Entrance to the huge exhibit of more than 1200 works as it looked in 1913.
100th Anniversary of Landmark 20th Century Exhibit
Many special events & on-line sites join in celebration
The Armory Show, even 100 years later the name alone conjures up superlatives: it was huge, it was modern and it was America’s first look at new (and what many thought exceedingly strange) ideas of art and beauty coming from Europe. Mabel Dodge (who helped to organize and promote the show) wrote to Gertrude Stein that it was “the most important public event… since the signing of the Declaration of Independence” and predicted it would cause “a riot and a revolution and things will never be the same afterwards.”
Artists and sculptors like Cezanne, Matisse, Van Gough, Gauguin, Rousseau, Brancusi, Braque, Munch, Kandinsky and Kirschner filled the galleries along with their mostly much tamer American counterparts. Work from the Fauves, the Cubists, Impressionists filled 18 rooms. The “Futurists” (a catch-all term for the strange new wild men - and a few women) were the talk of the town.
The show presented over 1,200 pieces representing work by 300 artists. About a third of the artists were Americans. It ran only a month in NYC - from February 15 to March 15 and everybody who was anybody went to see it.
They jammed the huge space at the 69th Regiment Armoryon Lexington Avenue at 25th Street in Manhattan. Though many of these images would one day routinely grace the coffee cups, t-shirts and dish towels of museum shops from coast to coast, in the spring of 1913 they were scandalous – and new vocabulary in fact was invented to describe and ridicule the show and the artists in it.
“Confusion, bewilderment, anger, and stubbornness were ubiquitous in the reports on the Armory Show,” wrote Kristen M. Osborne in her recent evaluation of its impact sub-titled ‘Much Ado About Everything.’
“Some reviews were vitriolic and derisive in tone, often accompanied by comic strips and little rhymes that mocked and jibed the artwork. Critics were almost as innovative in fashioning an aspersion as the artists were in composing the pictures that received them.
“The criticism flung at the show on its opening day did not abate as the exhibition stretched into March. First impressions of the vastness of scale, the cosmopolitan aura, and the significance of New York as a venue were not denied, but the art itself, particularly the Cubists and the rest lumped under the 'Futurists,' were mercilessly attacked.”
Swann Maps & Atlases, Natural History & Color Plate Books December 9, 2025
Swann, Dec. 9: Lot 156: Cornelis de Jode, Americae pars Borealis, double-page engraved map of North America, Antwerp, 1593.
Swann, Dec. 9: Lot 206: John and Alexander Walker, Map of the United States, London and Liverpool, 1827.
Swann, Dec. 9: Lot 223: Abraham Ortelius, Typus Orbis Terrarum, hand-colored double-page engraved world map, Antwerp, 1575.
Swann Maps & Atlases, Natural History & Color Plate Books December 9, 2025
Swann, Dec. 9: Lot 233: Aaron Arrowsmith, Chart of the World, oversize engraved map on 8 sheets, London, 1790 (circa 1800).
Swann, Dec. 9: Lot 239: Fielding Lucas, A General Atlas, 81 engraved maps and diagrams, Baltimore, 1823.
Swann, Dec. 9: Lot 240: Anthony Finley, A New American Atlas, 15 maps engraved by james hamilton young on 14 double-page sheets, Philadelphia, 1826.
Swann Maps & Atlases, Natural History & Color Plate Books December 9, 2025
Swann, Dec. 9: Lot 263: John Bachmann, Panorama of the Seat of War, portfolio of 4 double-page chromolithographed panoramic maps, New York, 1861.
Swann, Dec. 9: Lot 265: Sebastian Münster, Cosmographei, Basel: Sebastian Henricpetri, 1558.
Swann, Dec. 9: Lot 271: Abraham Ortelius, Epitome Theatri Orteliani, Antwerp: Johann Baptist Vrients, 1601.
Swann Maps & Atlases, Natural History & Color Plate Books December 9, 2025
Swann, Dec. 9: Lot 283: Joris van Spilbergen, Speculum Orientalis Occidentalisque Indiae, Leiden: Nicolaus van Geelkercken for Jodocus Hondius, 1619.
Swann, Dec. 9: Lot 285: Levinus Hulsius, Achtzehender Theil der Newen Welt, 14 engraved folding maps, Frankfurt: Johann Frederick Weiss, 1623.
Swann, Dec. 9: Lot 341: John James Audubon, Carolina Parrot, Plate 26, London, 1827.
Sotheby’s Book Week December 9-17, 2025
Sotheby’s, Dec. 11: Darwin and Wallace. On the Tendency of Species to form Varieties..., [in:] Journal of the Proceedings of the Linnean Society, Vol. III, No. 9., 1858, Darwin announces the theory of natural selection. £100,000 to £150,000.
Sotheby’s, Dec. 11: J.K. Rowling. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, 1997, first edition, hardback issue, inscribed by the author pre-publication. £100,000 to £150,000.
Sotheby’s, Dec. 11: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Autograph sketchleaf including a probable draft for the E flat Piano Quartet, K.493, 1786. £150,000 to £200,000.
Sotheby’s, Dec. 12: Hooke, Robert. Micrographia: or some Physiological Descriptions of Minute Bodies made by Magnifying Glasses. London: James Allestry for the Royal Society, 1667. $12,000 to $15,000.
Sotheby’s, Dec. 12: Chappuzeau, Samuel. The history of jewels, first edition in English. London: T.N. for Hobart Kemp, 1671. $12,000 to $18,000.
Sotheby’s, Dec. 12: Sowerby, James. Exotic Mineralogy, containing his most realistic mineral depictions, London: Benjamin Meredith, 1811, Arding and Merrett, 1817. $5,000 to $7,000.
![<b>Sotheby’s, Dec. 11:</b> Darwin and Wallace. On the Tendency of Species to form Varieties..., [in:] <i>Journal of the Proceedings of the Linnean Society,</i> Vol. III, No. 9., 1858, Darwin announces the theory of natural selection. £100,000 to £150,000.](https://ae-files.s3.amazonaws.com/AdvertisementPhotos/00d5fd41-2542-4a80-b119-4886d4b9925f.png "<b>Sotheby’s, Dec. 11:</b> Darwin and Wallace. On the Tendency of Species to form Varieties..., [in:] <i>Journal of the Proceedings of the Linnean Society,</i> Vol. III, No. 9., 1858, Darwin announces the theory of natural selection. £100,000 to £150,000.")
