Auction 002: 80’s Polaroids | Auke Bergsma

€ 10 No Reserve Online Only Auction
Tuesday 22 September 2015 | 13.00 GMT (15.00 CET)

Catalogue: available online for € 45.
www.photography-auction.com

On Tuesday, 22 September 2015, Photography-Auction will present its 2nd auction: 80’s Polaroids by Auke Bergsma. Our mission is to offer broad access to the best works of photography without restrictions on minimum consignment values and at low premiums for sellers and buyers. Our concept "Photography Only - Online Only" is unique in the current art market and brings us back what auctions historically used to be: a place where art dealers and collectors can buy at market prices instead of paying retail prices. A competitive buyer’s and seller’s premium - set at just 10% - contributes to this goal.

Dutch photographer Auke Bergsma (1950, Putten, The Netherlands) is an icon when it comes to Polaroid photography. Since the early 1970s, the Polaroid Corporation gave films to a selected group of photographers. Among them are Ansel Adams, Aaron Siskind, Jeanloup Sieff, Robert Mapplethorpe, Oliviero Toscani, Helmut Newton, Andy Warhol and Auke Bergsma. In return, Polaroid had the right to acquire some of the Polaroids they created. In this way the famous International Polaroid Collection (polaroid-impossible-the-westlicht-collection) was built.

Polaroid itself published books of this collection (Selections 1, 1982), and later Taschen published ‘The Polaroid Book’ (2008), which became a best seller. Finally, in 2011 Haje Cantz published ‘From Polaroid to Impossible’. All of these publications include pages with SX-70 Polaroids made by Auke Bergsma.

In a review of the book "From Polaroid to Impossible. Masterpieces of Instant Photography", John Matthews wrote for Photoeye Magazine "…The book concludes with a chapter on the most iconic and widely used Polaroid integral film format. Images such as Auke Bergsma's series of figurative color studies from 1981 have a very spontaneous, playful and fluid feel to them. This vibrant sequence creates a type of fantasy narrative by channeling a spirit of inquisitiveness and furtive excitement."

Auke Bergsma's work is in the permanent collections of Museum Westlicht in Vienna, The Royal Library of Copenhagen, The Finnish Museum of Photography, Museum Brandts 13 and the Danish Museum of Photographic Art (Museet For Fotokunst).

Now his full archive of Polaroids, including 20x24" and SX-70 Polaroids, is on sale at Photography Auction. A once in a lifetime opportunity to buy these typical 1980s photographs. Lots will be sold individually and as per set (his humourist sequences). The auction, which is online already, will end on Tuesday 22 September at 13.00 GMT (15.00 CET).