Sotheby's Fall Photograph Sale to be Held October 14-15, 2008 Sotheby's fall Photographs sale in New York on October 14-15th will feature seminal photographs from both the 19th and 20th centuries, many extremely rare
News-Antique.com - Sep 22,2008 - Sotheby’s Fall Photographs sale in New York on October 14-15th will feature seminal photographs from both the 19th
and 20th centuries, many extremely rare, from masters of classical photography such as Man Ray, Carleton E. Watkins,
Edward Weston, Imogen Cunningham, Ansel Adams and Dorothea Lange, to contemporary artists such as Cindy
Sherman, Richard Prince, Lee Friedlander and Irving Penn, among many others. The auction will feature 249 lots over
two days, beginning with an Evening Sale on October 14th, and is estimated to bring $6/10 million.
The sale includes a scarce surviving print from a series of nude studies of Tina Modotti, made by Edward Weston on the
terrace roof of their house near Mexico City in the summer of 1924. Featured on the cover of the sale catalogue,
Tina on the Azotea (pictured, est. $250/350,000) has remained out of the public eye, in a private collection, since
the 1970s, and may be unique. No other prints of the image have been located
as of this writing. The photographs from this series, each of them frankly sensual,
constitute a break from the nudes Weston had executed before: the clarity of
the images represent yet another step away from the romantic style in which he
had photographed Modotti earlier in the decade. Although the image is
reproduced in the Weston/Modotti literature, each of these illustrations traces
back to the present print. The reappearance of this single print underscores the
rarity of much of Weston’s work, and demonstrates the extent to which the
photographer’s more erotically-charged nudes were printed in small numbers—
likely only for his models—and were not part of his regularly exhibited work.
The striking and surreal negative image of Jacqueline Goddard (pictured on page one, est. $250/350,000) is one
of the most adventurous of Man Ray’s many images of women. Printed from an autochrome – a color process that
yielded a positive color transparency on glass, as opposed to a conventional negative – the photograph is an illustration
of the artist’s desire to push photography in new directions. Man Ray took the image a step further from the original by
rotating it 90 degrees so that Goddard, who had been lying down during the session, appears in the finished print to
float in space with her hair streaming dramatically behind her. Through unconventional printing and innovative framing,
Man Ray transformed the color original into pure Surrealism.
Carleton E. Watkins was perhaps the premier photographer of 19th -
century American landscape. For his technical mastery and aesthetic
sophistication, he is regarded today as one of the greatest artists the
medium has ever known. Sotheby’s is pleased to offer a group of four
rare mammoth-plate albumen prints made by Watkins in Oregon in
1867, including the sublime Multnomah Falls, Columbia River (seen
here, est. $70/100,000), one of the finest 19th-century photographs
Sotheby’s has presented in recent memory. The four Watkins
photographs on offer are all duplicates from the collection of the
Oregon Historical Society, and are being sold to benefit the
