DALLAS, TX.- Heritage’s November 25 Photographs from the Collection of Eric Franck Auction bears witness to the foresight and instinct of Eric Franck and his ability to pull together and champion an extraordinary collection of the photographs taken by acclaimed photographers he admires, including works by his brother-in-law Henri Cartier-Bresson, as well as Josef Koudelka, Chris Killip and Graham Smith.
“For many decades, Eric Franck, brother of celebrated Magnum photographer Martine Franck, has been at the forefront of the fine art photographic community,” says Laura Paterson, Heritage’s Consignment Director of Photographs. “As a highly respected photography dealer, collector and philanthropist, Franck’s connoisseurship and curatorial sensibility have helped shape our understanding of some of the most celebrated photographers of the 20th and 21st centuries.”
The 50 photographs on offer from Franck’s collection cover more than a century and act as a primer for the history of fine art photography. The collection offers a definite point of view. “The images share a common theme of ordinary people making the best of life in unfavorable circumstances, whether in the Soviet bloc, Margaret’s Thatcher’s Britain, or the segregated American South,” says Paterson. Highlights of this exceptional group include Josef Koudelka’s candid exposure of life as a Roma gypsy in the Czech Republic (then Czechoslovakia) of the 1960s and a broad selection of works by Henri Cartier-Bresson.
Cartier-Bresson’s photograph Barcelona, from 1933, leads this event with its important backstory. In the 1940s, during the photographer’s imprisonment by the Nazis, The Museum of Modern Art began to plan a posthumous retrospective of Cartier-Bresson’s work. The artist escaped however, and then took over the curation of a major exhibition of his pictures. In 1946, armed with 300 contact prints in a suitcase, including this exceptional work, Cartier-Bresson traveled to New York. The resulting exhibition, a celebration of his survival, opened at MoMA on February 4, 1947. Another significant Cartier-Bresson picture from this resurrective period joins it: New Orleans, Louisiana, 1947, shows us a young girl on a determined walk between houses in one of the city’s historic wards.
Among the highlights this auction from Josef Koudelka’s series of aforementioned 1960s Czech photographs is this playful portrait of three Roma boys clowning for the camera; a majestic portrait of an old Roma couple in an interior, and the arresting picture titled Jarabina, Czechoslovakia, 1963. “Here, an anxious young man, who is suspected of murder, is shown standing alone wearing handcuffs against a backdrop of police and bystanders,” says Nigel Russell, Heritage’s Director of Photographs. “These powerful studies not only document the transitory lifestyle and culture of the Roma but also show the persecution they experience at the hands of the authorities and the indigenous population.”
The auction also offers collectors an unparalleled opportunity to acquire work by acclaimed photographers Chris Killip and Graham Smith, both of whom recorded the devastating effect of industrial decline of communities in the north of England in the 1970s and 1980s. Among many important examples of his work in the sale, Killip’s 'Cookie' in the Snow, Seacoal Camp, Lynemouth, Northumberland, 1984 shows us the darkened silhouette of a lone figure walking, in high contrast, against a strong wind in a bleak and icy landscape. And the quiet landscape ruin inGraham Smith’s photographThe Black Path, Clay Lane Furnaces, Derelict Remains of Cargo Fleet Iron Company, South Bank, Middlesborough, 1982 shows the decline of what was once a thriving industrial landscape.
In 1991, photographs by Smith and Killip were included in a group show at The Museum of Modern Art in New York (alongside John Davies, Paul Graham and Martin Parr) called, somewhat controversially, British Photography from the Thatcher Years. “Following the backlash by some UK newspapers, which Smith felt adversely affected the individuals and communities he had photographed, he gave up photography to become a woodworker. His photographs only occasionally appear at auction. This is one of only two in this sale,” says Russell.
The event also offers extraordinary photographs, rarely seen at auction, by artists “who deserve a much wider audience,” says Russell. This geographically diverse mix of sensitively wrought images includes Kiichi Asano’s homage to the bleak grandeur of the Japanese winter landscape, Cristina Piza’s exuberant portraits of Havana neighborhoods, Jindrich Štreit’s subtly seditious glimpses into life in rural Slovakia under Soviet control and Karen Knorr’s highly decorative studies of elegant wild creatures posed in sumptuous Indian settings.
“These works from Eric Franck’s collection make for a rich trove of material and Heritage is highly honored to have been entrusted with its sale,” says Russell. “It provides collectors with an unparalleled opportunity to acquire superb images with exceptional provenance.”
