Afro-American Exhibit at Swann Auction Galleries

“Fuchsias,” by the African American educator and antislavery activist Sarah Mapps-Douglass, personal album of Mary Anne Dickerson.

Helping us celebrate our 275th birthday is the Swann Galleries in New York, where selections from our Afro-Americana Collection are on display through the month of February (Black History Month). Swann’s annual Afro-Americana auction, now in its twelfth year, the largest assembly of rare Afro-Americana on sale anywhere, is a major event for dealers, collectors and curators. Over 300 patrons attended the February 1 opening reception and viewed our exhibit.

The 13 items on display, selected by Curator of Afro-Americana Phil Lapsansky, include books, pamphlets, broadsides, manuscripts and art works acquired from the earliest years of the Library Company up to recent gifts and purchase. Blacks represented in the exhibit include Phillis Wheatley, Frederick Douglass, Benjamin Banneker, David Walker, Jean Jacques Dessalines, Nat Turner, Robert Douglass, Jr., and Sarah Mapps Douglass. Our thanks to Swann Galleries for this opportunity to make our collection better known to their many discerning and knowledgeable patrons.

Library Company Board President Bea Garvan and Caroline Birenbaum of Swann Galleries

Library Company’s extensive Afro-Americana collection

Swann Auction Galleries’ new African-American fine art collection.