Quinn’s Auction Galleries will offer fine art from the inventory and personal collection of Merton D. Simpson (1928-2013) as the highlight of their Feb. 18 African-American Artists Auction.

Not only a visionary collector and dealer of African and tribal arts, Simpson was also a prolific and celebrated abstract expressionist, creating thousands of artworks in his lifetime. A native of South Carolina, Simpson overcame both childhood illness and segregation on the path to becoming a respected, widely collected artist.

From the 1950s until his passing in 2013, Simpson operated a New York gallery. There, he showcased his own work plus that of his friends and contemporaries — including Beauford Delaney, Norman Lewis, Hale Woodruff, and John Biggers — and other established and aspiring New York artists.

In 2016, Quinn’s Auction Galleries was appointed to auction the artist’s estate holdings. The Feb. 18 auction will be the first to feature exclusively the Simpson collection’s fine artworks, following two sales of Simpson’s ethnographic art collection. The auction features more than 40 works by Merton D. Simpson plus additional art by John Biggers, Catti, Norman Lewis, Felrath Hines, Beauford Delaney, Nancy Flanagan, and others.

The Feb. 18, 2017 auction will start at 11 a.m. at Quinn’s Auction Galleries in Falls Church. All forms of bidding will be available, including live via the Internet through LiveAuctioneers.

For additional information, including gallery preview times, visit www.quinnsauction.com. Tel. 703-532-5632, email info@quinnsauction.com.