Black River Auction
696 South Broadway, B332, Pennsville, New Jersey 08070
609-204-8509
About Auction House
Black River , a fine art and antique auction house, provides exceptional service. Black River Auctioneers will conduct approximately 20 auctions annually in 2019. Categories such as jewelry and timepieces, fine art, 20th century design, rare books, furniture, decorative arts, modern design, musical instruments, science and technology, wine, and many others.Auction Previews & News
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Auction IndustryAround the Auction World: February 2021
Collage of images from around the auction world. Photo credit from left to right: Christie’s, Rare Posters, Black River Auction. Collage by Pranit Dubey (Auction Daily). The deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and others last summer reignited discussions about racial biases in the United States and around the world. Many called on the auction industry, in particular, to take structural reform seriously. For too long, the industry leaned on white male experts interpreting a largely white male canon. The celebration of Black artists should be a year-round pursuit. This year’s Black History Month, though, provided an early look into how auction houses plan to combat racial biases. Auction Daily breaks down how different auction houses approached Black History Month, along with the other highlights from around the auction world in February 2021. Mickalene Thomas at the Baltimore Museum of Art in 2019. Image from Andrew Mangum for The New York Times. Industry Trends Some of the most well-respected Black American artists had pieces available this February. That included two screenprints by Jacob Lawrence, presented by Black River Auction. Meanwhile, Rare Posters offered a 2015 print of Mickalene Thomas' I've Been Good to Me. How will auction houses and the art world keep the conversation going beyond Black History Month? February was a time to analyze the changes made so far to facilitate art world diversity. Some experts fear these moves are more about virtue-signaling than long-term change. View of the “Keep Your Lamps Trimmed and Burning” show at Shin Gallery for the Outsider Art Fair. Photo by Olya Vysotskaya. Elsewhere in the art world, many collectors and dealers look to return to in-person events, whenever safe. New York's Outsider Art Fair, which concluded on February 7th, was an early glimpse at the small-scale events collectors might expect in 2021. The fair included a show dedicated to Black voices in outsider art, “Keep Your Lamps Trimmed and Burning.” Auction Highlights How should auction houses handle historical memorabilia linked to real-world suffering? That debate surrounded a sale of KGB artifacts this month, less than 30 years after the agency's campaign of…
Auction IndustryArtists of Black History Month: Jacob Lawrence
Black River Auction Offers Two Signed Screenprints from American Painter One of the first nationally-recognized Black American painters, Jacob Lawrence completed his first significant painting series at 21 years old. Social realism was always the bedrock of Lawrence’s work. Throughout the 20th century, he returned to the vivid imagery of New York’s Harlem neighborhood to tell sweeping stories about Black history. “The community [in Harlem] let me develop,” he later reflected. “I painted the only way I knew how to paint… I tried to put the images down the way I related to the community.” Several prints from Lawrence’s later career will come to auction this Black History Month with Black River Auction. Bidding will begin at 10:30 AM EST on February 21st, 2021. Learn more about Jacob Lawrence and his influence on American art before the sale starts. Jacob Lawrence in 1991. Image from Robert Sorbo©️AP/Shutterstock. Jacob Lawrence was born to American Southern migrants who settled in Harlem. He grew up with the Harlem Renaissance, finding inspiration in a growing awareness of Black artistic excellence. Lawrence pursued art from a young age. He met Langston Hughes, Charles H. Alston, Ralph Ellison, Richard Wright, and Augusta Savage while studying at the Harlem Art Workshop. In the late 1930s, he produced a series of tempera paintings that told the story of Haitian Revolution leader Toussaint L’Ouverture. Harriet Tubman and Frederick Douglass were the subjects of Lawrence’s next painting series. Lawrence caught the art world’s attention with a series exploring the Great Migration. Following World War I, several million Black Americans moved from the Southern United States to other parts of the country. Lawrence witnessed the social and cultural changes this movement created. In response, he made 60 tempera paintings. The Downtown Gallery exhibited them in 1941, making Lawrence the first Black artist to be represented by a major New York gallery. Most of the paintings were later acquired by the Museum of Modern Art and the Phillips Collection. Over the next few decades, Lawrence became one of the most respected Black painters in America. His works explored the everyday lives of…
