NEW YORK.- Christie's is delighted to have been entrusted with the sale of Photographs from the Collection of Bruce and Nancy Berman across a series of three single-owner auctions beginning in April 2008. All will take place at Christie's in New York.

The Bermans, having lived and worked in the Los Angeles film community for the past 30 years, and after 16 years of collecting, have decided that the time has come for them to pursue other interests and release their photographs into the world, each to find a new home.

As an acknowledgment of gratitude to the city that has afforded their lives and collecting activities, they have elected to pair each of the sales with substantial donations of photographs to three prominent Los Angeles arts institutions; The Los Angeles County Museum of Art, The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, and the J. Paul Getty Museum.

Joshua Holdeman, International Director of Christie’s Photographs Department, says: “Christie’s is honored to have been given the opportunity to join with the Bermans in such a philanthropic endeavor that will benefit and enrich the Los Angeles community and its visitors forever.”

Comprised of 2,500 photographs ranging from early American masters such as Walker Evans and Dorothea Lange to post war luminaries such as Diane Arbus and William Eggleston, the Berman Collection is singular in its volume and depth of holdings of works by certain key artists that figure prominently in the history of 20th century art and culture.

While the Berman collection of photographs is one of the largest and most important of its kind to be privately held in Southern California, selections have been publicly exhibited, most recently at the J. Paul Getty Museum in the fall of 2006. Where we live: Photographs of America from the Berman Collection was an exhibition of one hundred and seventy prints by twenty four important contemporary artists, and was accompanied by an eponymous exhibition catalogue.

The formation of the collection and its dispersal tell a dual story. First and foremost, it provides a rare chance to study - from its inception to its mature development to its complete dispersal into the world - the life of a large collection of any kind; and second, a true Los Angeles story in every sense.

The Auction Program: Photographs by Diane Arbus from the Collection of Bruce and Nancy Berman April 2008. Photographs by William Eggleston from the Collection of Bruce and Nancy Berman October 2008. Photographs from the Collection of Bruce and Nancy Berman April 2009.