NEW YORK, NY.- Fine Photographs feature at
Swann Galleries on March 11 with works spanning from the late 1800s to the 2000s with exceptional images from European and American masters including works by Alfred Stieglitz, Brassaï, Dorothea Lange, and Peter Hujar.
The sale opens with nineteenth century pictorialism and early twentieth-century American photography including Francis Frith with Sinai & Arabia Petra, Jerusalem & Palestine, and Egypt & Athens, three volumes with 140 albumen prints, 1860s70s ($10,000-15,000); Julia Margaret Camerons Alfred, Lord Tennyson, albumen print, 1869 ($10,000-15,000); Alfred Stieglitzs Camera Work Number 36, 1911, complete with 16 photogravures ($15,000-25,000) and Camera Work Steichen Supplement, 1906, with 11 photogravures and 5 halftones after Eduard J. Steichen ($10,000-15,000); Dorothea Langes Oklahoma sharecropper and family entering Calif. stalled on the desert near Indio, California, 1937 ($15,000-25,000); and Paul Outerbridge Jr.s Christmas Tree in the Dining Room, tricolor carbro print, 1937 ($8,000-12,000).
Early twentieth-century European photography includes 20 Photographs by Eugène Atget, 1856-1927, from an edition of 100, with 20 gold-toned silver prints by the celebrated Parisian photographer, printed by Berenice Abbott ($8,000-12,000); Bill Brandts Rainswept Rooftops, silver print, 1933, printed 1907s ($8,000-12,000); Brassaïs Kiki (De Montparnasse) et ses Amies, silver print, 1932, printed 1970s ($5,000-7,500); and most notably, a rare, handmade personal album of 27 Parisian silver prints by the Dutch photographer Ed van der Elsken ($10,000-15,000).
The study of form and nature is on offer with Ansel Adams Portfolio V complete with 10 circa 193660 silver prints, printed 1970 ($25,000-35,000); Irving Penns vibrant 2006 Tulip/Tulipa: China Pink, New York ($25,000-35,000); a suite of 10 193875 abstract expressionist silver prints by Aaron Siskind, printed circa 1980 ($10,000-15,000); as well as a run of works by Imogen Cunningham including Rubber Plant, silver print, 1920, printed circa 1970 ($3,000-4,500). Further images of note include a complete 19552005 portfolio of seven silver prints by Lucien Clergue, printed 2006 ($7,000-10,000), and André Kertészs Distortion #88, silver print, 1933, printed circa 1970 ($4,000-6,000).
Artists, politicians, and old Hollywood: portraits include several exquisite prints by Penn, Horst P. Horst, Manuel Álvarez Bravo, Peter Hujar and Robert Mapplethorpe. Notable lots include Penns silver prints Spencer Tracy, New York, 1948 ($12,000-18,000), S.J. Perelman, 1952, printed 1980 ($10,000-15,000), and The New Yorker Cartoonists, 1947 ($5,000-7,500). Horst is included with his 1937 image of Coco Chanel, printed 1990s ($5,000-7,500); Lawrence Schillers portfolio Marilyn 12, 1962, printed 2007, complete with 12 oversized photographs depicting Marilyn Monroe on the set of Somethings Gotta Give ($20,000-30,000); and Álvarez Bravo is available with a seated portrait of Frida Kahlo 1930s, printed 1980s ($7,000-10,000). Also of importance is Robert Mapplethorpes Lisa Lyon, silver print, 1985, printed 2014 ($8,000-12,000), and Peter Hujars Edwin Denby, silver print, 1975 ($10,000-15,000).
The sale closes with vernacular material, ranging from a group of 50 1940s photomatic selfies of a man taken over a period of time ($1,500-2,500); a set of 38 late-1960s color photographs of pinup girls posing with Kodak cameras ($1,000-1,500); horror film stills from iconic movies of the 1930s and 1970s ($800-1,200); atomic bomb tests images ($4,000-6,000); as well as spirit photographs, medical documents, and cabinet cards.