Phat Photo Results
Photography has been on a tear this week. At Christie’s, twelve new world auction records were set for artists like Robert Mapplethorpe, Irving Penn, Richard Avedon, Horst P. Horst, Brassai and Henri Cartier-Bresson. Since his death last year, Avedon’s prices have started to climb, with three of his more bankable commercial images making the top ten here–from his famous 1955 fashion shot of model Dovima with elephants to a 1967 snap of the Beatles (at $464,000, the sale’s top lot) to a 1992 image of former Victoria’s Secret supermodel Stephanie Seymour.
Edgy is not Christie’s forte, but so what? The market gave a big thumbs up to its sale of Robert Mapplethorpe flower pictures: gorgeous, classical, and safe, safe, safe. 95% sold by value and 90% by lot, the auction surpassed its presale estimate by half.
But the really big winner of the week? Over at Sotheby’s, an Edward Weston breast shot, striated with shadows, which smashed the auction record for a 20th century photograph at auction. It doubled its pre-sale estimate and the artist’s previous record, soaring to $822,400. The last time a print of this image came up in 1990, it sold for $66,000. According to a major Weston collector, this one was a “rare, beautiful print.” Still, it’s not one of his iconic images, like the shell picture which sold for $352,ooo. Never underestimate the selling power of a beautiful breast…
And one day later at Sotheby’s, that auction record for a 20th century photo was matched when a print of Dorothea Lange’s depression-era document, White Angel Bread Line, also sold for $822,400.
