NEW YORK, NY.- Contemporary images share the stage with 19th-century albums, modernist portfolios and classic black-and-white photographs in
Swann Galleries’ auction of Fine Photographs: Icons & Images on Friday, October 17.
Contemporary art highlights range from Scandinavian artist Simen Johan’s Untitled #137, a digital c-print of a lamb from the series “Until the Kingdom Comes,” 2006 (estimate: $9,000 to $12,000) to conservationist-photographer Nick Brandt’s remarkably intimate Lion Before the Storm I, pigment print, 2006 ($18,000 to $22,000).
There is a rare self-portrait by Moroccan artist Lalla Essaydi, Converging Territories #10, oversized chromogenic print, 2003 ($9,000 to $12,000); as well as Richard Prince’s Upstate, Ektacolor print, 1995-99 ($15,000 to $20,000); Robert Polidori’s view of houses devastated by Hurricane Katrina, 5979 West End Boulevard, New Orleans, September, Fujicolor Crystal Archive print, 2005 ($12,000 to $18,000); and images by William Eggleston, Nan Goldin, Ernst Haas, Stephen Shore, James Welling and Joel-Peter Witkin.
Featuring works by some of those artists and others is a complete copy of the BAM [Brooklyn Academy of Music] Photography Portfolio I, with 11 photographs, 1993-2000, printed 2000 ($20,000 to $30,000). Additional portfolios and groups of photographs include Hiroshi Sugimoto’s magnificent portfolio Time Exposed, with 50 plates of his sublime studies of seascapes, 1991 ($8,000 to $12,000); a selection of 17 circa 1960s images by Ralph Eugene Meatyard, printed 1977, most showing children in rural environs ($20,000 to $30,000); Roy DeCarava, portfolio with 12 stunning, hand printed dust-grain photogravures made from his poignant photographs, including many iconic images of Harlem, 1950-79, printed 1991 ($50,000 to $75,000); Paul Caponigro’s Portfolio II, eight silver prints, 1957-70, printed 1973 ($12,000 to $18,000); and André Kertész: Photographs, Volume I, 1913-1929, 10 silver prints, printed 1973 ($30,000 to $45,000).
A presentation folio with a sequence of 10 Leni Riefenstahl photographs relating to Olympic diver Marjorie Gestring at the 1936 Berlin Olympics, with elegant images of Gestring in air mid-dive, and the young gold medalist before and after her successful dives, was signed and inscribed by Riefenstahl to Gestring and dated 1937 ($12,000 to $18,000).
There is also a suite of four photographs from Bernd and Hilla Becher’s Wassertürme [Water Towers] series, ferrotyped silver prints, circa 1970s, printed circa 1980s ($10,000 to $15,000) and iconic images by modern masters including Ansel Adams, Maragaret Bourke-White, Harry Callahan, Lewis W. Hine, Horst P. Horst, O. Winston Link and Garry Winogrand.
Featured early works include Egypt Nubia and Ethiopia, Illustrated with One Hundred Stereoscopic Photographs, London, 1862 ($5,000 to $7,500); a cased 1850s half-plate daguerreotype of a seven-piece brass band clutching their instruments ($10,000 to $15,000) and a late 19th-century album of remarkably detailed images of Rio de Janeiro by Marc Ferrez ($40,000 to $60,000).
The auction will take place at 1:30 pm. on Friday, October 14.
The photographs will be on public exhibition at Swann Galleries Saturday, October 11, from 12 p.m. to 5 p.m.; Monday, October 13 through Thursday, October 16, from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.; and Friday, October 17, from 10 a.m. to 12 p.m.
