Benefit Auction: George Eastman House, October 4, 2010

Just ahead of the upcoming photography auctions next week in New York, the George Eastman House is having the largest fundraising event in the museum's history, a massive combo live/online sale of donated photographic material (prints, books, and cameras). While most of the lots are estimated under $10000, the top lot is an Outerbridge still life at $100000.

There are two portions of the benefit sale, a live auction of 93 lots at Sotheby's on October 4th (catalog here, click on the appropriate tab) and an online auction of 223 lots at iGavel running between now and October 7th (catalog here). The printed catalog for the live auction gives ample billing to the donors of the works, but the lack of lot numbers makes it somehwat difficult to reference specific images. Estimates also seem to be missing from the live auction website, so find a hard copy catalog if you need/want this information; estimates for the online auction can be found in the individual lot details on the iGavel website or in the printed supplement to the live auction catalog.

While benefit auctions aren't a natural fit for our statistical price analysis (especially since results aren't usually reported publicly), it doesn't mean they can't be a great place to pick up unexpected bargains while supporting a very worthy cause. All in, these are a pair of sales worth checking out, and an important photographic institution that merits your hard earned collecting dollars.

Benefit Auctions: PRC and Aperture

In addition to the normal stream of photography auctions that we regularly cover here, I thought it might make sense to bring to your attention a pair of benefit auctions that are coming up in the next few weeks: one at the Photographic Resource Center at Boston University (here), the other at the Aperture Foundation (here). Event details (tickets, venues, honorees, etc.) can be found below:

2009 PRC Benefit Auction
October 24, 2009

Aperture Foundation 2009 Benefit and Auction
November 2, 2009

In general, benefit auctions are surprisingly effective hybrid events that often provide some unexpected opportunities for collectors who are paying attention. On one hand, these events are of course first and foremost fund raisers: opportunities to support organizations whose missions match a photography collector's interests. Both of these organizations enrich the photography community via their myriad efforts (exhibits, book publishing, artist support, lectures, awards, and the like) and both are worthy of the generous backing of collectors of all kinds.

On the other hand, these are auctions: places to acquire photographs, just like any other auction. Since benefit auctions tend to get their material as direct donations from artists or their galleries, the images are often offered at surprisingly low prices/reserves, especially in the silent auction portion of most events. And given that there are usually far fewer bidders than a normal photography auction, unless the enthusiastic spirit of giving gets overly lubricated (as it does at some events), bargains can certainly be had from time to time.

While we won't do our normal statistical analysis of these two auctions, a few notes on each:

At the PRC, there are 35 lots in the live auction and 110 lots in the silent auction, ranging from vintage 19th century work to fresh contemporary images, generally weighted toward the newer material. The lot by lot catalogue can be found here. Works by Aaron Siskind and Nicholas Nixon (both in the live auction) are clearly of interest to us.

At Aperture, there are 13 lots in the live auction and 57 lots in the silent auction, mostly contemporary work, several by artists that have published books with Aperture. The lot by lot catalogues can be found here and here. Works by Malick Sidibé and Ruud van Empel caught our eye in the live auction, while images by Dana Buckley and Simon Chaput (in the silent auction) might fit into our collection more neatly.

In both cases, a quick review of the online catalogues is worth your time; there are plenty of excellent, reasonably priced pictures on offer, and both organizations need and deserve your support.