Phillips de Pury & Company’s Photographs auction totaled $4,704,450, selling 81% by value and 76% by lot.
“The auction set a world record for our cover lot, Steven Meisel’s Walking in Paris, Linda Evangelista & Kristen McMenamy, Vogue, October and additionally we are very pleased to be part of the consistent expansion of the photographs market” says Vanessa Kramer, Director and Worldwide Head, Photographs.
The sale produced strong results across multiple genres and periods, reflecting the breadth and keen enthusiasm of collectors worldwide. Highlights include Alfred Stieglitz’s Camera Work: A Photographic Quarterly, a rare set of 50 volumes that comprehensively document the seminal pivot in the history of Modern photography, which sold for $122,500; Peter Beard’s Happy Easter/ Alia Bay Croc Hatchery, Lake Rudolf for Eyelids of Morning, 1965, that depicts a playful image of survival and hope, which sold for $194,500; Richard Avedon’s Nastassja Kinski and the Serpent, Los Angeles, California, June 14, 1981, that captures one of the artist’s most iconic images, which sold for $86,500; and the top lot for the sale, Thomas Demand’s Wand/Mural, 1999, an outstanding example encompassing the tenets of the Düsseldorf School of Photography and a top auction price for the artist at $242,500.
A number of world auction records were achieved across the sale, including Steven Meisel’s Walking in Paris, Linda Evangelista & Kristen McMenamy, Vogue, October, 1992, which sold for $86,500. The iconic image, originally featured in Vogue’s 1992 groundbreaking article, Time for Change, was offered for the first time at auction. Other records include Ilse Bing’s Self Portrait with Leica, Paris, 1931, which sold for $50,000, the highest price ever achieved for a single print by the artist, and Roy DeCarava’s portfolio of his most revered images, Twelve Photogravures, which sold for $80,500.
Gilles Decamps
