1962 & 1963 Charles White Print Portfolios
GUEST:
Charles White became part of my household once I came into possession of this work through my sister-in-law Maria. She gave these to me about a year ago. She thought maybe I should just frame these and, and share them with my family members. And I said, "No, I think we should see, you know, get more information about Charles White."
APPRAISER:
Well, you brought in two wonderful sets of prints by Charles White. Charles White is really a fantastic American artist, an African-American artist. And, and these are very good examples of his work. Charles White is a pre-eminent modern American artist, and he was born in 1918 in Chicago. He studied at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago as a teenager.
GUEST:
Uh-huh.
APPRAISER:
And he rose to prominence, was a part of the WPA program. He did mural paintings. And then he became really known as a graphic artist. His work is in many museum collections. And he was celebrated during his lifetime, but just recently, he's risen to much greater prominence, well deserved. Presently, there's a retrospective of his work that's traveling. It was exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art in New York and in Chicago, at the Art Institute of Chicago. And it's now in Los Angeles. He was a political artist, and he wanted to say more about the African-American experience, the struggles that they were going through, especially in the 1960s, when these were done. These are reproduction prints. They're offset lithographs of his drawings. And they were printed in the early 1960s with his gallery, Heritage Gallery, and A.C.A. Gallery in New York. And he really wanted to make his work more available. So these portfolios were printed to promote his, his work. They reproduced his drawings. And you have two sets here. We have a set of six and a set of ten. Each image is a drawing he did from the time, from, like, the late 1950s and early '60s. This is what his work was all about. So we actually don't know how many of these are printed in each edition. The numbers were quite large. I imagine hundreds were printed. The original drawings would be very large. They were, like, four feet high, five feet wide.
GUEST:
Oh!
APPRAISER:
Artist reproductions usually don't rise to the value that they would be something you would see at an auction house or a gallery, but these were critical to Charles White's work. He wanted them to be represented. He wanted more people to obtain them. And because of his significance, because of his importance now, these are highly collectible. And they are also pristine examples and the complete sets. And that's really the difference. They haven't been framed. They're almost as if you obtained them the day they were issued in the '60s. At auction today, the set of six I would estimate at $1,000 to $1,500, and the set of ten would reach $2,000 to $3,000 at auction.
GUEST:
Awesome, awesome.
APPRAISER:
Yeah.
GUEST:
That's good to know.
Appraisal Details
Executive producer Marsha Bemko shares her tips for getting the most out of ANTIQUES ROADSHOW.
Value can change: The value of an item is dependent upon many things, including the condition of the object itself, trends in the market for that kind of object, and the location where the item will be sold. These are just some of the reasons why the answer to the question "What's it worth?" is so often "It depends."
Note the date: Take note of the date the appraisal was recorded. This information appears in the upper left corner of the page, with the label "Appraised On." Values change over time according to market forces, so the current value of the item could be higher, lower, or the same as when our expert first appraised it.
Context is key: Listen carefully. Most of our experts will give appraisal values in context. For example, you'll often hear them say what an item is worth "at auction," or "retail," or "for insurance purposes" (replacement value). Retail prices are different from wholesale prices. Often an auctioneer will talk about what she knows best: the auction market. A shop owner will usually talk about what he knows best: the retail price he'd place on the object in his shop. And though there are no hard and fast rules, an object's auction price can often be half its retail value; yet for other objects, an auction price could be higher than retail. As a rule, however, retail and insurance/replacement values are about the same.
Verbal approximations: The values given by the experts on ANTIQUES ROADSHOW are considered "verbal approximations of value." Technically, an "appraisal" is a legal document, generally for insurance purposes, written by a qualified expert and paid for by the owner of the item. An appraisal usually involves an extensive amount of research to establish authenticity, provenance, composition, method of construction, and other important attributes of a particular object.
Opinion of value: As with all appraisals, the verbal approximations of value given at ROADSHOW events are our experts' opinions formed from their knowledge of antiques and collectibles, market trends, and other factors. Although our valuations are based on research and experience, opinions can, and sometimes do, vary among experts.
Appraiser affiliations: Finally, the affiliation of the appraiser may have changed since the appraisal was recorded. To see current contact information for an appraiser in the ROADSHOW Archive, click on the link below the appraiser's picture. Our Appraiser Index also contains a complete list of active ROADSHOW appraisers and their contact details and biographies.
