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Samuel Countee Sold at Auction Prices

Painter, b. 1909 - d. 1959

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Jan. 30, 2020
SAMUEL COUNTEE (1909 - 1959) Portrait of Beauty.
Est: $20,000 - $30,000
SAMUEL COUNTEE (1909 - 1959) Portrait of Beauty. Oil on linen canvas, 1949. 965x762 mm; 36x30 inches. Signed and dated in oil, lower right. Provenance: the Johnson Publishing Company, Inc., Chicago. Portrait of Beauty is a very scarce and large portrait by Samuel Countee, one of the first modern African-American artists from Texas. Countee was born in Marshall and grew up in Houston. Entering Bishop College in 1929, Countee majored in art and paid his way through school by painting the portraits of faculty and administrators. In 1933, he was named "Artist in Residence" at Bishop College, a position made possible by the prestigious William E. Harmon Award. His career was launched with his painting Little Brown Boy's acceptance to an exhibition of the Harmon Foundation in 1933 and later published in Alain Locke's seminal A Pictorial Record of The Negro Artist and of the Negro Theme in Art. After graduating in 1934, Countee was awarded a scholarship to attend the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. He exhibited in several significant exhibitions of African-American art in the 1930s in New York, and his The Guitar was included in The Hall of Negro Life in the 1936 Texas Centennial in Dallas. Countee then moved to New York and continued to show his artwork through the 1950s — winning first prize in the Eleventh Annual Atlanta Exhibition art competition in 1952. Biographical notes courtesy of the Texas State Historical Association.
Swann Auction Galleries
Apr. 05, 2018
SAMUEL COUNTEE (1909 - 1959) Woman by the Fountain.
Est: $8,000 - $12,000
SAMUEL COUNTEE (1909 - 1959) Woman by the Fountain. Oil on artist board, circa early 1930s. 610x457 mm; 24x18 inches. Signed in oil, lower right. Provenance: acquired directly from the artist; private collection, Texas; thence by descent to the current owner, private collection, Michigan. The artist's mother and the owner's grandmother were friends, as was the artist and the owner's aunt. This is a very scarce painting by Samuel Countee, one of the first modern African-American artists from Texas. It was most likely painted while Countee was a student at Bishop College in Marshall, Texas, and is only the third painting by the artist to come to auction. Samuel Countee was born in Marshall and grew up in Houston where he studied art through high school. A year after graduating, in 1929, he enrolled at Bishop College. Countee majored in art and paid his way through school by painting the portraits of faculty and administrators. In 1933, Countee was named him 'Artist in Residence' at Bishop College, a title of distinction made possible by the prestigious William E. Harmon Award. His career was launched with his painting Little Brown Boy's acceptance to an exhibition of the Harmon Foundation in 1933 and later published in Alain Locke's seminal A Pictorial Record of The Negro Artist and of the Negro Theme in Art. Countee graduated in 1934, and was awarded a scholarship to attend the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Countee exhibited in several significant exhibitions of African-American art in the 1930s in New York. His painting The Guitar was exhibited in the The Hall of Negro Life in the 1936 Texas Centennial in Dallas. Countee moved to New York and continued to show his artworks through the 1950s — winning first prize in the Eleventh Annual Atlanta Exhibition art competition in 1952. Biographical notes courtesy of the Texas State Historical Association.
Swann Auction Galleries
Feb. 16, 2012
SAMUEL COUNTEE (1909 - 1959) My Guitar.
Est: $35,000 - $50,000
SAMUEL COUNTEE (1909 - 1959) My Guitar. Oil on canvas, 1936. 1194x940 mm; 47x37 inches. Signed and dated in oil, lower right. Provenance: the artist; Leon A. Braithwaite of the Huntington Art Gallery, Boston; private collection. Exhibited: The Hall of Negro Life, the Texas Centennial, Dallas 1936. The United States Texas Centennial Commission momentously decided to provide $100,000 to make possible the first ever "cross-sectional view of Negro life" at a major exposition. Exhibits were created to cover six areas: education, fine arts, health, agriculture, mechanical arts, and business. The Hall of Negro Life had more than 400,000 visitors; this was certainly the first major exhibition of African-American art in the West. Samuel Countee was born in Marshall, TX, and grew up in Houston. He studied art through high school and college--he graduated from Bishop College in Marshall in 1934. His career was launched with his painting Little Brown Boy's acceptance to an exhibition of the Harmon Foundation in 1933 and later published in Alain Locke's seminal The Negro in Art. The Harmon Foundation also awarded him a scholarship to attend the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Countee exhibited in several significant exhibitions of African-American art in the 1930s in New York, and showed My Guitar often. The painting reached a tremendous audience at the Texas Centennial Exposition, where it was shown with works by the era's most celebrated African-American artists: painters Aaron Douglas, Henry Ossawa Tanner, Allan R. Crite, Palmer Hayden, Archibald Motley, Jr., James Wells, Laura Wheeler Waring, Hale Woodruff and Malvin Gray Johnson, and sculptors Richmond Barthé, Leslie Bolling, Arthur Diggs and Hilda Brown. My Guitar was voted the most popular artwork of all those exhibited. Countee moved to New York and continued to show his artworks through the 1950s--winning first prize in the Eleventh Annual Atlanta Exhibition art competition in 1952. Today, his paintings are very scarce; one is found in the collection of Fisk University.
Swann Auction Galleries

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