Christie’s is Looking Forward to Americana Auctions
Christie’s Americana Week kicks off the nation’s Semiquincentennial with a landmark auction spanning founding documents, cultural icons, and American art from the Colonial era to today.
This is the year of the United States Semiquincentennial, and the entire country is preparing to celebrate. While the best festivities are expected to take place around July 4, honoring the signing of the Declaration of Independence, auction houses are already holding Americana events. Christie’s upcoming Americana Week, concluding on January 27, will auction a wealth of items associated with American icons spanning the Colonial era to today.
Christie’s describes its “We the People: America at 250” live auction, to be held on January 23, as “a cross-category masterpiece auction…which will encompass the spirit of American history and culture.” The wide variety of items, from founding documents to modern art, shows off some of the country’s most famous events, people, and places.
The highlight of the auction is a draft of the United States Constitution with annotations and editorial marks in ink and pencil by Rufus King, who was a Massachusetts delegate and a member of the Committee of Style. Providing a small glimpse into the amount of work it must have taken not only to draft the document, but found a new nation, the rare document is estimated to sell for $3,000,000 to $5,000,000.
The auction includes several other documents leading up to the Revolutionary War. One is a signed copy of the book Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral by Phillis Wheatley Peters, with an estimated value of $30,000 to $50,000. Born in West Africa and kidnapped and enslaved as a child, Wheatley began writing poetry in her teen years and quickly became a literary celebrity in colonial America. The book was published in London in 1773. The copy up for auction, previously belonging to Quincy Jones's library, has a later binding. The book, along with Wheatley’s legacy, serves as both a celebration of a young talent and a sobering reminder of America’s history of slavery.
As an example of a more recent revolutionary document, the partnership agreement for Apple Computer Company is up for auction. The founding document for one of the country’s most influential companies, signed by Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, and Ronald Wayne in 1976, is expected to sell for $2,000,000 to $4,000,000.
While American history is filled with fascinating figures and pivotal events, the country’s nature and wildlife are worth celebrating, too. The auction includes several American artworks capturing the environment. A gelatin silver mural print of Moonrise, Hernandez, New Mexico, 1941 by Ansel Adams is estimated to sell for $500,000 to $700,000. A Snowy Owl print by Robert Havell, after John James Audubon, author of Birds of America, carries an estimate of $60,000 to $90,000.
America is also home to many art forms across multiple media, which the auction makes sure to represent. A Navajo sandpainting rug featuring colorful depictions of Mother Earth and Father Sky is estimated at $20,000 to $30,000. According to Christie’s, the rug has a connection to another American art form, namely the film industry: it appeared in a photograph with actress Rosalind Russel in a 1942 issue of Life Magazine.
For a contemporary example of American art, American Gothic, 2014, by Hank Willis Thomas, is estimated to sell for $50,000 to $70,000. The artwork consists of digital chromogenic prints depicting glimpses of red, white, and blue stars and stripes, along with a figure in black and white, mounted into a triangle shape. It references two other American artworks: the 1942 photograph American Gothic, Washington, D.C., by Gordon Parks, which drew on the original American Gothic, the 1930 painting by Grant Wood. A study of Wood’s painting has an estimate of $70,000 to $100,000.
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