Auction Results: Photographs, May 15, 2013 @Christie's London

The parade of Peter Beard prints in Christie's recent various owner Photographs sale in London held up well, pushing the Total Sale Proceeds for the auction solidly into the middle of the pre-sale estimate range. With an overall Buy-In rate under 30% and a number of positive surprises, the sale easily met expectations.

The summary statistics are below (all results include the buyer’s premium):

Total Lots: 108
Pre Sale Low Total Estimate: £1159000
Pre Sale High Total Estimate: £1678000
Total Lots Sold: 76
Total Lots Bought In: 32
Buy In %: 29.63%
Total Sale Proceeds: £1485375

Here is the breakdown (using the Low, Mid, and High definitions from the preview post, here):

Low Total Lots: 13
Low Sold: 11
Low Bought In: 2
Buy In %: 15.38%
Total Low Estimate: £51000
Total Low Sold: £65125

Mid Total Lots: 75
Mid Sold: 52
Mid Bought In: 23
Buy In %: 30.67%
Total Mid Estimate: £827000
Total Mid Sold: £722900

High Total Lots: 20
High Sold: 13
High Bought In: 7
Buy In %: 35.00%
Total High Estimate: £800000
Total High Sold: £697350

The top lot by High estimate was lot 19, Peter Beard, Giraffes in mirage on the Taru Desert, Kenya for the End of the Game, June 1960, 1960/1997, at £50000-70000; it sold for £85875. The top outcome of the sale was lot 25, Peter Beard, Tsavo National Park, founded April Fool's Day, 1948, 1968/1997, estimated at £40000-60000, sold at £103875.

97.37% of the lots that sold had proceeds in or above their estimate. There were a total of nine surprises in the sale (defined as having proceeds of at least double the high estimate):
Lot 1, Louise Dahl-Wolfe, Nude on beach, California, 1948/1988, estimated at £5000-7000, sold at £16250
Lot 2, Javier Vallhonrat, Inner edge, the Possessed Space, 1991, estimated at £2000-3000, sold at £10000
Lot 8, Helmut Newton, Henrietta, beginning of the Big Nudes, Vogue Studio, Paris, 1981, estimated at £6000-8000, sold at £22500
Lot 15, Horst P. Horst, Narcissus, O.B., N.Y., 1992, estimated at £8000-12000, sold at £27500
Lot 30, Andy Warhol, Self-portrait, 1986, estimated at £10000-15000, sold at £30000 (image at right, bottom, via Christie's)
Lot 43, Josef Koudelka, Spain, 1979/later, estimated at £4000-6000, sold at £14375 (image at right, middle, via Christie's)
Lot 78, Francesca Woodman, Untitled, Providence, Rhode Island, 1977/2008, estimated at £3000-5000, sold at £13750
Lot 89, Nick Brandt, Elephant group on bare earth, Amboseli, 2008, estimated at £15000-20000, sold at £55875
Lot 93, Marcus Lyon, Exodus VI, West Lamma Channel, South China Sea, 2011, estimated at £5000-7000, sold at 5£2275 (image at right, top, via Christie's)

Complete lot by lot results can be found here.

Christie's
8 King Street, St. James's
London SW1Y 6QT

Auctions: Contemporary Art, Parts I and II, May 12 and 13, 2011 @Phillips

Phillips completes the Spring Contemporary Art season in New York later this week with a two-part various owner auction on Thursday and Friday. Compared to the other two major houses, the photo consignments in these sales are quite a bit more modest, with a Gursky and a pair of Shermans as the headliners. All in, there are a total of 50 lots of photography available across the two sessions, with a total High estimate for photography of $3338000.
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Here's the statistical breakdown:

Total Low Lots (high estimate up to and including $10000): 12
Total Low Estimate (sum of high estimates of Low lots): $86000
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Total Mid Lots (high estimate between $10000 and $50000): 26
Total Mid Estimate: $652000

Total High Lots (high estimate above $50000): 12
Total High Estimate: $2600000
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The top photography lot by High estimate is lot 45, Andreas Gursky, Brasalia Plenarsaal II, 1994, at $500000-700000.

Here's the short list of photographers represented by three or more lots in the sales (with the number of lots in parentheses):

Vik Muniz (5)
Thomas Ruff (4)
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(Lot 250, Sharon Core, Early American, Lemons, 2007, at $5000-7000, image at right, bottom, lot 388, Andy Warhol, Sweaters, 1976-1986, at $20000-30000, image at right, middle, and Nikki S. Lee, Part (8), 2003, at $5000-7000, image at right, top, all via Phillips.)

The complete lot by lot catalogs can be found here (Part I) and here (Part II).
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Contemporary Art, Part I
May 12th
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Contemporary Art, Part II
May 13th
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Phillips De Pury & Company
450 Park Avenue
New York, NY 10022

Auction Results: Contemporary Art Evening and Day Sales, February 15 and 16, 2011 @Sotheby's London

Sotheby's began the 2011 photography auction season with solid outcomes at its Contemporary Art sales in London last week. All 6 of the photographs in the Evening sale found buyers, helping boost the Total Sale Proceeds above the Total Pre-Sale High Estimate. With an overall Buy-In rate across the two sales under 18%, it was an auspicious start to the season. The only hiccup was the "Orgy of the Rich" protest which disrupted the sale (coverage here via Hyperallergic).

The summary statistics are below (all results include the buyer’s premium):
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Total Lots: 28
Pre Sale Low Total Estimate: £2094000
Pre Sale High Total Estimate: £2967000
Total Lots Sold: 23
Total Lots Bought In: 5
Buy In %: 17.86%
Total Sale Proceeds: £3037950

Here is the breakdown (using the Low, Mid, and High definitions from the preview post, here):

Low Total Lots: 0
Low Sold: NA
Low Bought In: NA
Buy In %: NA
Total Low Estimate: £0
Total Low Sold: NA

Mid Total Lots: 12
Mid Sold: 10
Mid Bought In: 2
Buy In %: 16.67%
Total Mid Estimate: £182000
Total Mid Sold: £198100

High Total Lots: 16
High Sold: 13
High Bought In: 3
Buy In %: 18.75%
Total High Estimate: £2785000
Total High Sold: £2839850

The top lot by High estimate was lot 3, Cindy Sherman, Untitled #87, 1981, at £400000-600000; it was also the top outcome of the sale at £577250.

An efficient 100.00% of the lots that sold had proceeds in or above their estimate. There were only two surprises in these sales (defined as having proceeds of at least double the high estimate):

Lot 187, Candida Höfer, Biblioteca Seminario Patriarcale Venezia II, 2002, at £43250 (image at right, bottom, via Sotheby's)
Lot 267, Andy Warhol, Beware of Dog, 1976-1986, at £91250 (image at right, top, via Sotheby's)

Complete lot by lot results can be found here (Evening) and here (Day).
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Sotheby's
34-35 New Bond Street
London W1A 2AA

Big Shots: Andy Warhol's Portraits of Celebrities @Danziger

JTF (just the facts): A total of 38 color photographs, framed in white and matted, and hung in the single room gallery space. All of the works are unique Polacolor Type 108 Polaroid prints, each roughly 4x3; the images were taken between 1971 and 1986. (Installation shots at right.)

Comments/Context: By now, it's common knowledge that Andy Warhol used photography as an intermediate process step in making many of his paintings, particularly his commissioned portraits. This small show gathers together a selection of his head shot Polaroids from the 1970s and 1980s, capturing the biggest celebrities of the times from the worlds of fashion, music, art, and politics, reflected in the glow of his own massive fame.

While these pictures were originally taken as source material for later manipulation and appropriation, they have a compelling and unmistakable style; Warhol clearly had a aubtle eye for the composition of photographic portraits and imposed that originality on his subjects, making them his own. Given that the images would later be pared down to lines and then screen printed, the compositions needed to have strong formal outlines. To heighten the contrast, many of the women were made up in bright red lipstick and white foundation, or have billowing explosions and swirls of hair; Diane von Furstenberg, Diana Ross and Jane Fonda all look particularly extreme. The men are often seen from the side or in profile, sometimes with a prop, like Arnold Schwarzenegger's bulging arm or Truman Capote's fedora.

As I have seen more and more of these portraits over the years, I have come to the conclusion that while his signature style has become overexposed and ubiquitous, we discount Warhol's talents at our own peril. Think about what he accomplished with these pictures: he took the most famous and most photographed people of the decade, sat them down, and in a matter of moments, transformed them into something completely new with a seemingly simple head shot. Perhaps we can call this a situation where his fame superseded that of his sitters (an amazing feat of its own), but I remain impressed by his ability to consistently place his carefully controlled artistic mark on rock stars, presidents and other icons who would normally resist such treatment. Try this test when you're in the gallery: block out who the famous person actually is and just look at the way each portrait is structured. Yes, this show is a parade of incandescent stars, but in the end, it's Warhol on display, not his subjects.

Collector's POV: The prints in this show are priced between $10000 and $15000. Warhol's Polaroid portraits can be regularly found in the secondary markets, with prices ranging between $3000 and $21000 in recent years, mostly based on the relative fame of the person pictured.

My favorite image(s) in the show were the group of four images each entitled Self Portrait in Fright Wig, 1986; they're on the right in the bottom installation shot. The background for these pictures is black, so Warhol, his wild wig and big black sunglasses emerge from the darkness; when he later turned them into two color paintings, the portraits became even freakier.

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

Transit Hub:

• Review: Flavorwire (here)
• Exhibit: @Nasher, 2009 (here)

Big Shots: Andy Warhol's Polaroids of Celebrities
Through February 26th

Danziger Projects
534 West 24th Street
New York, NY 10011

Auction: Photographs, April 16, 2010 @Phillips

Phillips' various owner Photographs sale continues the trend of increased consignments this season, with an additional $1.5 million in estimated value over last year's equivalent sale. Another installment of Mapplethorpe portraits of Lisa Lyon can be found in the first session, and a large group of Willy Ronis later prints and an additional selection of Japanese images from the Jacobsen/Hashimoto collection bookend the second. Penn's Cuzco Children makes its its third appearance (all three houses have one this season). All in, there are a total of 349 lots on offer with a total High estimate of $4488100. (Catalog cover at right, via Phillips.)

Here's the statistical breakdown:

Total Low Lots (high estimate up to and including $10000): 242
Total Low Estimate (sum of high estimates of Low lots): $1447100

Total Mid Lots (high estimate between $10000 and $50000): 93
Total Mid Estimate: $1911000

Total High Lots (high estimate above $50000): 14
Total High Estimate: $1130000

The top lot by High estimate is lot 216, Edward Steichen, Wheelbarrow with Flower Pots, France, 1920, at $150000-200000.

The following is the list of photographers represented by more than three lots in this sale:

Willy Ronis (25)
Robert Mapplethorpe (14)
Nobuyoshi Araki (9)
Andre Kertesz (9)
Helmut Newton (9)
Vik Muniz (7)
Shikanosuke Yagaki (7)
Peter Beard (6)
Harry Callahan (6)
David LaChapelle (6)
Sebastiao Salgado (6)
Sally Mann (6)
Walker Evans (5)
Irving Penn (5)
Herb Ritts (5)
Diane Arbus (4)
William Eggleston (4)
Ernst Haas (4)
Horst P. Horst (4)
Yoshiyuke Iwase (4)
Helen Levitt (4)
Man Ray (4)
Albert Watson (4)
Edward Weston (4)
Joel-Peter Witkin (4)
Fred Zinnemann (4)

A few of the lots we liked for our own collection include:

• Lot 41, Andy Warhol, Parking Lot Sign, c1976-1986 (image at right, via Phillips)
• Lot 120, Vera Lutter, 156 Columbus Avenue, New York City, June 21, 1997
• Lot 215, Andre Kertesz, Paris, 1934
• Lot 229, Edward Weston, Elbow, 1935

The complete lot by lot catalog can be found here.

Photographs
April 16th

Phillips De Pury & Company
450 West 15th Street
New York, NY 10011

Andy Warhol: Snapshots @Neuberger

JTF (just the facts): 33 color Polaroids and 21 black and white prints (8x10 or reverse), all matted, with white frames, displayed in two adjacent galleries with a dividing wall. All of the images are from the 1970s and 1980s. There are also two glass cases with representative cameras and magazine ads. (Installation shots at right.)

Comments/Context: The Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts (site here) recently gifted over 150 Warhol photographs to the Neuberger Museum of Art in honor of the Foundation's 20th anniversary, and this exhibition is the first to explore the work the museum received.

In the first room, color Polaroids from the period 1972 to 1985 are shown. Most of the images are head shot portraits of the kind Warhol used as the basis for his silkscreen paintings. There are quite a few famous people and celebrities represented: Diana Ross, Dolly Parton, Dorothy Hamill (with a skate), Tom Seaver (with a baseball mitt), Ric Ocasek (of the Cars), and Yves Saint Laurent all peer out from the walls. There are also plenty of random, unknown people who Warhol photographed for portrait commissions. All of his subjects have been heavily "touched up": dark red lipstick and pasty white makeup make their features more pronounced. Among this group, there are also a few still life images, similar to the ones shown at Paul Kasmin last fall (review here).

The second room has a selection of black and white prints (made between 1980 and 1983), which absolutely fit the definition of snapshots. Many chronicle Warhol's fast lane celebrity life, full of dinner parties, fashion shows, cocktails and birthdays. Others are more mundane: images of a closet interior or various unidentified people. All are printed in contrasty tones. While these images don't rise to the level of art, they do help fill out a more complete picture of Warhol's later life.

A second Warhol exhibit is also on view at the Neuberger in the next gallery, entitled Andy Warhol: Pop Politics (here). This is a broader show of paintings, prints, drawings and other mixed media pieces, pulled together by the common theme of politics. There are many glass cases with detailed letters (thank you notes and the like) and mementos from various politicians, displayed next to portraits that Warhol made of these people. A few source photographs are mixed in here (Polaroids like the ones in the other room), depicting Jimmy and Lilian Carter, Edward Kennedy and others.

Collector's POV: To our eyes, the still lifes are still the most notable of these images in terms of artistic quality, although some of the celebrity portraits are certainly entertaining and fun. The black and white images are best considered as background material to Warhol's amazing life.

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

Andy Warhol: Snapshots

Through May 17

Neuberger Museum of Art

Purchase College, SUNY

735 Anderson Hill Road

Purchase, NY 10577

Andy Warhol: Still-life Polaroids @Paul Kasmin

JTF (just the facts): 70 color Polaroids, measuring 4 x 3 1/2 inches each, taken between 1977 and 1983. Arrayed in three grids, displayed in a single room gallery (installation shot at right). Each blind stamped with Warhol copyright.

Comments/Context: So much has been written and said about the art and life of Andy Warhol that you might think the subject was completely tapped out. And yet, the small show of still life Polaroids on view at Paul Kasmin Gallery seems to have unearthed a tiny vein of unexplored territory.

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What is thought provoking about this intimate show is that the pictures allow you to watch as Warhol experimented with composition, almost in an academic, systematic way. He would begin with a handful of similar items (knives, shoes, perfume bottles, lobsters, guns, crosses, candy boxes, dental molds, bananas etc.) and start by laying them out against a white background. 4 or 5 iterations later would emerge a striking, unique composition. These were exercises in spatial relationships, taking the simplest of subjects and turning them into symbolic motifs. It is a testament to his artistic vision that he was able to make even the most mundane somehow glamorous (although clearly some of the subjects are more emotionally charged than others). This doesn't appear to have been at all random; these are carefully constructed, arranged, and composed pictures. It just took a few tries for each subject to be refined to its most powerful pattern. The camera was there along the way to capture each intermediate step. There is a real "artist at work" feel to this exhibit as a result, which makes it particularly intriguing and surprising.

Collector's POV: The images in this show are retailing for $11000 each. Most of the Warhol photographs that have come into the secondary market in the past few years are portraits of celebrities or of himself, with a few of the stitched photographs appearing from time to time, so they don't provide a comparable pricing picture to match against these compositions. They are however interesting historical documents and strong artworks in and of themselves.

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Although they wouldn't fit into our collection directly, the images we enjoyed the most were the following (numbered according to the wall numbering of the exhibit):

• 7 Italian Yarn, 1982-1983
• 9 Telephones 1980
• 30 Bananas 1977-1978
• 41 Crosses 1982
• 49 Shoes 1980

Rating: ** (two stars) VERY GOOD (rating system described here)

Andy Warhol: Still-life Polaroids

Through January 10th

Paul Kasmin Gallery

511 West 27th Street

New York, NY 10001