40 2nd April 2011 antiquarian books
Left: ‘A Night Club Map of Harlem’, the centrefold of the 1933 first issue of Manhattan Magazine – sold for a far higher than predicted $14,000 (£8680). The original drawing was once owned by Cab Calloway.
title had changed and this placard may never have been used. The play was not a success and left Thurman and his co- producer in debt, but this memento sold at $15,000 (£9300). Far more successful still, in that it sold
for $14,000 (£8680) not the $600-800 suggested, was ‘A Night Club Map of Harlem’ dating to 1933. Drawn by Elmer Simms Campbell, it is
the centrefold of what is itself a very rare first issue copy of Manhattan Magazine and acts as a guide and who’s who of the old Prohibition clubs that were dotted around Harlem in the 1920s. The Savoy Ballroom, The Cotton Club, Small’s Paradise, Glady’s Clam Bar and many other establishments are shown, along with vignettes of musicians and dancers. It was copied some nine months later
african-americana sale continued from page 39
Spanish treasure ship, lost in 1656, but found instead two other wrecks of the previous century. One was later dubbed the tumbaga wreck, for a type of gold
British & Irish Book Auctions
Mar 30@ Mar 30*@ Mar 30*@ Mar 30@ Mar 30*@ Mar 31*@ Mar 31*@ Mar 31*@ Apr 1*@ Apr 1*@ Apr 2*@ Apr 2*@
Apr 2-3*@ Apr 5*@ Apr 5*@ Apr 6@
Apr 6-7@ Apr 6-7*@ Apr 7*@ Apr 9*@ Apr 13@ Apr 14@ Apr 19
Apr 19*@ Apr 20*@ Apr 28 @ Apr 28*@ Apr 28*@
Antiquarian Books, Prints & Maps, Bearnes Hampton Littlewood - Honiton (01404 510000) Books & Stamps, Brightwells - Leominster (01568 611122)
Book, Postcard & Ephemera Section, Canterbury Auction Galleries (01227 763337) The Cricket Sale, T. Vennett-Smith -Gotham (0115 983 0541) 94-lot Book Section, Maxwells - Wilmslow (0161 439 5182) 9-lot Book Section, Silverwoods - Clitheroe (01200 423322)
Sporting Books Section, Greenslade Taylor Hunt - Taunton (01823 332525) 9-lot Book & Ephemera Section, Hose Rhodes Dickson - Brading, IoW (01983 402222) 132-lot Books, Maps & Ephemera Section, W.H. Peacock - Bedford (01234 266366) Football & Sports Memorabilia, Sportingold - Northampton (01494 565921) 45-lot Book & Ephemera Section, Dickins - Middle Claydon (01296 714434) 500-lot Book section, Taylors - Montrose (01674 672775) Autographs, IAA - Heathrow (0115 845 1010)
Book & Mss Section, Chiswick Auctions - London (020 8992 4442) Book Section: Mallow Castle Sale,
Co.Cork, Mealys (00353 56 4400942) Travel Science & Natural History, Christie’s South Kensington (020 7752 3165)
Books & Maps, incl. Royalty, Sport, Nat. Hist, Dominic Winter - South Cerney (01285 860006) Sports Memorabilia, Mullocks - Ludlow (01694 771771) 11-lot Book Section, Amersham Auction Rooms (01494 729292)
22-lot Book/Magazine Section: Coin & Medal Sale, B. Frank & Son - Newcastle (0191 413 8749) Antiquarian Books, Maps & Postcards, Tennants - Leyburn (01969 623780) Bibliophile Sale, Bloomsbury Auctions - Godalming (020 7495 9494) Books, Maps & MSS, Bonhams - Oxford (01865 853640) Books, Prints & Maps, Capes Dunn - Manchester (0161 273 1911) 13-lot Book Section: Silver sale, Woolley & Wallis - Salisbury (01722 424500)
Antiquarian & General Books, Ephemera, Thomson Roddick Medcalf - Carlisle (01228 528939) Book Section, Charterhouse - Sherborne (01935 812277) Book Section, Richardsons - Bourne (01778 422686)
Sales marked with an * are those in which books and ephemera form part of a larger sale. Sales marked @ are viewable on
antiquestradegazette.com. Auctioneers are asked to send details of specialist book sales, as well as those sales that may contain significant book and ephemera sections, to: Ian McKay Tel: (01795) 890475 • Fax: (01795) 890014 •
ianmckay1@btinternet.com
bar found there; the other was the early English slave ship of c.1570-75 in which this stone was found. It sold at $20,000 (£12,400). Sold for $30,000 (£18,505), against
an estimate of $750-1000, was a large, heavy purple felt banner worked with white quilted letters and designs
promoting the work of the cult religious leader who called himself Reverend Major Jealous Divine, and The Messenger. Featuring a dove perched on the globe
and the words God, Righteousness, Justice, Peace and Truth..., the 4ft 6in (1.37m) square banner relates to the International Peace Movement that Divine [George Baker, 1876-1965] founded in 1936 and which grew from a small, predominantly black congregation to become a multi-racial and international church. Though Divine‘s claim to actually be
God did attract criticism, he welcomed some important figures into his flock, among them the one-time mayor of New York, Fiorello Laguardia. However, as the Swanns cataloguer remarks, the fact that Laguardia publicly sought Divine’s counsel during an election may have had more to do with getting votes than seeking advice. Bill Pickett, who starred as ‘The
World’s Colored Champion’ in the 1921 film, The Bull-Dogger, was a genuine cowboy and is credited with inventing, in the course of his daily work, what rodeo- goers now know as bulldogging, or steer wrestling. Norman Film Studios of Florida
produced many all-black films in the 1920s but Swanns suggest that the rarest poster may be the one featuring “
...the Colored Hero of the Mexican Bull Ring in Death Defying Feats of Courage and Skill” that they sold at $10,000 £6200). There was success, too, for a striking
placard designed by Aaron Douglas for the opening of his good friend, Wallace Thurman’s play, Harlem, at New York’s Apollo theatre in February, 1929. Stencilled onto composite board, this
is undoubtedly a rarity – if not unique – as by the time the play opened, the full
in Esquire, for whom Campbell, one of the first major African-American artists to cross the colour lines into this field, produced his series of sexy ‘Harlem Girls’ right up to 1958, when the magazine abandoned illustrative art. Campbell found a new outlet in Playboy. The message on the most famous
placard or poster carried by marchers on April 4, 1968, the day on which Martin Luther King was assassinated, was a simple one, I Am A Man, and that placard was again held high when, four days later, Mrs King and three of her children led 20,000 marchers onto the streets. Also carried on that day were signs
reading Union Justice Now, a reminder that her husband had come to Memphis to support a strike of black sanitation workers, and one that read simply Honor King: End Racism! An example of the latter was sold for $17,000 (£10,540).
Above: a placard designed by Aaron Douglas for the 1929 production of Wallace Thurman’s play, Harlem, sold for $15,000 (£9300).
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