Swann’s Contemporary Art Auction Features Sam Szafran, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, and Keith Haring Works

The tiny spaces that Sam Szafran (1934 – 2019) occupied were his world, captured on canvas with thousands of details. A dizzying perspective of stairs captured in an untitled painting from 1980 by Szafran is leading the Contemporary Art auction from Swann Auction Galleries. It is a color pastel on board, signed by Szafran. He was a Jewish-Polish artist who grew up witnessing the disasters of World War II. As an artist, he preferred solitude, focusing on his own existence and inner states to give rise to his favorite themes like plants, staircases, and workshops in pastel and then watercolor. This artwork distorts and deconstructs the viewer’s perspective.

A crayon, pen and ink, and wash on card artwork, drawn in 1926 by Ernst Ludwig Kirchner (1880 – 1938) is another highlight in the sale. As a self- trained artist, Kirchner founded the artists’ group Die Brücke along with Fritz Bleyl, Erich Heckel, and Karl Schmidt-Rottluff. The group gave birth to German Expressionism. They made life-drawings from nude models in unselfconscious, informal poses in their communal studio, decorated with non-Western art and erotic images. They rejected academic art as stultifying and started originating works that were emotionally expressive, like the works of Vincent van Gogh and Edvard Munch. Their art still resonates with the contemporary originality they held in the 1910s and 1920s. View the complete catalog of the Contemporary Art auction by visiting Swann Auction Galleries.