Auction Preview: The Delighted Eye, Modernist Masterworks from a Private Collection, April 4, 2013 @Christie’s New York

I have never met Carlos Cruz, but having pored over the catalog of his breathtaking single owner sale coming up at Christie’s next week, I have a deep respect and affinity for his underlying process as a collector. I have never been a particular convert to the spontaneous “buy what you love” school of photography collecting, so Cruz’ methodical, systematic, patient approach to building his collection resonates fully with my structured brain. While serendipity and lucky hunting are certainly part of the game of collecting, I could only nod my head in agreement with the description of Cruz’ activities in the front of the catalog: a rigorous study and pre-visualization of what he was looking for, a thoughtful logic and intellectual framework, a bounded period of time (roughly late 19th century to 1925), an emphasis on single, high quality examples, and a tireless adherence to this regimen. The fact that he was able to build this collection at a distance from the major art capitals (from Santiago, Chile) makes its breadth and quality all the more remarkable.

Nearly every single work in this catalog is a subtle wow moment of one kind or another; there is very little, if any, chaff in this bundle of exceptional Modernist/Futurist/Dada wheat. Perhaps what I like best is the sense of individuality in this collection, of not picking the best known or most highly regarded image by any of the masters in this parade, but of looking hard and long enough to uncover the gems that truly represent a photographer’s particular innovation or originality. There are great, unexpected choices everywhere: a great Rossler abstraction, an elegant Sudek broken dish, a tactile textured sheet by Modotti, the looming De Meyer chrysanthemums, the layered Funke bottle shadows, all extraordinary but less than obvious. Overall, there are a total of 71 lots of photography available in the sale, with a total High estimate of $7564000. I’m very much looking forward to the preview.

Here’s the statistical breakdown:

Total Low Lots (high estimate up to and including $10000): 2
Total Low Estimate (sum of high estimates of Low lots): $16000

Total Mid Lots (high estimate between $10000 and $50000): 32
Total Mid Estimate: $868000

Total High Lots (high estimate above $50000): 37
Total High Estimate: $6680000

The top photography lot by High estimate is lot 7, Edward Weston, Nude, 1925, estimated at $400000-600000 (image at right, top, via Christie’s.)

Here’s the complete list of photographers represented by two or more lots in the sale (with the number of lots in parentheses):

Man Ray (4)
Edward Steichen (4)
Eugene Atget (2)
Anton Bruehl (2)
Etienne-Jules Marey (2)
Laszlo Moholy-Nagy (2)
Alfred Stieglitz (2)

In an astonishing sale like this, it’s nearly impossible to single out just a few lots that are of particular interest. That said, here are two that had me shaking my head with amazement: lot 31, Alvin Langdon Coburn, Vortograph (The Eagle), 1917, estimated at $200000-300000 (image at right, middle, via Christie’s) and lot 24, Edward Steichen, Bricks (West 86th Street), New York, c1922, estimated at $200000-300000 (image at right, bottom, via Christie’s).

The complete lot by lot catalog can be found here.

The Delighted Eye: Modernist Masterworks from a Private Collection
April 4th

Christie’s
20 Rockefeller Plaza
New York, NY 10020

Chronicle @Denny

JTF (just the facts): A group show consisting of work by four artists, variously framed and matted, and hung against white walls in the main gallery space and the smaller back room. (Installation shots at right.)

The following artists/photographers have been included in the exhibit, with details in parentheses:

  • Nadja Frank (1 Super 8 film transferred to digital file projected on marble, 40x29x1, from 2013, 2 inkjet prints, 35×44, in editions of 5, from 2010, 3 concrete, gravel, resin and pigment sculptures, from 16x12x8 to 21x11x9, all from 2013)
  • Riitta Ikonen (2 digital c-prints, 26×39 and 18×18, in editions of 7 and 5 respectively, from 2007 and 2008, 1 11:52  minute video performance, in an edition of 5, from 2012)
  • Sarah Kabot (3 archival pigment prints, 59x30x2, 43x30x1, and 20×18/2, all from 2012, 1 set of 3 site specific mirrors with archival pigment prints, 18, 12, and 6 inch diameters, from 2013)
  • Jackie Mock (1 set of paintbrushes, 19x6x1, from 2010, 1 cabinet of spoons, 108x18x19, from 2013, 1 wooden case of paint samples, 27x33x3, from 2012

Comments/Context: The prevailing narrative of the current contemporary art world is one led by the menacing encroachment of the genetically-modified, go big or go home, mega gallery system and its crowding out of the middle tier of well-established players. What is being overlooked in this story line is the flowering of new storefront galleries popping up on the Lower East Side, in Brooklyn, and elsewhere in the city, where leading edge and emerging art is being displayed with quirky eclecticism and smart professionalism. Smash these entrepreneurial folks out of Chelsea with punishingly high rents and they’ll tenaciously appear elsewhere in new forms and under new names. If we’re fearful of the monolithic beast of big box art, we need to spend our time carefully watching the underlying structural transformation taking place and following the emergence of these new venues.

Denny Gallery is one of the new spots to track on the LES. A subset of the current group show contains artists using photography as part of their artistic practice. Nadja Frank has modified the walls of a Carrara marble quarry, painting the rough facets in pastel blue, green, and purple. The resulting images transform the place from an industrial site to something more abstract, with slabs of soft man-made color echoing across the open space. Sarah Kabot’s photographs of bookshelves play with the sculptural third dimension of protruding space; book spines jut outward in prints that are accordion folded or shredded into long strands of fringe. Up in the corners of the gallery, what look like security mirrors turn out to be layered modifications, where mixed shards of mirror reflect the long fluorescent bulbs on the gallery ceiling and collaged inlaid photographs repeat the motifs. In the back room, Riitta Ikonen uses photography to document her performances and interventions, lying in a snowless, turned over farm field dressed as a peppy white snowflake or perching in a park tree on a dreary London day clad in a green leaf costume.
All in, there are nuggets of intriguing ideas worth following in each body of work here. For a young gallery still finding its way, it’s a promising photographic start.
Collector’s POV: The photographic works in this show are priced as follows. Nadja Frank’s inkjet prints are $3800 each, while her video on marble is $3000. Sarah Kabot’s pigment print sculptures range from $1500 to $3500, with the mirrors marked POR. Riitta Ikonen’s prints are $1650 and $3200 each, based on size. None of these artists has any significant secondary market history, so gallery retail is likely the best/only option for those collectors interested in following up.

 

 

Auction Preview: Photographs, April 3, 2013 @Phillips New York

Phillips’ upcoming various owner Photographs sale is a diverse mix, with a few eyecatchers and many more solid, middle of the road works by well known names to sift through. All in, there are a total of 141 photographs on offer, with a total High estimate of $3527500.

Here’s the statistical breakdown:

Total Low Lots (high estimate up to and including $10000): 37
Total Low Estimate (sum of high estimates of Low lots): $244500

Total Mid Lots (high estimate between $10000 and $50000): 91
Total Mid Estimate: $2073000

Total High Lots (high estimate above $50000): 13
Total High Estimate: $1210000

The top lot by High estimate is lot 177, Edward Steichen, Diagram of Doom – 2, c1922, estimated at $120000-180000 (image at right, top, via Phillips).

Here’s the list of photographers represented by three or more lots in the sale (with the number of lots in parentheses):

Robert Mapplethorpe (9)
Irving Penn (7)
Peter Beard (5)
Helmut Newton (5)
Henri Cartier-Bresson (4)
Andre Kertesz (4)
Hiroshi Sugimoto (4)
Diane Arbus (3)
Lee Friedlander (3)
Horst P. Horst (3)

Other works of interest include lot 205, Irving Penn, Poppy: Showgirl, New York, 1968/1989, estimated at $50000-70000 (image at right middle, via Phillips), and lot 206, Lee Friedlander, Galax, Virginia, 1962/1960s, estimated at $30000-40000 (image at right, bottom, via Phillips).

The complete lot by lot catalog can be found here.

Photographs
April 3rd

Phillips
450 Park Avenue
New York, NY 10022

At War with the Obvious: Photographs by William Eggleston @Met

JTF (just the facts): A total of 36 color photographs, framed in brown wood and matted, and hung in a series of three small rooms on the second floor of the museum. All of the works are dye transfer prints, taken between 1969 and 1984; most are vintage prints. Physical sizes range from 12×17 to 15×22 or reverse; no edition information was available. (Installation shots at right.)

Comments/Context: This exhibit is an example of the entirely natural desire of a museum to show off its new acquisitions. Last year, the Met acquired a high quality selection of early Egglestons (a complete set from his first portfolio, a group of 15 images from William Eggleston’s Guide, and a handful of other iconic pictures) and this show gets them up on the walls with little delay. There isn’t really any scholarly framework or new thinking here, just an impressive sample of Eggleston’s early dye transfers.

While it’s hard to beat the tricycle, the red ceiling, the peaches sign, or the green shower stall, I was most interested to see Eggleston’s first portfolio from 1974. While the used tires sign, the plastic animals, and the rusted truck in the afternoon sun were familiar to me, the others from the group were more obscure and therefore more intriguing as potential evidence of things to come in his future artistic life. Angles and geometries dominate a claustrophobic brick wall parking space and are also found in the distorted sideways perspective of an office curtain seen through the front window. Decay is never far from view, whether it be the red bars of a swingset poking out of overgrown greenery or a rusted metal target suspended from scraggly treetops. And the quirks of vernacular Southern America are also ever present: a painted dog statue on a stepped pedestal, decorative lights on the roofline of a snack shack, or the plastic flowers that adorn a Faith sign. In a many ways, these first images provide a surprisingly useful framework for what would come later.

I would certainly be remiss if I failed to touch on the rich, saturated color in these dye transfers. Even in the most mundane compositions, Eggleston’s masterful command of everyday color is repeatedly demonstrated, coming through again and again with tactile lushness. While most collectors and photography enthusiasts will be familiar with much of what is on view here, that in no way diminishes the enjoyment that comes from a few lazy minutes reveling in the wonders of this color. The orange airplane, the yellow curb, the green dress, the red room, the golden piano, we’ve seen them before, but they never get old.

Collector’s POV: Since this is a museum show, there are obviously no posted prices for the works on display. Eggleston’s work is routinely available in the secondary markets, with lesser known images and iconic works coming up for sale with surprising regularity. Recent prices for single images have roughly ranged from a reasonable $5000 to the blockbuster $578500, a record achieved last year by one of the new (and somewhat controversial) extra large digital prints. Eggleston is represented by Cheim & Read in New York (here).

 

 

Auction Preview: Important Photographs from the Collection of Dr. Anthony Terrana, April 2 and 3, 2013 @Phillips New York

Phillips begins the 2013 Spring auction season for photography with a two session, single owner sale drawn from the collection of Dr. Anthony Terrana. It’s a broad selection, covering both well known names and more recent contemporary work, with a strong group of 20th century icons from the likes of Stieglitz, Kertesz, Frank, Arbus, Weston, and Moholy-Nagy at its core. All in, there are a total of 165 photographs on offer, with a total High estimate of $5400000. As a side note, while flipping through the catalog, I noticed a repeated pattern – an impressive 76 of the available lots came into Terrana’s collection via the Robert Klein Gallery.

Here’s the statistical breakdown:

Total Low Lots (high estimate up to and including $10000): 78
Total Low Estimate (sum of high estimates of Low lots): $533000

Total Mid Lots (high estimate between $10000 and $50000): 64
Total Mid Estimate: $1452000

Total High Lots (high estimate above $50000): 23
Total High Estimate: $3415000

The top lot by High estimate is tied between lot 12, Alfred Stieglitz, Georgia O’Keeffe, 1919 (image at right, top, via Phillips), and lot 19, Irving Penn, Harlequin Dress (Lisa Fonssagrives-Penn), 1950, both estimated at $300000-500000.

Here’s the list of photographers represented by three or more lots in the sale (with the number of lots in parentheses):

Robert Frank (4)
Sally Mann (4)
Henri Cartier-Bresson (3)
Pieter Hugo (3)
Abelardo Morell (3)
Vik Muniz (3)
Edward Steichen (3)
Alfred Stieglitz (3)

Other works of interest include lot 22, Paul Strand, Venice, Italy, 1911, estimated at $180000-220000 (image at right middle, via Phillips), and lot 21, Charles Sheeler, Chartres-Flying Buttresses at the Crossing, 1929, estimated at $50000-70000 (image at right, bottom, via Phillips).

The complete lot by lot catalog can be found here.

Important Photographs from the Collection of Dr. Anthony Terrana
April 2nd and 3rd

Phillips
450 Park Avenue
New York, NY 10022

William Klein: Paintings, etc. @Howard Greenberg

JTF (just the facts): A total of 9 paintings and 13 photographs, variously framed and unmatted, and hung against light brown walls in the main gallery space, the book alcove, and the back transition gallery. All of the photographs are gelatin silver prints, taken between 1949 and 1962 and printed later. Physical dimensions range from 20×24 to 60×64; editions are either 15 or 30, except for the hand painted contacts which are unique. The paintings were made between 1948 and 1964 and range in size from 21×30 to 91×182. A monograph of this body of work was recently published by Contrasto Books (here). (Installation shots at right.)

Comments/Context: While William Klein’s brash street and fashion photography have already cemented their rightful place in photographic history, this show digs back to the very beginning of his career, where his transition from painter to photographer was taking place. It provides clues to Klein’s evolving graphic sensibility and chronicles his early experiments using photography to achieve gestural, painterly results.

Klein’s paintings from the late 1940s and early 1950s are full of stark lines and hard edged geometries. Still life objects and tabletops are pared down to abstract black and white forms, eventually giving way to layers of colored shapes and interlocked lines. His early photographs from the same period follow a similar trajectory. His pair of 1949 barn sides are a positive/negative inversion of high contrast black and white, reducing the structure to lines and edges. That same year, he began playing with light drawings, creating thick, loopy movements of black on white and more frenetic, squiggly compositions of white on black; both are reminiscent of Barbara Morgan’s light drawings from the early 1940s, but are clearly part of Klein’s ongoing investigations of how photography could be used for abstraction. Images from just a few years later find Klein using blurred multiple exposure squares to create movement and bright verticals to create high impact linearity. In the early 1960s, Klein returned to the light drawings, this time hybridizing them with fashion imagery, with models appearing to juggle balls and blow smoke rings made of gestural white light. And this mashup idea comes full circle in a selection of his recent contacts, where enlarged photographic sheets have been overpainted with vibrant, active marks.

I think this show provides an important backstory to the larger Klein narrative and helps to explain some of his later artistic decision making. These photographs are big and muscular, more loose than the paintings. They show Klein incorporating his learnings from painting and extending them into the vocabulary of photography, in the process, bringing fresh immediacy and vitality to the medium. With the intermediate steps now visible, his original sense for the bold and graphic now seems entirely understandable.

Collector’s POV: The photographs in the show are priced between $14000 and $30500; the paintings are generally NFS, except for the huge mural, which is $105000. Klein’s work is routinely available in the secondary markets for photography, particularly his later prints. Prices have ranged between roughly $1000 and $145000, with the top end of that range reserved for vintage prints of his most iconic images.

 

 

 

 

Auction Results: Photographs, March 23, 2013 @Heritage Beverly Hills

The results of the various owner Photographs sale at Heritage last week were generally weak. While the overall Buy-In rate was under 20%, 57% of the lots that sold found buyers at prices below the low estimate, likely the result of both lesser known material and a thin bidding base. With that as a backdrop, it shouldn’t be a surprise that the Total Sale Proceeds fell under the range.

The summary statistics are below (all results include the buyer’s premium):

Total Lots: 121
Pre Sale Low Total Estimate: $497300
Pre Sale High Total Estimate: $777500
Total Lots Sold: 100
Total Lots Bought In: 21
Buy In %: 17.36%
Total Sale Proceeds: $375457

Here is the breakdown (using the Low, Mid, and High definitions from the preview post, here):

Low Total Lots: 106
Low Sold: 89
Low Bought In: 17
Buy In %: 16.04%
Total Low Estimate: $394500
Total Low Sold: $218894

Mid Total Lots: 14
Mid Sold: 11
Mid Bought In: 3
Buy In %: 21.43%
Total Mid Estimate: $303000
Total Mid Sold: $156563

High Total Lots: 1
High Sold: 0
High Bought In: 1
Buy In %: 100.00%
Total High Estimate: $80000
Total High Sold: $0

The top lot by High estimate is lot 74032, Irving Penn, Picasso, Cannes, 1957/before 1965, estimated at $60000-80000; it did not sell. The top photography outcome of the sale was lot 74084, Ansel Adams, Portfolio V, 1936-1960/1979, estimated at $30000-50000, sold at $43750.

Only 43.00% of the lots that sold had proceeds in or above the estimate range. There were a total of three surprises in the sale (defined as having proceeds of at least double the high estimate):

Lot 74103, Cindy Sherman, Untitled (Lucille Ball), 1975/2001, estimated at $4000-6000, sold at $23750 (image at right, top, via Heritage)
Lot 74111, Robert Mapplethorpe, Lady, Lisa Lyon, 1982, estimated at $600-800, sold at $1625 (image at right, bottom, via Heritage)
Lot 74115, Steven Meisel, Madonna Hitching, 1992/later, estimated at $3000-5000, sold at $10625 (image at right, middle, via Heritage)

Complete lot by lot results can be found here.

Heritage Auctions
9478 W. Olympic Boulevard
Beverly Hills, CA 90212

Peter Hujar @Pace/MacGill

JTF (just the facts): A total of 18 black and white photographs, framed in white and matted, and hung against grey and white walls in the two room gallery space. All of the works are either vintage gelatin silver prints or posthumously printed digital pigment prints, made from negatives taken between 1973 and 1985. The individual prints range in size from 15×15 to 16×16 and there is one triptych. There is no edition information for the vintage prints; the digital pigment prints come in editions of 10. (No photography is allowed in the gallery, so the installation shots at right are via the Pace/MacGill website.)

Comments/Context: Pace/MacGill has recently taken over New York representation of the estate of Peter Hujar, so this show provides an introductory entry point for those who might be unfamiliar with the artist’s work. For the most part, it gathers together a selection of Hujar’s penetratingly spare portraits of 1970s/1980s downtown artists, writers, and other scene makers, with a few animals and nudes thrown in for good measure.

Hujar was particularly adept at taking a simple, straightforward, some might say classical, center-focused compositional style and infusing this approach with surprising intensity and personal connection. Regardless of whether his subject was a drag queen, a friend, or a famous name, he was consistently able to come away with portraits that were sharp and perceptive without sacrificing sensitivity. Candy Darling on her deathbed and the deadpan face of David Wojnarowicz will be familiar to many, but other lesser known figures peer out from subtle cones of light here as well and demand our respect and attention with equal force and presence.

While many of Hujar’s portraits are important both as documents and artworks, his trio of male nudes in the second room is to my eye a riskier and more durably original artistic expression. Not only are these three portraits full frontal male nudes, which by itself would be somewhat unusual, they boldly celebrate the male erection, a visual taboo for many even today. What is thought provoking about these photographs is not exactly that Hujar took forbidden pictures, but that he bypassed both a Modernist abstraction of the body into line and form and a campy beefcake style aimed at a queer audience and instead opted for a stripped bare structure, using a subject with a sinewy dancer’s body and posing him in an unadorned, featureless space. The effect is both quietly pure and extremely personal, the power of the experience reflected in each tensed muscle. The images are erotic to be sure, but taut and elemental rather than lightly titillating.

All in, this is a solid first-level sampler of the artist’s career. Go for the discerning parade of John Waters, Divine, Peggy Lee, William Burroughs, and others, but my guess is you will come away haunted by the unexpected intensity of the show-all male nudes.

Collector’s POV: The vintage prints in this show are priced at $20000 each, with a few marked “sold out” or “museum sale only”. The posthumous digital prints are $10000 each, with the triptych at $25000. Hujar’s work has not been consistently available at auction over the years; his prints do pop up from time to time, but not with any great regularity. Prices have generally ranged between $2000 and $25000.

 

 

 

Sign up for our weekly email newsletter

This field is required.