We Decode the New Art Biden Just Installed in the Oval Office, From a Bust of Cesar Chavez to a Calming Childe Hassam Painting
The National Portrait Gallery has loaned two new sculptures to the Biden administration.
January 21, 2021
A sculpted bust of Rosa Parks, foreground, by Artis Lane, and Abraham Lincoln, right, on a table seen during an early preview of the redesigned Oval Office awaiting President Joseph Biden at the White House in Washington, DC. Photo by Bill O Leary/the
Washington Post via Getty Images.
As Joe Biden took the oath of office as the 46th president of the United States yesterday, staffers were rushing to ready the Oval Office for its new occupant. They had only five frenzied hours to finish swapping out artworks and other furnishings before the arrival of the incoming commander-in-chief.
Judge Benjamin Hayes knew the eyes of Los Angeles were on him. In January 1856, the hard-living judge presided over a hearing that would rock Los Angeles, a dusty, dangerous pueblo of approximately 4,000 souls. Out of the hearing would emerge Biddy Mason, a formerly enslaved woman who would become one of the most important and one of the wealthiest landowners, midwives and philanthropists in early-American Los Angeles.
Mason was so beloved that people in need would line up in front of her house on First Street, eager for Aunt Biddy s assistance, which she always gave until she grew too old and infirm. She showed people what could happen when they were free and could set their own destiny, says Jackie Broxton, executive director of the Biddy Mason Charitable Foundation.
Records for Charles Alston, Wadsworth Jarrell, Augusta Savage and more in African American Art at Swann
Charles Alston, Black and White #8, oil on linen canvas, 1961. Sold for $197,000, a record for the artist.
NEW YORK, NY
.- The Thursday, December 10 sale of African American Art at Swann Galleries was met with enthusiasm from collectors. The sale saw nine auction records set, as well as an auction debut from contemporary artist Tyrone Geter. The auction total reached $2.8 million bringing the houses African American Art sale totals for the year to $9.2 million.
Leading the December sale was Charles Alstons Black and White #8, oil on canvas, 1961. The largest of the artists works yet to come to auction, the stunning abstraction came from an important series of eight works painted between 1959 and 1961. Black and White #8, earned a record for the artist at $197,000. Additional abstract works included Sir Frank Bowlings Repose for SO, acrylic on canvas, 1976, an example