Snapshots from Paris Photo, Part 1

While we weren't able to visit Paris Photo this year, that doesn't mean we weren't dying to know what went on. With the help of a couple of intrepid correspondents armed with their snapshot cameras, we've been able to cobble together a thoroughly random sampler of highlights. From a larger pile of images taken in booths and around the fair, I've edited the group down to the small selection below (caption information is below each image). In the visual overload of an art fair, what catches one person's eye may be overlooked by the next person, so calling this "representative" of what was on display may or may not be entirely accurate. So why these and not others? Who knows, I'm just happy to get a glimpse of the fun.


Jaroslav Rössler at Howard Greenberg

Pierre Dubreuil at Barry Friedman

Baron Adolph de Meyer at Robert Klein

Daido Moriyama at Priska Pasquer

Margaret Watkins at Robert Mann


V. Dijon at Robert Hershkowitz

Ruud van Empel at Flatland

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Tina Barney and Lee Friedlander at Janet Borden. For those gallery folks out there who have heard me drone on about the tyranny of the standard white wall, check out the exuberant pink walls in this booth!

A fan in a gorilla suit at the Martin Parr book signing.

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Walker Evans at Edwynn Houk

Hamiltons booth


László Moholy-Nagy at Stephen Daiter


Toni Schneiders at Bernheimer

Sze Tsung Leong at Yossi Milo

Phaidon booth

Later this afternoon, I'll be posting Parts 2 and 3 of this series, a similarly eclectic gathering of pictures from some of the photo exhibitions around Paris during the fair.

Baron Adolph de Meyer @Robert Miller

JTF (just the facts): A total of 91 works, variously framed and matted (some in elaborate period frames with linen mats), and hung throughout the entire gallery (a series of 5 rooms and hallways). Virtually all of the images are portraits. The prints are mostly vintage, taken throughout De Meyer's career, beginning in 1897 and ending in 1940. The print sizes are all intimate, ranging between 4x3 and 14x11. While most of the prints are gelatin silver prints, there are other processes represented in the exhibit as well: albumen, pigment, platinum, and platinum palladium. There is also one glass case containing portraits of the artist. (Installation shots at right.)

Comments/Context: Given the ubiquitous nature of fashion and celebrity culture today, the main reason to see this show is to step back in time and understand where it all got started. Baron Adolph De Meyer was the first staff photographer for both Vogue and Vanity Fair and his luxurious images of society ladies and film stars of the early 1900s paved the way for the explosion that has come since.

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De Meyer's images were made in the soft-focus Pictorialist style of the times, with a heavy dose of Edwardian aristocratic glamour. His subjects outfitted themselves in a wide spectrum of old world finery, oriental exotica, and risque new Art Deco frocks; there are mountains of feathers, flowers, and lace, billowing formal ball gowns, furs, jewels, and over-the-top fabulous hats. Virtually all of the women are lit from behind (with the light in their hair), artfully posing in windows and doorways or in seen in profile in staged interior scenes, hands extended or folded just so. Vanderbilts, Havemeyers, and Isabella Stewart Gardner are mixed in with Josephine Baker, Nijinsky and a parade of now-forgotten actresses, the wealthy and the famous placed on equal footing, for the adoration of the masses.
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An exhibit like this cannot avoid having a bit of a dated, period piece feel to it, but there are plenty of echoes and connections to the pages of our current fashion magazines that make this show more than just an interesting time capsule. When De Meyer gets it just right, his portraits have a timeless grace and elegance (with a touch of surprising modernism) that rivals the best of what has been produced since.

Collector's POV: The prints in this show are priced quite differently based on the process in use. The gelatin silver prints range between $5000 and $63500. The platinum and platinum palladium prints start at $16000 and continue up to $160000. The albumen prints are either $19000 or $19500, and the one pigment print is $260000. There are 11 prints that are marked "not for sale".

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De Meyer's work has been only intermittently available at auction in the past few years, with a wide range in prices based on the rarity of the lots on offer. Lesser known works have recently gone for as little as $2000, while just last Fall, a platinum print of Water Lilies went for $170000 at Christie's.

Rating: * (one star) GOOD (rating system described here)

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Transit Hub:

• NY Times T magazine (here), Style.com (here)
• Book: A Singular Elegance, 1994 (here)

Baron Adolph de Meyer
Through April 3rd

Robert Miller Gallery
524 West 26th Street
New York, NY 10001

Auction: Photographs, October 8, 2009 @Christie's

Christie's various owner photography sale takes to heart the learnings of real estate developers who build shopping malls: the key is getting the anchor tenants, and then the rest of the specialty shops will be enhanced by the presence of the big names. This auction is centered on a solid group of iconic images that will pique the interest of a broad spectrum of collectors: a full set of Curtis' The North American Indian, a vintage De Meyer Water Lilies, a vintage Kertész The Stairs of Montmartre, a vintage Alvarez Bravo El Ensueño (the cover lot), a Strand portrait of Rebecca, two solid Franks, and an Eggleston "red ceiling". These lots are spread across the sale, with the rest of the material (a mix of the usual suspects and a few surprises) in between. Overall there are a total of 139 lots on offer, with a total High estimate of $4740000. (Catalog cover at right.)

Here's the breakdown:

Total Low Lots (high estimate up to and including $10000): 46
Total Low Estimate (sum of high estimates of Low lots): $350000

Total Mid Lots (high estimate between $10000 and $50000): 76
Total Mid Estimate: $1640000

Total High Lots (high estimate above $50000): 17
Total High Estimate: $2750000
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The top lot by High estimate is lot 719, Edward S. Curtis, The North American Indian, complete set of Portfolios 1-20 and Text Volumes 1-20, 1907-1930, at $700000-900000.

Here's a list of the photographers who are represented by more than five lots in the sale (with the number of lots on offer in parentheses):

Irving Penn (13)

Ansel Adams (10)

Lee Friedlander (8)

Robert Frank (7)

Malick Sidibé (7)

Hiroshi Sugimoto (5)

Diane Arbus (5)

There are certainly plenty of lots to interest us this sale, though many of them are clearly out of reach in terms of our budget. Below is a selection of images that caught our eye, regardless of price or exact fit with our collection:

Lot 708 Walker Evans, Saratoga, 1931
Lot 724 Lee Friedlander, Butte, Montana, 1970/1973
Lot 755 Lee Friedlander, New Orleans, 1969/Later
Lot 774 Malick Sidibé, Les Trois Amis, 1968
Lot 798 Thomas Struth, Washington Street, New York/Tribeca, 1978
Lot 811 Paul Strand, Rebecca Strand, New York, 1922/1950s
Lot 819 Baron Adolph De Meyer, Water Lilies, c1906 (at right, bottom)
Lot 831 Nan Goldin, Red Sky from My Window, NYC, 2000

The complete lot by lot catalog can be found here. The eCatalogue is located here.

Photographs
October 8th

Christie's
20 Rockefeller Plaza
New York, NY 10020