the illustrations, a charming edition of The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club in an illustrated leather binding, and celebrating England's first literary great and the other famous William—Shakespeare—a gift Dickens inscribed to his friend Charles Kent shortly before his death in June of 1870. 


And, of course no nursery—royal or otherwise—would be complete without a copy of the quintessential English children's book of the 20th century, A.A. Milne's Winnie-The-Pooh, with its iconic images of the bear and his boy Christopher Robin by E.H. Shepard. We are offering one of the scarce signed limited first edition copies for the princely sum of $5,000 to $7,500. 

Chinese Hygiene & Health Posters

Modes of Infection and Prevention, group of 19 posters, circa 1925. Estimate: $2,000 to $3,000. 

Posters are generally used to sell a product, be it alcohol, food or a tourist destination. Another highly effective use of poster art is as a teaching tool. In the U.S., we are familiar with Mather Work Incentive posters that used short and witty phrases to motivate workers and increase productivity; Character-Culture-Citizenship Guides, issued for use in American classrooms to encourage reading and sportsmanship; and public service announcements like the Ad Council's anti-polution "Crying Indian."

Compared to these, a set of 19 previously undocumented Chinese posters illustrating Modes of Infection and Prevention, which are offered in the May 5th Modernist Posters auction, seem almost comical. In 1915, China undertook a nationwide health initiative to increase hygienic practices. That first campaign, and those that followed, utilized exhibitions, films and posters to disseminate messages about food preparation, child safety and how to prevent the spread of disease.

While these circa 1925 images of a man coughing on a baby or smoking while slicing watermelon seem humorous today, they provided very clear messages to a predominantly illiterate population about sound health practices.   

Print Portfolios

Marc Chagall, Bible, with complete text and 105 etchings, 1931-39. Estimate: $100,000 to $150,000.

Swann's April 28th auction of Old Master Through Modern Prints offers a particularly strong selection of portfolios and suites of prints by modern European masters including Marc Chagall, Salvador Dalí and Egon Schiele.

Chagall's Bible, with 105 black-and-white etchings, is among the most desirable lots in the sale. One of 275 numbered copies, signed in ink, it has a pre-sale estimate of $100,000 to $150,000. Chagall was commissioned by legendary Parisian art dealer and publisher Ambroise Vollard to illustrate the Old Testament, and it took the artist 25 years to complete the project. Chagall saw the assignment as an opportunity to visit the Holy Land—a trip that had a profound impact on his life and career. Upon Vollard's death in 1939, the printing was taken over by editor and publisher Tériade.

In November 2009, Swann set an auction record of $108,000 for an hors-texte copy in a sale of Art, Press & Illustrated Books. 

Salvador Dalí, Flora Dalinea, portfolio with complete text and 10 color drypoints with photolithograph on Japon nacré, 1967-69. Estimate: $40,000 to $60,000.

The upcoming auction also features eight works illustrated by Dalí. These include two versions of Biblia Sacra, 1967, one from the Lexus edition of 1,499 Arabic numbered copies, the other from the Magni Lexus edition of 199 Roman numeral copies, as well as Poèmes Secrets, 1967 and Flora Dalinea, 1967-69. 

Egon Schiele, Das Graphische Werk von Egon Schiele, portfolio with complete text, 2 lithographs, 5 drypoints and 1 etching, 1914-18. Estimate: $50,000 to $75,000.

A scarce complete set of Das Graphische Werk von Egon Schiele, a portfolio with eight prints by the Austrian artist, is also among the sale highlights. 

Earth Day and The Crying Indian

His face is unmistakable to an entire generation of Americans. The Crying Indian, aka Iron Eyes Cody, who was in fact an Italian-American actor, became an anti-pollution icon when he appeared in the famous Keep America Beautiful public service announcements that aired on television in the early 1970s. The ad premiered on April 22, 1971—the second Earth Day ever. Today is the 41st.


Swann Galleries' May 5th Modernist Posters auction features a poster of the Crying Indian from the same Ad Council campaign warning Pollution Hurts All of Us.


Check out the full commercial below to see what brought Iron Eyes to tears.

Yesterday's Top Lots: Autographs

John Milton, Endorsement Signed, on the verso of a vellum document, Reigate, 23 January 1657. Sold for $45,600.

An endorsement signed by a blind John Milton as witness to the signing of a land deed, 1657, was the top lot in Swann's Autographs auction yesterday. The vellum document signed by the author of Paradise Lost brought $45,600, a record price for Milton's autograph.

A handwritten letter from Charles Darwin to an unnamed recipient (possibly botanist Hewett Cottrell Watson) in 1856, asking if he believes a plant with adjacent male and female reproductive organs can be fertilized by another, and stating interest in Thomas Andrew Knight's view that all plants occasionally cross-fertilize, sold for $26,400.

Charles Darwin, Autograph Letter Signed, to an unnamed recipient, about evidence for theory of plant cross-fertilization, Down Bromley Kent, 24 December 1856. Sold for $26,400.

Arianna Huffington's Debate

This week's issue of the newly relaunched Adweek includes an image of an ironic artifact from media mogul Arianna Huffington's days at Cambridge. Hephzibah Anderson's column The Huffington Pose examines Huffington (nee Stassinopoulos)'s enduring sex appeal and the effects its had on her personal and professional lives.

To illustrate, there is a photo of Huffington air kissing Sean Penn, and one of a Cambridge Union Society debate poster from 1970 (above) on the question of whether "Technological advance threatens the individuality of man and is becoming his master." The debater defending the argument? The Huffington Post creator herself. The document is autographed by attendees Prince Charles, C.P. Snow, Louis Mountbatten, George Steiner and others. It sold at Swann in April 2009 for $780.

Calvin Klein's Controversial Ads: Then and Now

A March 2011 CK ad campaign featuring Lara Stone may or may not have used the F-word.

Last month, Calvin Klein was in the news (again) thanks to a controversial ad campaign that seemed to contain a veiled use of the F-word. Sexual innuendo is nothing new for the retail giant who has garnered attention for controversial ads featuring a young Brooke Shields and a pre A-list Mark Wahlberg.

In 1983, Tim Hintnaus was the first male model to wear Calvins (and only Calvins) in a national ad campaign.

Back in 1983, it was Olympic pole vaulter Tom Hintnaus who became the first chiseled male model featured in a Calvin Klein Underwear ad, in which he appeared in nothing but a pair of white cotton briefs. The image of Hintnaus shot by photographer Bruce Weber appeared as a 70-foot high billboard in New York's Times Square and caused quite a stir at the time. Now a bus-stop version of the poster printed on translucent plastic is for sale in Swann's May 5 auction of Modernist Posters. It is one of several classic pop-culture images offered in the sale.

President Reagan: No More Mr. Nice Guy

Ronald Reagan, two autograph letters signed, Washington, 18 January 1983. Estimate: $6,000 to $9,000.

A pair of letters written by President Ronald Reagan to his daughter, Patti Davis, and to anti-nuclear activist Helen Caldicott, come to auction on April 21st. The letters are written on paper bearing the heading “No More Mr. Nice Guy” and a Sandra Boynton cartoon monster. These are retained copies—proper typed versions were sent to the recipients.

With the intention of swaying her father’s opinion regarding nuclear weapons policy, Davis arranged a meeting between the president and Caldicott in December 1982. The president agreed on grounds that the discussion be kept private, but word got out due to a journalist who went back on a promise to keep statements from Caldicott off the record. A media sensation erupted, prompting this exchange.  

President Reagan’s letter from January 18, 1983 to his daughter reassures her that, “I’ve just gotten an answer off to Dr. C. telling her not to worry, it’s par for the course…” To Caldicott, he writes, “I’m old enough to remember a time when there was a code of honor among the quote, unquote gentlemen of the press.”  

Keith Haring Excuses Angel Ortiz From Class

Keith Haring and Angel Ortiz, Autograph letter signed by Haring and photograph postcard signed by both, 1983. Estimate: $700 to $1,000.

If a doctor’s note doesn’t suffice as a way to get out of class, perhaps you can take the route that budding artist Angel Ortiz did in 1983. Ortiz missed school when traveling with contemporary artist Keith Haring on his European exhibition tour. The absence was excused with the help of a note from Haring, dated Nov. 4, 1983:

“Angel Ortiz traveled with me to Milano, Italy leaving Oct. 7 and returning Oct. 14. He accompanied me on my art exhibition tour in Milano, Italy and Madrid, Spain. I [am] certain that it was an educational experience.” 

Apparently, assisting a world famous artist for a week justified Ortiz’s absence from Seward Park High School Annex, as the note is initialed, presumably by a school administrator. This piece of paper is a highlight in Swann's April 21st Autographs auction, and comes with a postcard, signed by both Haring and Ortiz, with a small sketch by Haring of a dancing man.

Ortiz—now known in the art world as LA II or Little Angel—worked with Haring for nearly 10 years prior to Haring's death from AIDS in 1990. Ortiz's new works, which combine street art and abstraction, are currently on view at Dorian Grey Gallery.

Space-versaries

[Work Heroically - The Way to Victory in Space!], 1964. Estimate: $800 to $1,200.

Fifty years ago today, the Soviet space program launched Vostok 1, successfully putting Yuri Gagarin into orbit. The space race was used by the Soviets in their propaganda aimed outside the country—images of cosmonauts and rockets appeared on Intourist posters—and within. A rare poster from the Soviet space program made in 1964 appears in Swann's Modernist Posters auction on May 5th. 

Additionally, today marks the 30th anniversary of NASA's first space shuttle launch.

Today's Top Lots: Early Printed Books

John Pine, The Tapestry Hangings of the House of Lords…, first edition, London, 1739. Sold for $16,800. 

Homer, [Opera], Greek text, third Aldine edition, Venice, April 1524. Sold for $14,400.

Immanuel Kant, Critik der reinen Vernunft, first edition, Riga, 1781. Sold for $14,400. 

Princeton Symphony Orchestra Fundraising Gala

On Saturday, April 16th, Nicholas Lowry will be the auctioneer at the Princeton Symphony Orchestra's fundraising gala. The auction raises money to support education programs and the general operations of the Princeton Symphony, a professional orchestra. This year, the auction includes vacation stays at privately owned homes around the world, including a 13th-century French castle, a summer cottage on the Nantucket Sound, and a new ski chalet in Big Sky, MT.

"A Picture Can Save a Million Lives"

Ed Kashi, Untitled. Photo Courtesy of PROOF Photography.

The PROOF Photography Benefit Auction, for which Swann Photography specialist Daile Kaplan served as an advisor, takes place this Monday, April 11th. PROOF uses photography as a visual tool to educate individuals about human rights and humanitarian crises around the world. There will be both a silent and live auction featuring works by prominent and emerging photographers. 

Today's Top Lots: Fine Books & Manuscripts, with Auction Day Video

The Four Gospels of the Lord Jesus Christ According to the authorized version of King James I, Illustrated by Eric Gill. One of 12 rare copies on Roman Vellum. Inscribed by Gill to Leonard Woolf, 1931. 

The 1931 Golden Cockerel Press edition of the Four Gospels set the text of the King James Gospels into a masterly example of book design. This copy, one of only 12 printed on Roman Vellum, which was the only known inscribed copy to appear at auction, set a record price today when it became the top lot in the Fine Books & Manuscripts auction. It sold for $132,000. Watch video footage of the auctioning of the lot, which also shows what happens when a bidder raises his paddle at the wrong moment. 

The first book on America printed in the Muslim world, shown here, was the day's second highest selling lot, bringing $52,800.

Diego Rivera's Interpretation of His Detroit Industry Murals

Left: Diego Rivera, Autograph manuscript dated and signed, draft of an untitled essay concerning the freso paintings completed at the Detroit Institute of Arts, April 1933. Estimate: $6,000 to $9,000. Right and below, images courtesy of the Detroit Institute of Arts. 

Mexican muralist Diego Rivera’s art is rich with symbolism, frequently referring to the history of the region where a given painting was installed. His Detroit Industry murals, commissioned by automobile magnate Edsel Ford in the 1930s, depict automotive workers and their machines. The 27 frescoes on the walls of the Detroit Institute of Arts’ Rivera Court show the importance of manufacturing to the history of Detroit, imagery that is as relevant today as when it was painted.    

On April 21, Swann Galleries is bringing to auction a manuscript that provides a privileged view into the symbols of Rivera’s creative world. In April 1933, shortly after completing the Industry murals, Rivera wrote an essay for publication in an American art journal that details his own interpretation of the frescoes. This signed and dated manuscript, written entirely in his hand, includes discussion of the principle he used to organize the paintings: “the undulating movement which one finds in water currents, electric waves, stratification of the different layers under the surface of the earth, and, in a general way, throughout the continuous development of life . . . .” He wrote the essay in French, to later be translated by an assistant into English, probably because he was less confident writing in English—but his fluency in images is undeniable. Rivera claimed the Industry murals to be his greatest work, and this manuscript goes some distance toward explaining why.

This Saturday night, in conjunction with Art X Detroit: Kresge Art Experience, a five-day multidisciplinary art celebration in Detroit, the DIA presents The Troublemakers: The True, Epic Story of Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo in Depression Detroit, a multimedia presentation about the controversy around the creation of these very murals. While Rivera was immensely proud of his achievement, not everyone shared his politics and attitudes toward capitalism, technology and industry.

Video Preview of the First Book on America Printed in the Muslim World

The first book on America printed in the Muslim world, Tarih-i Hind-i Garbi [Description of the India of the West], comes to auction tomorrow in the Fine Books & Manuscripts sale. This book was the fourth production of the first Muslim printing press, founded in Constantinople by Ibrahim Müteferrika, a Transylvanian-born convert to Islam, who began printing there in 1729. Tobias Abeloff, Swann's Early Printed Books specialist, shows inside this first edition copy—one of only 500 printed—of an anonymous late 16th-century Turkish text comprising introductory chapters on cosmography and geography, followed by an account of the discovery and exploration of the New World based on writings by Francisco López de Gomara, Pietro Martire d’Anghiera, Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo y Valdés and Augustín de Zarate. Apart from a picture of women growing on the mythical Wak Wak tree and a view of Potosí, the illustrations are fanciful interpretations of flora and fauna described in the text. 

Armenian Books at Auction

Illuminated manuscript Gospels in Armenian on paper, Constantinople, 1621. Estimate: $18,000 to $20,000.

The April 11th sale of Early Printed Books at Swann includes 38 lots of Armenian books, ranging from an early 17th-century illuminated Gospel manuscript to early 20th-century works by authors killed in the Armenian Genocide.  Most of the offerings are 18th- and 19th-century books on various subjects, including Bibles, theology, history, geography, and literature.

The most unusual item is a nearly 24-foot manuscript prayer roll with nine miniatures of religious subjects, which include Catholicos Nerses, St. Gregory the Illuminator, St. Sarkis, and St. George slaying the dragon.

Illuminated manuscript in Armenian on paper with text written in nostragir script, late 17th/early 18th century. Estimate: $2,000 to $3,000.

The Four Gospels: One of the Most Important Fine Press Books of the Last Century

The Four Gospels of the Lord Jesus Christ According to the authorized version of King James I, Illustrated by Eric Gill. One of 12 rare copies on Roman Vellum. Inscribed by Gill to Leonard Woolf, 1931. Estimate: $60,000 to $75,000.

The 1931 Golden Cockerel Press edition of the Four Gospels set the text of the King James Gospels into a masterly example of book design and is considered one of the most important fine press books of the last century. This copy, one of only 12 printed on Roman Vellum, is the only known inscribed copy to appear at auction, which it will do on Thursday, April 7th in the Fine Books & Manuscripts auction at Swann. Eric Gill integrated the text and 65 wood-engraved illustrations into a modern homage to the tradition of illuminated text. It is inscribed by him and signed with his monogram to Leonard Woolf. 

The close friendship between Gill and Leonard Woolf is well documented, and 1931 was a particularly active year of collaboration between them. That winter, the Woolfs asked Gill to design and cut initials for the Hogarth Press limited edition of a translation by Vita Sackville-West of Rainer Maria Rilke's Duineser Elegien. Gill designed and hand-cut the initials in an Italic type designed by Edward Johnston. Additionally, the colophon bears an inscription to California socialite Babette Clayburgh. She and her husband Herbert Eugene Clayburgh, a San Francisco silk magnate, were prominent book collectors in the Bay area and joined the Book Club of San Francisco in 1920. It is less clear when and how the volume was inscribed to her and when the book passed hands from Woolf to Clayburgh. 

According to Golden Cockerel Press bibliographer Christopher Sandford Chanticleer, "Conceived in the fruitful mind of Robert Gibbings, this is the Golden Cockerel book usually compared with the Doves Bible and the Kelmscott Chaucer. A flower among the best products of English romantic genius, it is also surely, thanks to its illustrator, Eric Gill, the book among all books in which Roman type has been best mated with any kind of illustration.”

Yesterday's Top Lots: Printed & Manuscript Americana

Jonathan Edwards, Correspondence archive concerning his mission to the Indians at Stockbridge, 1752-56. Sold for $50,400. 

Yesterday's Printed & Manuscript Americana auction sold 90% of its offerings. Selling above their pre-sale estimates were lots pertaining to the American Revolution, American Indians, the Civil War, Latin America, whaling, and the most American of pursuits—baseball. The day's top lot was a correspondence archive from the famed New Light minister, Jonathan Edwards, concerning his mission to the Indians at Stockbridge. The 16 manuscript items, dating from 1752 to 1756, brought $50,400.

90 issues of the Providence Gazette and Country Journal, with 60 of them dated 1770 or 1771, and 20 of them dated from during the American Revolution, as well as single war-date issues of the New England Chronicle, Newport Mercury, Boston Gazette, and Connecticut Gazette—for a one volume bound folio of 94 newspapers, brought $38,400. The newspapers, the bulk of which are from 1770 to 1776, detail the "bloody massacre at Boston." 


And on baseball's opening day, a Currier & Ives print, The National Game. Three "Outs and One "Run." Abraham Winning the Ball, in which Abraham Lincoln is depicted as a victorious baseball player, with defeated candidates Bell, Douglas and Breckinridge looking on, made in 1860, the year baseball stepped forward as the national sport, brought $10,800, a record for an uncolored Currier & Ives print.

Louis Maurer, The National Game. Three “Outs” and One “Run.” Abraham Winning the Ball, lithograph, Currier & Ives, 1860. Sold for $10,800.

Middle: Providence Gazette and Country Journal, 94 newspapers in one volume, 1764-82, bulk 1770-76. Sold for $38,400.