The top Lot in the Photographs sale yesterday was an exceptional oversized print by Peter Beard whose work has become globally desired and collected. The sale brought to the auction market the largest ever work by Peter Beard to be sold in a Photographs sale; Hunting Cheetahs on the Taru Desert, Kenya, June, 1960, estimated at £140,000 -180,000 is an example of the prints Beard began creating in the 1990s, usually for specific exhibitions. It contains Beard’s distinctive trade-mark notations of blood, ink and African detritus and it is currently extremely rare to find these pieces for public sale. It reached the top price of the sale at a price of £325,250 (including buyers premium).
Lot 146 depicts the giant human landscape, Deluge, 2006 estimated at £50,000 – 70,000. This three panel work by David LaChapelle is a comment on today’s commercially obsessive society illustrated by a contemporary take on a biblical flood, its almost painterly iconography drawing to mind the nineteenth century painters such as Eugene Delacroix and Theodore Gericault. Its final price: £61,250 (including buyers premium).
Vera Lutter’s work; Palazzo Papadopoli Venice XIX: March 14, 2006 estimated at £40,000 – 60,000 reached the price of £46,850 (including buyers premium). It is a large camera obscura print in the form of a diptych. The work has been produced by the artist’s transformation of a shipping container forming a modern day camera obscura to encapsulate an image over a period of anything between days and months, producing an enigmatic impression of the
passing of time and anything that happens to move through its path.
This season’s sale also pays homage to iconic works from the earlier part of the 20th Century. Walker Evans patriarchal farmer in Lot 92, Alabama Tenant Farmer (Floyd Burroughs), 1936 estimated at £40,000 – 50,000 went for £85,250 (including buyers premium). The early printing of this image adds to the stoic and majestic gaze of its sitter Floyd Burroughs who was photographed during the Farm Security Administration’s rehabilitation program by Evans.
Lot 75, The Runner in the City, c. 1926 estimated at £40,000 – 60,000, is another wonderful early piece depicting the way El Lissitzky worked with photography, piecing together images to create something extraordinary; in this work he uses The Runner as a metaphor for freedom of expression, man as machine and the importance of human development. It reached the price of £58,850 (including buyers premium). Lot 76 again is a key piece of early photography, Silaum Silaus, 1920s by Karl Blossfeldt estimated at £35,000 – 45,000 reached the price of £43,250 (including buyers premium). It is a beautiful example of how Blossfeldt almost scientifically documented these forms of nature presenting them as sculptural studies to his students.
Lots 78 to 91 show a unique and marvelous collection of works by Josef Sudek. The group comes from a long time friend and correspondent of Sudek, they communicated together through images, letters and their love of music. The group includes classic images produced in pigment and silver gelatin silver and also two first edition books signed and annotated by the photographer. Lot 82, Pear on Plate with an estimate of Estimate £8,000-12,000 sold at £34,850 (including buyers premium). Several of Saudek’s photographs reached prices over their high estimates.
As always there is a strong representation of fashion photography, kicking off with the seminal image in Lot 1 by Helmut Newton entitled Sie Kommen (Naked), Paris, 1981 estimated at £8,000 – 12,000 sold for £46,850 (including buyers premium).
Lot 57 by Irving Penn is the timeless classic, Woman in Palace (Lisa Fonssagrives-Penn) Marrakech, Morocco, 1951 estimated at £60,000 – 80,000 taken as part of the ‘Moroccan Handbook’ a travel story, published in American Vogue in 1952. Its final price: £99,650 (including buyers premium).
Richard Avedon’s Nastassja Kinski and the Serpent, Los Angeles, California, June 14, 1981 was one of an edition of 200. It toped it’s high estimate of £45,000 with a final price of £55,250 (including buyers premium).
The sale also offered works of this genre by Herb Ritts, Mario Testino, Guy Bourdin, Marilyn Minter and Peter Lindbergh. Testino’s Gisele II with an estimate of £25,000-35,000 sold for £37,250 (including buyers premium).
Gerard Rancinan’s Batman Family (girls), 2011 with an estimate of £12,000-18,000 sold for close to five times the high estimate at £97,250 (including buyers premium).
Mark Seliger’s Heidi Klum as Jayne Mansfield, NYC, 2002 reached a price of £20,000, which is over three times its high estimate and Yves Ullens’ The Theatre of Lights #1, Knokke, Belgium, 2003 was close to five time its high estimate with a final price of £32,450 (including buyers premium).
