PHOTOGRAPHIES

Auction: 9 November 2021, 3 pm

Viewing: From 6 - 9 November, 10 am – 6 pm
Christie’s: 9 avenue Matignon, 75008 Paris

Online catalogue : christies.com

Paris annual Photographs auction will take place on the 9th November to coincide with Paris Photo Fair. 100 lots will be offered, estimates ranging from €1,200 to €100,000, with some lots being sold without reserve. The auction will bring together iconic works by leading figures of the medium including William Eggleston, Candia Höfer, Peter Lindbergh, Irving Penn, Helmut Newton, Robert Mapplethorpe, Wolfgang Tillmans and Francesca Woodman.

While the Palais Galliera is presenting a major exhibition celebrating 100 years of Vogue Paris magazine (1920-2020), the Photography department is thrilled to offer the opportunity to the collectors to acquire iconic fashion photographs, including a portfolio presenting ten emblematic images of Helmut Newton’s oeuvre from 1973-1993, estimated at €100,000-150,000.

Another force in fashion photography, Peter Lindbergh’s monumental print Mathilde on the Eiffel Tower (Hommage à Marc Riboud), Paris, 1989 is a unique opportunity to acquire such an iconic work, this print being number 1 from an edition of 1, and over two metres in scale, estimated at €60,000-80,0000. Lindbergh was inspired by the photograph taken by photojournalist Marc Riboud, Painter of the Eiffel Tower in 1953, a print of which is also included in the sale, and created a work blending both these genres, as well as paying homage to the work of Erwim Blumenfeld.

This work is also offered alongside a dedicated print of "The Wild Ones" by Lindbergh, of supermodels Cindy Crawford, Tatjana Patitz, Helena Christensen, Linda Evangelista, Claudia Schiffer, Naomi Campbell, Karen Mulder and Stephanie Seymour taken for Vogue in 1991 (€35,000-45,000).

Another highlight of the sale bringing together the worlds of fashion and fine art, is a beautiful portrait by Francesca Woodman Lucy with Goose, 1977. This print was acquired directly from Francesca Woodman by Vibeke, a successful model who worked with photographers such as Helmut Newton, Irving Penn and Richard Avedon. In New York she formed a friendship with Woodman and in 1977, before Woodman's untimely death in 1981, was given the print of Leda and the Swan by Francessca during a visit to the photographer's Manhattan studio. Lifetime prints are rare, as seen by the exceptional prices achieved Paris earlier this year for prints coming from the Marion Lambert Collection.

Surrealism presides in the works presented by Hans Bellmer, Raoul Ubac and Pierre Dubreuil. Then from Modern to Contemporary, the auction includes leading female names in this field, Louise Lawler, Carrie Mae Weems, Candida Hofer, alongside Thomas Struth, Andreas Gursky and Wolfgang Tillmans. A particular highlight is Philip Lorca diCorcia’s W, March 2000, #12, 2000 (€50,000-70,000), which is sold-out in all three edition sizes.

The auction also boasts a work by Edward Burtynsky who is renowned for his investigation of the "indelible human signature" on the planet. Burtysky’s large scale aerial photographs reference the sublime and often surreal qualities of human-altered landscapes with an abstracted painterly language, such as with Colorado River Delta #2, Near San Felipe, Baja, Mexico, 2011 (ill.left, estimated at €20,000-30,000). But importantly, and relevantly, chronicle the major themes of terraforming and extraction, urbanisation and deforestation, conveying the unsettling reality of the human imprint on our planet. This image was produced in three editions, all, including the present edition of three, are sold-out.