COLLECTION OF SURREALIST WORKS, JAPANESE BOOKS, AND RARE TREASURES BY ROBERT FRANK AND PAUL STRAND AMONG HIGHLIGHTS OF SWANN GALLERIES' MAY 15 AUCTION OF PHOTOGRAPHIC LITERATURE & PHOTOGRAPHS

On Thursday, May 15, Swann Auction Galleries will conduct their annual spring sale of Photographic Literature & Photographs. This large, two-part auction features many rare and sought-after photo books, and select works by important 20^th-century photographers.

The Photographic Literature section is extraordinary and features items from the Library of David Raymond, whose Surrealist photographs were recently acquired by the Cleveland Museum of Art. Among the books from this collection are Hans Bellmer's Les Jeux de la Poupée, with 15 hand-colored silver prints and two small hand-colored cut-outs illustrating the artist's well-known eroticized doll, one of 142 numbered and signed copies, Paris, 1949 (estimate: $75,000 to $100,000); Claude Cahun's Aveux non Avenus, with 10 reproductions of photo-collages by Cahun and Marcel Moore, one of 500 numbered copies, Paris, 1930 ($6,000 to $7,000); and George Hugnet's La Septième Face du Dé, Poèmes-Découpages, with reproductions of 20 photo-collages, several in color, inscribed twice by Hugnet, and accompanied by two prospectuses announcing the sale of the book, Paris, 1936 ($10,000 to $15,000).

Among the rarest and most coveted examples of photographic literature are issues of Alfred Stieglitz's influential publication Camera Work. This auction offers two issues of the magazine that showcase the work of Paul Strand: Number 48, with six of Strand's Modernist images of New York, 1916 ($12,000 to $18,000); and Number 49/50, the rare final issue, with 11 photogravures by Strand, in a boards box that displays Strand's and Stieglitz's handwritten notations, New York, 1917 ($15,000 to $25,000). These publications were once in the collection of Milton Brown, an art historian and friend of Strand's.

Also exceedingly rare is a first French edition of Robert Frank's groundbreaking work Les Américains, signed and inscribed, Paris, 1958, with an original photograph ($15,000 to $20,000).

A rich selection of Japanese first editions includes Shinzo Fukuhara's Beautiful West Lake, with 24 reproductions of the artist's artfully serene photographs, Tokyo, 1931 ($2,000 to $2,500); Ken Domon and Shomei Tomatsu's Hiroshima-Nagasaki, Document 1961, 1961 ($5,000 to $7,500); Ikko Narahara's profusely illustrated Where Time Has Stopped, Tokyo, 1967 ($1,500 to $2,500); Eikoh Hosoe's  Kamaitachi, with 33 richly printed black-and-white gatefold reproductions of Hosoe's photographs, Tokyo, 1969 ($3,500 to $4,500); and Hiroshi Sugimoto's Theaters, 2000, with a signed photogravure titled U.A. Walker, New York, 1978 ($2,500 to $3,500)

The Photographs session includes many avant-garde images using solarization techniques by Maurice Tabard, which were gifted by Tabard to a Private European Collector. Among these are Film Solarisée, No. 4, two attached silver prints depicting an enlarged film strip, 1936 ($80,000 to $120,000); Magraitis-Negative Solarisation [Homme a la guitare], silver print from a solarized negative, circa 1928 ($30,000 to $40,000); and Nu solarise, silver print, circa 1960 ($10,000 to $15,000).

Other highlights include Lewis Carroll's albumen photograph of Annie and Henry Rogers, 1861, which was a gift from Lewis Carroll to Annie Rogers, and then descended through the family ($25,000 to $35,000); Ansel Adams's magnificent The Grand Tetons and the Snake River, silver print, 1942, printed 1970s ($20,000 to $30,000); Imogen Cunningham's exquisite botanical study, Tower of Jewels, silver print, 1925, printed 1930s, from the Collection of Alexandra R. Marshall ($60,000 to $90,000); and an archive of 26 vintage silver prints by MIT professor and strobe lighting innovator Harold Edgerton, from the collection of Raymond Stevens, former president of the Cambridge, Mass. consulting firm Arthur D. Little, comprising stop-motion prints of milk drop coronet, white pigeon with wings spread, several images of golf swings, and more, circa 1937 ($20,000 to $30,000).


Photographic Literature at Swann Galleries

In 1952, Swann conducted the first auction devoted to photographic literature in the United States. In the past 50 years interest in out-of-print photo books has grown tremendously, and Swann remains at the forefront of the market, having set world auction records for out-of-print titles by Berenice Abbott, William Bradford, Robert Frank, Paul Graham, Eikoh Hosoe, Ed Ruscha, and many others. We conduct two auctions per year devoted to Photographic Literature & Photographs, which include books with photographs, monographs, surveys, exhibition catalogues, periodicals, histories and technical volumes.

The auction will begin at 10:30 a.m. on Thursday, May 15.

The photographs and books will be on public exhibition at Swann Galleries Saturday, May 10, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.; Monday, May 12, from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.; Tuesday, May 13, from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m.; and Wednesday, May 14, from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.