LONDON.- Phillips announced highlights from the forthcoming May Photographs auction, featuring 142 lots with a combined pre-sale estimate of £1,214,800 to £1,722,200

“Once again the sale is testament to the fact that Photography, as a medium of today, has a wide appeal and attraction. It is wonderful and exciting to see works by such polar opposites as Tina Modotti and Chris Shaw sharing the same catalogue pages.” Lou Proud, Head of Photographs, London.

The contemporary selections in the sale are led by, Desiree Dolron, with her work entitled Xteriors I, 2001, with an estimate of £50,000 - £70,000. In the series Xteriors, Dutch artist Desiree Dolron has created a body of work that is rich in historical reference and yet completely of this time. Dolron crafts an image that completely surpasses our visual expectations and challenges our understanding of photography as a medium.

Other contemporary pieces, by Ahmet Ertug capture the beauty of architecture in 'The Oval Room', Reading Room of The National Library of France, Paris, 2008, estimated at £25,000-35,000. Architectural interiors are also consistent with Candida Höfer’s work’s Museo di Capodimonte Napoli, 2009, and El Escorial VI, 2000, both estimated at £25,000-35,000. Other contemporary works included in the auction are Vik Muniz’s Kyber Pass, Self-Portrait as an Oriental (after Rembrandt) from Pictures of Junk, 2005, estimated at £25,000-35,000.

A desirable group of works by renowned American photographers provides an insight to an important shift in mid-century American photography. The fashion story ‘Flying down to Lima’ published in Vogue,1949 is composed of a number of vignettes enacted by the young 22 year old Jean-Patchett under the direction of Irving Penn in his vignette, Vogue Fashion Photograph (Lima, Peru), 1948, estimated at £35,000-45,000. Also included are William Eggleston’s two pieces, Untitled (Near Minter City and Glendora, Mississippi),1970, estimated at £50,000-70,000, and Untitled (Greenwood, 1970 Mississippi, estimated at £40,000-60,000.

In the stunning work, Manina, Paris, 1937, estimated at £30,000-40,000 you see first-hand how German Photographer, Erwin Blumenfeld’s work is characterized by the use of obscure and unregulated darkroom techniques which loosely belong to and exceed the categories of print solarisation, the layering of images, negative-positive combinations and also the crystallization of the negative dried through refrigeration. Through technique the features; limbs, torso and face become fragmented, melted and illuminated by his ability to conjure light, the sparkle of which dances across the subject presenting us with a being of pure and enduring beauty.

Other highlights throughout the sale include works by Henri Cartier-Bresson, William Klein, Michel Comte, Herb Ritts, René Burri, Josef Koudelka and Ruud Van Empel.