Model/Arbus, Great Photographs of the 20th Century @Hasted Kraeutler

JTF (just the facts): A total of 35 black and white photographs, alternately framed in black (Model) and white (Arbus) and matted, and hung against white walls in the entry and the three rooms of the main gallery space. All of the works are gelatin silver prints, with a mix of vintage and later prints on display. The exhibit includes 15 photographs by Lisette Model, taken between 1934 and 1954, and printed in the 1940s and 1950s. These prints range in size from 12x10 to 20x16 (or reverse), and no edition information was provided. These works have been paired with 20 photographs by Diane Arbus, taken between 1961 and 1971, with one image printed and signed by Arbus, the rest printed later by Neil Selkirk and stamped by the estate. These prints range in size from 14x11 or 26x25 (or reverse) and generally come from editions of 50 or 75. The show also includes 1 video on Arbus. (Installation shots at right.)

Comments/Context: The student/teacher relationship in the realm of art has always been a tricky one. Every teacher wants his or her students to find their own unique artistic voice, but given the close relationship and nature of the ongoing feedback, it is somewhat inevitable that some of teacher's artistic ideas will trickle down into the work of the student, especially if the two have an affinity for the same kind of subject matter or are partial to a similar aesthetic approach. This show probes the nature of that influence, by pairing the work of Lisette Model (the teacher) and Diane Arbus (the student) in direct, side-by-side juxtapositions of photographs with visual echoes. It's a smart, well-edited reconsideration of portraits we have seen before, highlighting the connections and contrasts between the two.

In many ways, the selection and sequencing of the images in this exhibit is designed to highlight the parallels between Model and Arbus. The connections start with similar subjects, where both artists made portraits of pairs/couples, wealthy ladies in fancy hats, people wearing costumes, distorted faces, and stately grande dames and barons at white tie society functions. Other images trace more elemental compositional repetition, from subjects with raised arms or lying on their sides, to those seated in chairs with elbows bent or hands in their lap. When seen together in this manner, the argument for influence is pretty persuasive.

But interestingly enough, even with all the echoes and look alikes on view here, this hanging made me even more aware of the fundamental differences in style between Model and Arbus. Model's work, with its own connections to the grotesqueries of German Expressionism, has an inherent distance to it; her subjects are seen much more formally, even when she's right up close. They are more like specimens to be observed, often seen with a dark, harshness that is on the edge of confrontational. Jump ahead thirty years to Arbus, and her approach is much more intimate. Her eccentrics and oddballs are seen from within rather than from afar; in each and every image, there is a sense of direct personal connection between the photographer and the sitters. Based on these pairings, even if we can ascribe some causal relationship between Model's encouragement and Arbus' ultimate choice of subjects, Arbus has fundamentally replaced Model's judgmental eye with her own accepting embrace.

In a summertime full of light hearted group shows, this double bill has some welcome heft to it. It gives us a credible sampler of two masters of the medium, and thoughtfully investigates their interconnected relationship.

Collector's POV: The prints in this show are priced as follows. The Model prints range in price from $12000 to $45000, while the Arbus prints range from $7500 to $90000. Model's work is generally available in the secondary markets, with roughly a dozen or so lots up for sale in any given year. Recent prices at auction have ranged between $2000 and $62000. Arbus' work is much more ubiquitous at auction, both in the photography and contemporary art sales. Recent prices have ranged from roughly $5000 to up over $600000.

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

Transit Hub:

• Features/Reviews: New Yorker (here), Wall Street Journal (here)

Model/Arbus, Great Photographs of the 20th Century
Through August 16th

Hasted Kraeutler Gallery
537 West 24th Street
New York, NY 10011

Auction Results: Important Photographs from the Collection of Dr. Anthony Terrana, April 2 and 3, 2013 @Phillips New York

Phillips can certainly be pleased with the outcome of the Anthony Terrana single owner photographs sale. Interest was strong across all three price levels, the overall Buy-In rate hovered near 15%, and the Total Sale Proceeds nearly reached the High estimate, powered by a solid number of positive surprises.

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

Total Lots: 165
Pre Sale Low Total Estimate: $3718500
Pre Sale High Total Estimate: $5400000
Total Lots Sold: 140
Total Lots Bought In: 25
Buy In %: 15.15%
Total Sale Proceeds: $5053750

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

Low Total Lots: 78
Low Sold: 72
Low Bought In: 6
Buy In %: 7.69%
Total Low Estimate: $533000
Total Low Sold: $677625

Mid Total Lots: 64
Mid Sold: 50
Mid Bought In: 14
Buy In %: 21.88%
Total Mid Estimate: $1452000
Total Mid Sold: $1348125

High Total Lots: 23
High Sold: 18
High Bought In: 5
Buy In %: 21.74%
Total High Estimate: $3415000
Total High Sold: $3028000

The top lot by High estimate was tied between lot 12, Alfred Stieglitz, Georgia O'Keeffe, 1919 (image at right, top, via Phillips), and lot 19, Irving Penn, Harlequin Dress (Lisa Fonssagrives-Penn), 1950, both estimated at $300000-500000. The Stieglitz sold for $302500 and the Penn sold for $290500. The top outcome of the sale was lot 28, Diane Arbus, Identical Twins Cathleen and Colleen, Roselle, NJ, 1967, estimated at $180000-220000, sold at $602500 (image at right, top, via Phillips).

92.14% of the lots that sold had proceeds in or above the estimate range. There were a total of 18 surprises in the sale (defined as having proceeds of at least double the high estimate):

Lot 3, Francesca Woodman, Untitled, Providence, Rhode Island, 1975-1978, estimated at $25000-35000, sold at $86500
Lot 7, Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, Lyon Stadium, 1929. estimated at $90000-120000, sold at $278500
Lot 18, Herb Ritts, Versace Dress, Back View, El Mirage, 1990, estimated at $20000-30000, sold at $68500
Lot 20, Robert Polidori, Galerie Basse, Chateau de Versailles, 1985, estimated at $18000-22000, sold at $45000
Lot 28, Diane Arbus, Identical Twins Cathleen and Colleen, Roselle, NJ, 1967, estimated at $180000-220000, sold at $602500
Lot 29, Angela Strassheim, Untitled (Father & Son), 2004, estimated at $10000-15000, sold at $35000
Lot 137, Pieter Hugo, Abdullahi Mohammed with Mainsara, Ogere-Remo, Nigeria, from Gadawan Kura, The Hyena Men II, 2007, estimated at $10000-15000, sold at $40000
Lot 41, Martine Franck, Children's Library Built by the Atelier Montrouge, Clamart, France, 1965/later, estimated at $2000-3000, sold at $6875
Lot 45, Lewis Hine, Tenement Product, Chicago, 1907/1920s, estimated at $6000-8000, sold at $52500 (image at right, middle, via Phillips)
Lot 67, Edward Steichen, The Flatiron Evening, 1905, estimated at $5000-7000, sold at $23750
Lot 98, Masao Yamamoto, Selected images from A Box of Ku and Nakazora, 1990-2002, estimated at $6000-8000, sold at $18750
Lot 101, Lynn Davis, Red Pyramid, Dashur, Cairo, Egypt, 1997, estimated at $7000-9000, sold at $20000
Lot 108, Nobuyoshi Araki, Untitled, 1990-2000, estimated at $3000-4000, sold at $11250
Lot 114, Sally Mann, Untitled from Deep South, 1998, estimated at $7000-9000, sold at $26250
Lot 130, Ryan McGinley, Whirlwind, 2003, estimated at $5000-7000, sold at $15000
Lot 140, Mickalene Thomas, Afro Goddess Lover's Friend, 2006, estimated at $8000-10000, sold at $23750
Lot 158, Alex Prager, Annie, 2007, estimated at $5000-7000, sold at $30000 (image at right, bottom, via Phillips)
Lot 159, Alex Prager, Wendy from Week-End, 2009, estimated at $7000-9000, sold at $21875

Complete lot by lot results can be found here.

Phillips
450 Park Avenue
New York, NY 10022

Auction: Photographs, October 6 and 7, 2010 @Christie's

The main event Photographs auctions occur next week in New York, with Christie's up on the 6th and 7th with a sprawling various owner sale spanning two days. Highlights include a group of Yosemite views by Carleton Watkins, another selection of American color photography from the Berman collection, and a deep roster of Irving Penn images. There are a total of 349 lots on offer, with a total High estimate of $6795500.
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Here's the simple statistical breakdown:

Total Low Lots (high estimate up to and including $10000): 189
Total Low Estimate (sum of high estimates of Low lots): $1193500

Total Mid Lots (high estimate between $10000 and $50000): 137
Total Mid Estimate: $3302000

Total High Lots (high estimate above $50000): 23
Total High Estimate: $2300000

The top lot by High estimate is lot 32, Diane Arbus, Identical Twins, Roselle, New Jersey, 1967, at $250000-350000 (image at right, top, via Christie's).
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Here's the complete list of photographers represented by five or more lots in the sale (with the number of lots in parentheses):

Irving Penn (23)
Ansel Adams (16)
William Eggleston (15)
Joel Sternfeld (15)
Diane Arbus (14)
Stephen Shore (14)
Robert Frank (13)
Robert Polidori (11)
Carleton Watkins (11)
William Christenberry (9)
Alec Soth (9)
Henri Cartier-Bresson (9)
Robert Mapplethorpe (8)
Man Ray (8)
Harry Callahan (7)
Frederick Evans (6)
Mitch Epstein (5)
Hiroshi Sugimoto (5)

For our own collection, I can imagine bidding on:

Lot 14, Margaret Bourke-White, Terminal Tower, Cleveland, Ohio, 1928 (image at right, bottom, via Christie's)
Lot 108, Lewis Baltz, Houston, Texas, 1973

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

Photographs
October 6th and 7th

Christie's
20 Rockefeller Plaza
New York, NY 10020

Diane Arbus, In the Absence of Others @Cheim & Read

JTF (just the facts): A total of 12 black and white images, framed in white and matted, and hung against grey walls in a single room gallery space. Only 1 print in the show is a vintage gelatin silver print; the rest of the prints are posthumous gelatin silver prints made by Neil Selkirk. The negative dates range from 1961 to 1971. All of the images were printed 20x16 or reverse, most ending up square; the later prints were made in editions of 50, or more often 75. (Installation shots at right.)
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Comments/Context: The legend of Diane Arbus has been told so many times and in such depth in recent years that it seems hard to believe that there might be anything more to uncover in her story. This small show doesn't try to compete with the major Arbus retrospectives that still linger in our memories, but takes a tightly edited, lesser known slice of her work (the kind of images one might blow by in a larger exhibit of her more famous works) and gives it some spotlight attention. While Arbus' intimate portrait work is easily her most recognizable, these images give quirky man-made spaces and offbeat interiors the same sensitive treatment that is her hallmark.
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While Arbus often pointed her camera at some of the more marginal and eccentric members of human society, it is clear that she also found the oddities of our constructed environments (unoccupied by people of any kind) equally worth close investigation. Painted murals in hotel lobbies, deserted amusement parks and movie theaters, and empty living rooms are found to be unsettling and surprisingly abnormal, the peculiar details becoming more weird and absurd under more intense scrutiny.

This small show is proof that Arbus applied the same talent for getting underneath the surface of her portrait subjects to the overlooked strangeness of our own places, discovering the unexpected that is often left hidden in our peripheral vision. While this show won't move the needle on Arbus scholarship or change the trajectory of the overall Arbus narrative, it is at least a welcome reprieve from the now-hackneyed display of her best known works.
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Collector's POV: The prints in this show are priced between $16000 and $65000. Given the popularity of Arbus for both photography and contemporary art collectors, her work swirls through he secondary markets with significant regularity. Prices range anywhere from perhaps $5000 on the low end to nearly $500000 on the high end. Both vintage and later prints are almost always available, with the posthumous prints gaining in popularity to such a degree that they too often reach into six figures. While none of these works is a particular fit for our collection, I enjoyed digging into the gloomy House of Horrors (an image I don't remember looking closely at before), silently empty of squealing visitors.
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Rating: * (one star) GOOD (rating system described here)

Transit Hub:

• Revelations @SFMOMA, 2003 (here); @Met, 2005 (here)
• NY Times reviews, 2005 (here) and (here)

Diane Arbus, In the Absence of Others
Through February 13th

Cheim & Read
547 West 25th Street
New York, NY 10001