Title: FINE PHOTOGRAPHS
Date: October 18, 2011
Time: 2:00 PM
Exhibition: Thurs., Oct. 13, 10-6
Fri., Oct. 14, 10-6
Sat., Oct. 15, 10-4
Mon., Oct. 17, 10-6
Tues., Oct. 18, 10-noon
Contact Person: Daile Kaplan
dkaplan@swanngalleries.com

RARE FINDS AND LUMINOUS IMAGES FEATURED IN SWANN GALLERIES’ 
OCTOBER 18 AUCTION OF FINE PHOTOGRAPHS

Swann Galleries’ Tuesday, October 18 auction of Fine Photographs contains a stellar selection of classical and iconic images that range from contemporary artworks, to masterpieces of 20th-century modernism and photojournalism, to exquisite daguerreotypes, cased images, and majestic scenes of the American West.

Featured examples of Contemporary Art are Cindy Sherman As Marilyn Monroe, chromogenic print, 1982; choice images by Sally Mann including Candy Cigarette, silver print, 1989; Vik Muniz’s Eleven Eggs, from the Pictures of Soil series, silver print, 1997; Sandy Skoglund’s The Invisible Web, cibachrome print, 1986; and Annie Leibovitz’s Meryl Streep, New York, cibachrome print, 1986.

The sale includes a fascinating recent discovery, an uncommon World War II album containing 214 photographs largely shot and, apparently, sequenced and compiled by Franz Krieger, an Austrian-national soldier and photographer. There are images of Jewish and Red Army political prisoners in Minsk, the Jewish ghetto, Hitler meeting Adm. Horthy in Marienburg, in addition to scenes of Nazi soldiers at the Eastern Front, self-portraits, and more, 1941-1942. The album received much attention after it was written up by The New York Times’s photo blog when it came into the current owner's possession.

There are powerhouse portfolios in the sale such as Ansel Adams’s Portfolio Four, titled What majestic word, in Memory of Russell Varian, complete with 15 silver print photographs of landscapes and details of the natural world, from an edition of 260 copies, San Francisco, 1963; Berenice Abbott’s Retrospective Portfolio, with 50 large format silver prints, including Abbott’s iconic New York City views, 1930-1960, printed 1982; Brassai’s portfolio Transmutations, with 12 cliché verre photographs produced from 1934 to 1935, one of 100 numbered copies and 10 hors commerce copies, 1967; and Brett Weston’s Fifteen Photographs of Japan, silver prints, 1970.

Berenice Abbott, "Retrospective Portfolio." Complete with 50 large-format silver prints, New York, 1930-1960; printed 1982.

Dazzling landscapes include Francis Frith’s The Pyramids of Dahshoor from the South West, mammoth albumen print, 1858; Carleton E. Watkins’s On the Road to Yosemite Falls, 2634 Feet, mammoth albumen print, 1878-1881; Edward S. Curtis’s Canyon del Muerto, orotone, 1906; Edward Weston’s Cypress and Stone Crop, Point Lobos, silver print, 1946, printed circa 1954; and many individual prints by Adams.

Evocative city views are Eugene Atget’s Vieille Boutique Louis XVI, Quai Bourbon, albumen print, circa 1900; Helen Levitt’s New York (children and broken mirror), silver print, circa 1942, printed 1980s; Elliott Erwitt’s New York City (Empire State Building), oversize silver print, 1955, printed 2011; Margaret Bourke-White’s Cologne, Germany in Ruins, oversize silver print, 1945, printed late 1960s; Max Yavno’s Army Street, San Francisco, silver print, 1947, printed 1970s; Harry Callahan’s Walls Street, Chicago, silver print, 1949, printed circa 1970; and Roy DeCarava’s Couples, with city lights reflected in a coffee shop window, silver print, 1960.

Portraits of celebrated figures include Phillippe Halsman’s Albert Einstein, silver print, 1947; Tom B. Kelley’s Marilyn Monroe, Pose #2, dye-destruction print, 1949, printed 1980; W. Eugene Smith’s Miles Davis, silver print, circa 1960; and Arnold Newman’s Pablo Picasso, silver print, 1954, printed 1960s.

Photojournalism highlights include Nat Fein’s Jackie Robinson Steals Home, July 17, 1949, silver print, 1949, printed 1980s; three war-related photographs by Dave Heath, 1953; and Sebastiäo Salgado’s India, silver print, 1989.

Other classic 20th-century images are André Kertész’s Satiric Dancer, silver print, 1926, printed 1970s; George Hoyningen-Huene’s Divers (Horst and Model), silver print, 1930, printed 1980s; Manuel Alvarez Bravo’s La Buena Fama Durmiendo [The Good Reputation Sleeping], silver print, 1939, printed 1980s; O. Winston Link’s Hot Shot, Eastbound at the Iaeger Drive-In, West Virginia, silver print, 1956, printed 1996; and Ormand Gigli’s fashion image, Girls in the Windows, New York City, chromogenic dye coupler print, 1960, printed 2000s.

The auction will begin at 2:00 p.m. on Tuesday, October 18. The photographs will be on public exhibition at Swann Galleries on Thursday, October 13 and Friday, October 14, from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.; Saturday, October 15, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.; Monday, October 17, from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.; and Tuesday, October 18, from 10 a.m. to noon.