Title: PHOTOGRAPHIC LITERATURE & PHOTOGRAPHS
Date: May 15, 2008
Time: 10:30 AM & 2:30 PM
Exhibition: Saturday, May 10, 10-4
Monday, May 12, 10-6
Tuesday, May 13, 10-8
Wednesday, May 14, 10-6
Contact Person: Daile Kaplan
dkaplan@swanngalleries.com

The Photographic Literature section was extraordinary and featured items from the Library of David Raymond, whose Surrealist photographs were recently acquired by the Cleveland Museum of Art. Among the books from this collection were George Hugnet’s La Septième Face du Dé, Poèmes-Découpages, with reproductions of 20 photo-collages, several in color, inscribed twice by Hugnet, and accompanied by two prospectuses announcing the sale of the book, Paris, 1936, $16,800 (see top illustration).

Among the rarest and most coveted examples of photographic literature are issues of Alfred Stieglitz’s influential publication Camera Work. This auction offered two issues of the magazine that showcase the work of Paul Strand: Number 48, with six of Strand’s Modernist images of New York, 1916, a record $24,000 (second illustration); and Number 49/50, the rare final issue, with 11 photogravures by Strand, in a boards box that displays Strand’s and Stieglitz’s handwritten notations, New York, 1917, $14,400.

Also exceedingly rare was a first French edition of Robert Frank’s groundbreaking work Les Américains, signed and inscribed, Paris, 1958, with an original photograph, $15,600 (third illustration).

A rich selection of Japanese first editions includes Shinzo Fukuhara’s Beautiful West Lake, with 24 reproductions of the artist’s artfully serene photographs, Tokyo, 1931, $2,880 (fourth illustration); and Eikoh Hosoe’s Kamaitachi, with 33 richly printed black-and-white gatefold reproductions of Hosoe’s photographs, Tokyo, 1969, $3,840 (see final illustration).