Auction: Photographie, December 5, 2008 @Lempertz

The upcoming photography sale at Kunsthaus Lempertz has nearly all (approximately 97%) Low priced material available, so there are plenty of affordable options on offer in Cologne. This sale has a total of 220 lots available, with a total high estimate of 418150 Euros. Here's the overall price breakdown:

Total Low Lots (high estimate below 7500 Euros): 214

Total Low Estimate (sum of high estimates of Low lots): 366150 Euros

Total Mid Lots (high estimate between 7500 and 35000 Euros): 6
Total Mid Estimate: 52000 Euros

Total High Lots (high estimate above 35000 Euros): 0

Total High Estimate: 0 Euros

One helpful feature of the Lempertz photography catalog is that they have stripped out the photography lots buried in their Contemporary Art sale and reprinted them in this catalog. This amounts to another 49 lots, with a total additional high estimate of 315300 Euros. We wish other auction houses would follow this practice, so we wouldn't have to sift through all the various Contemporary Art sales, looking for the handful of photography lots mixed in.

For our collection, there are several lots of interest. Three of them are detailed below:

• Lot 74 Heinz Hajek-Halke, Ohne Titel, 1930-1936 (image at right, top) Hajek-Halke made some unusual nudes in his career and we have been looking to find one that would fit well with our collection. This is one of the better images we have seen, in terms of mixing well with the more American nude aesthetic in our collection.
• Lot 119 Germaine Krull, Pont Suspendu De Rotterdam, 1926 (image at right, middle) Images from Krull's Metal series are quite hard to come by, so we expect this one will be highly sought after (assuming it is in decent condition). The graphic qualities and geometric patterns in this work are fantastic. It would fit perfectly in our city and industrial genre.
• Lot 216 Paul Wolff, Flieder, 1931 (image at right, bottom) We already have a pair of Wolff botanicals in our collection (here), but this image would be a good addition to that group. If you are interested in German botanicals from the 1920s and 1930s, but don't want to step up for a vintage Blossfeldt, we would encourage you to look closely at Wolff's work, as it is both high quality and affordable.
• There is also a spectacular Brassai nude (lot 29) in this sale. However, we already have a print of this image in our collection (here)!

In general, we have had good experience with the various services from Lempertz, including condition reports, billing, and packing/shipping to the US. The sale is certainly worth a look.

Photographie
December 5th

Kunsthaus Lempertz
Neumarkt 3
50667 Koln