On September 29th Christie’s will present three distinct photograph auctions in New York, including the diverse ‘Photographs’ sale, and two private collection sales: ‘Photographs from the Forbes Collection’ and ‘Triple XXX: Photographs from the Collection of Don Sanders.’

Running concurrently with the September 29th sales will be an online only auction titled ‘Helmut Newton Photographs for Playboy,’ that includes 20 photographs from the collection of Don Sanders. The online auction will be open for bidding from September 23rd through October 7th at www.christies.com/HelmutNewton.

With a total of 266 lots, the sales are expected to exceed $7 million.

Photographs

The top lot of the various owners auction is a supremely rare photograph by Edward Weston, Nautilus Shell, 1927 ($300,000-500,000). Weston made this print on velvety matte-surface paper, and on the reverse of the mount he wrote: ‘To Clay and Margaret from Edward.’ This was a gift to Henry Clay Seaman, Jr. and his wife Margaret. Clay was the brother of Weston’s sister Mary’s husband, John Seaman. The print has remained in the family to the present, having spent decades tucked away in a drawer, and it has never before been exhibited to the public. This print comes from one of the most important periods in Weston's developing modernist vision when, after visiting the 'International Salon of Photography' in the spring of 1927, he began to turn away from the superficial effects of pictorialism.

Charles Sheeler’s Ford Plant, River Rouge, Steam Hydraulic Shear, 1927, ($150,000-250,000), was commissioned by N.W. Ayer & Son as part of a $1.3 million advertising campaign to garner interest in the upcoming Model A. Sheeler photographed Ford’s mammoth manufacturing facility southwest of Dearborn, Michigan in the fall of 1927. A truly striking image, Ford Plant, River Rouge, Steam Hydraulic Shear, is one of twenty-eight original images from the commission. Vintage prints from this seminal series are very rare, and presently only one other print of this image is known, located in The Lane Collection, Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, Massachusetts.

Also among the top lots is an incredibly rare fashion portfolio from Richard Avedon, titled Avedon, Paris ($200,000-300,000), from 1978, that contains 11 of his most renowned images from Paris. Additionally, William Eggleston will be represented by three photographs, including a dye transfer print, Untitled, Memphis, 1970 ($200,000-300,000), one of the artist’s most arresting and instantly recognizable works.