DALLAS, TX.- In an exceptional line-up of photographs that span the history of the medium, Heritage’s October 1 Photographs Signature® Auction is shaped by several outstanding collections that include work from a rare and elusive set of photographs by Tina Modotti and her work with Louis Bunin, a remarkable selection of photographs by Paul Strand, and more than 80 works from the collection of the late, great Hal Gould, noted photographer and owner of Camera Obscura Gallery in Denver, one of the oldest photography galleries in the country.
“Heritage is honored to present such outstanding and desirable works in our fall event,” says Nigel Russell, Heritage’s Director of Photographs. “Within and beyond the offerings from these significant collections, there is something for every photography collector, from those new to the medium to the most seasoned connoisseurs. Highlights include choice photographs by Berenice Abbott, Ansel Adams, Diane Arbus, Leonard Freed, Ernst Haas, André Kertész, Danny Lyon, Robert Mapplethorpe, Ruth Orkin, Bill Owens, Francesca Woodman and many more.”
You could say that photographer, curator and gallery founder Hal Gould believed in magic, and the reason you could say that is because Hal Gould believed in photography. To him, they were one and the same. Gould believed in photography so much, in fact, that in the early 1960s, when others refused to recognize the medium as an art form, including a certain curator who vowed he would never show a photograph in the Denver Art Museum, Gould helped found the Colorado Photographic Arts Center, serving as the nonprofit’s exhibition chair. At that time, the Wyoming-born, New Mexico-raised Army veteran was making a living as a commissioned portrait photographer and dabbling in fine art prints on the side. But Gould was always a believer, and in 1979, a year before he shuttered his commercial photo studio, he opened what would become one of the most famous fine art photography galleries in the country.
Gould’s Camera Obscura Gallery drew fans from around the world to Denver and teemed with landscapes, portraits, nudes and more by 20th-century masters such as Edward Weston, Philippe Halsman, Irving Penn and Ansel Adams. Art historian and writer Michael Paglia once called Camera Obscura “a photographer’s treasure chest — crammed full not only with a dizzying array of photographs, many by some of the biggest names in the field, but by acres of supporting documents and miles of shelves of books on the topic.”
Juliette Wells, Gould’s oldest living daughter, remembers those days well. She was in high school when Gould opened Camera Obscura and could often be found answering phones at the gallery, greeting customers or working with her dad in his darkroom. She recalls Gould’s dedication — the way he showed up seven days a week without fail, even in a blizzard that shut down the city — and his willingness to spread the gospel of photography to any curious gallerygoer. “He was so generous with his time with anyone who came in the door,” she says. “It wasn’t just, ‘Is this person going to buy something?’ It was, ‘I want to share the magic of photography with these people.’ He really believed that photography was magic.”
When Gould closed Camera Obscura in 2011 and died in 2015 at the age of 95, a little bit of the magic died with him. But even so, his spell had been cast, and there’s no way of knowing how many people came to appreciate photography because of him.
“The collection Gould left behind speaks of his extraordinary passion for the medium, as well as his tireless promotion of the work of other photographers,” says Laura Paterson, Heritage’s Consignment Director of Photographs. “During the gallery’s 32-year existence, Gould held more than 250 exhibitions by emerging and renowned photographers. He was responsible for organizing Sebastião Salgado’s first solo show in America, as well as welcoming luminaries such as Yousuf Karsh, Edward Curtis, Manuel Alvarez Bravo and Imogen Cunningham to Denver.”
The auction’s selection, which is the first part in a series of photographs and volumes from Gould’s collection Heritage will offer in the coming months, features extraordinary examples of work by the abovementioned photographers and by others Gould deeply admired, including Dmitri Baltermants, Lucien Clergue, Mario Giacomelli, Philippe Halsman, Man Ray, Irving Penn, W. Eugene Smith, Jerry Uelsmann, Todd Webb, and Brett and Edward Weston.
Another highlight collection in the auction comes from the historically significant collaboration between photographer Tina Modotti and artist Louis Bunin. The five works on offer from Modotti’s Louis Bunin Puppets from Eugene O'Neil's "The Hairy Ape" were shot in 1929 in Mexico City, where Modotti worked with the artist and puppeteer Bunin to create the series that captures Bunin and his marionettes in his adaptation of O’Neill’s expressionist anti-establishment play. Like Modotti, Bunin, who was born in Russia, had a strong interest in leftist politics; Bunin was in Mexico to work with Pablo O'Higgins on the National Palace murals. At the same time he began to experiment with marionettes, and Modotti and Bunin viewed folk art and theater as a powerful medium for conveying social and political messages. Two images from this vintage group are believed to be unique, while only a very small handful of the other three are known to exist.
Also on offer is a remarkable selection of photographs by Paul Strand, from the collection of Sarah Warren Hoffman, daughter of Michael Hoffman, the first director of the Paul Strand Archive. Hoffman was given the prints by Strand’s wife Hazel, a colleague and friend of the family.
Upon the 2016 opening of the major Strand retrospective at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, in collaboration with a major traveling exhibition of his work organized by the Philadelphia Museum of Art, V&A Curator Martin Barnes said of one of the most influential and collected photographers in the history of the medium, “Strand changed the face of photography ... his career spanned almost the whole of the 20th century. His moment is not a decisive moment in the sense of a snapshot; it’s a kind of slow gathering moment, and I think Strand allows us to slow down, and look at the world in a way that we can see remarkable revelation.” In her review of the exhibition, writer Gulia Mutti emphasized the artist’s range and influence, noting that Strand “carved out the path for American modernism and with it, the way that documentary photography is practiced today ... he proved himself not only an incredible portrait, still life and abstract photographer, but also a pioneer in the development of photography books, a committed political activist and an innovator in the field of motion pictures.”
Notes Russell of one particular Strand gem on offer from this collection:“The photograph Central Park, 1915, a unique and early platinum print, bearing Strand’s unusual monogram ‘PS’, is the star of this distinguished group.” Images and information about the Strand collection in this event, as well as those of Tina Modotti, Hal Gould and all other lots in Heritage’s sweeping October 1 Photographs Signature® Auction.
