Friday, May 14, 2010

Auction: Photographs, May 20, 2010 @Sotheby's London

After a series of disappointing Photographs sales in the London office in previous seasons, Sotheby's took a breather last fall and focused its attentions on Paris. This spring, Sotheby's is back with a Photographs offering in London, filled with both usual suspects (Penn, Mapplethorpe, etc.) and lesser known works. 30 of the lots come from a single French collection and a large group of vintage prints from the estate of the German photographer Heinz Hajek-Halke have been included. As an aside, I think the Mapplethorpe photogravures on offer have surprisingly high estimates. In any case, there are a total of 125 lots on offer, with a Total High Estimate of £1557000. (Catalog cover at right, via Sotheby's.)

Here's the statistical breakdown:

Total Low Lots (high estimate up to and including £5000): 6
Total Low Estimate (sum of high estimates of Low lots): £24000

Total Mid Lots (high estimate between £5000 and £25000): 110
Total Mid Estimate: £1138000

Total High Lots (high estimate above £25000): 9
Total High Estimate: £395000

The top lot by High estimate is lot 76, Irving Penn, Two Liqueurs, New York, 1951/1960, at £60000-80000.

Here is a list of the photographers who are represented by three or more lots in the sale (with the number of lots in parentheses):

Heinz Hajek-Halke (13)
Robert Mapplethorpe (7)
Irving Penn (7)
Nobuyoshi Araki (5)
Horst P. Horst (5)
Helmut Newton (5)
Henri Cartier-Bresson (4)
Robert Doisneau (4)
Lee Friedlander (4)
Hiroshi Sugimoto (4)
William Eggleston (3)
Alexander Rodchenko (3)
Anton Stankowski (3)
Andy Warhol (3)

The complete lot by lot catalog can be found here.

Photographs
May 20th

Sotheby's
34-35 New Bond Street
London W1A 2AA

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