NEW YORK, Feb. 15, 2006—Swann Auction Galleries will offer The Sylvan Cole Collection of American Prints & Drawings, March 6, which includes
more than 250 works on paper once in the collection of the well-known art dealer, who died in June 2005. Cole was a key figure in the creation of the American print market. For more than 35 years as the director and president of Associated American Artists in New York, Cole was instrumental in disseminating affordable, hand-signed original prints throughout America.

 Over the course of several decades, Sylvan Cole established relationships with many significant American artists, and often published their prints.

Among those he represented were Milton Avery, Will Barnet, Thomas Hart Benton, Childe Hassam, Edward Hopper, Raphael Soyer, Benton Spruance, James McNeill Whistler and Grant Wood. The auction offers a diverse array of prints by these and other American artists, as well as many fine drawings and watercolors.

The auction of the Cole Collection will begin at 2:30 p.m. on Monday, March 6.

An illustrated catalogue, with information on bidding by mail or fax, is available for $35 from Swann Galleries, Inc., 104 East 25th Street, New York, NY 10010, or online at www.swanngalleries.com.

The following day, Tuesday, March 7 at 10:30 a.m. and 2:30 p.m., Swann will conduct a large, two-session auction of 100 Fine Works on Paper and 19th & 20th Century Prints & Drawings.