Signed Photographs Lead the Charge at Swann
Signed presidential, Civil War, and sports photographs offered from a California collection
Signed photographs of President Abraham Lincoln are exceedingly scarce, in part because the president’s life was cut dramatically short when he was assassinated in 1865, mere decades after the advent of photography as a medium. A signed photograph of Lincoln—and an uncommon, signed photograph of his assassin, John Wilkes Booth—will both be offered as individual lots at the May 7th auction at Swann Galleries. Swann expects the Lincoln photograph to realize $60,000 or higher.
The sale of signed photographs from a California family collection will include other individual lot highlights from a broad section of American history, such as a signed photograph of Theodore Roosevelt and his entire cabinet in 1907, a signed photograph of Martin Luther King, Jr., and a signed photograph of Babe Ruth.
The principal compiler of this remarkable collection was an investment counselor and entrepreneur who died in 2017. Passionate about United States political and business history, the California native built an extensive collection of signed photographs, which his son added to as well, before consigning it to Swann.
“What is striking about this collection is the evidence of the effort to obtain the best or the most uncommon,” said Marco Tomaschett, Autographs Specialist at Swann. “There are, for example, a number of cartes-de-visite and cabinet cards in the collection, and in those cases where signed examples are not extraordinarily uncommon, such as those signed by the suffragist Susan B. Anthony, the collection contains an example that is extraordinary in some other respect, for instance, a signed cabinet card that also has an uncommonly arresting image.”
Courtesy of Swann Galleries
American Civil War collectors will want to closely watch this auction. In addition to the signed photographs of Lincoln and Booth, a Matthew Brady carte-de-visite of General William Tecumseh Sherman bearing the general’s signature will be offered as an individual lot. The collection also includes a rare, signed carte-de-visite of U.S. President James A. Garfield in uniform as Major General of Volunteers and Chief of Staff to General William S. Rosecrans during the war.
“The photograph that interests me the most is the one showing Dwight D. Eisenhower and John F. Kennedy talking at the White House during the historic transition between their administrations,” said Tomaschett. “Both presidents added their signature to this item, making it one of the few autographs to have been signed by both these presidents who served during the transition between two epochs that continue to resonate through U.S. history: the closing of the Second World War, and the beginning of the Cold War.”
