Auction: Photographs, December 2, 2010 @Bloomsbury London

As usual, Bloomsbury's upcoming London Photographs sale is a lower end mix of mostly lesser known vintage material. With the vast majority of lots having a high estimate of £2000 or lower, it will certainly possible to pick up some prints at reasonable prices. Keep your eyes open for Brassaï's city cats. Overall, there are a total of 236 lots on offer, with a Total High Estimate of £335620.

Here's the breakdown:

Total Low Lots (high estimate up to and including £5000): 227

Total Low Estimate (sum of high estimates of Low lots): £271120

Total Mid Lots (high estimate between £5000 and £25000): 9

Total Mid Estimate: £64500

Total High Lots (high estimate above £25000): 0

Total High Estimate: NA

The top lot by High estimate is tied between two lots: lot 176, Horst P. Horst, Corset, Paris, 1939/Later, and lot 177, Horst P. Horst, Round the Clock I, 1987/Later, both at £8000-10000.

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

Brassaï (14)
Erwin Blumenfeld (6)
Edouard Boubat (4)
Julia Margaret Cameron (4)
Robert Doisneau (4)
De Lancey Gill (4)
Weegee (4)

The complete lot by lot catalog can be found here. While we won't have the opportunity to do a statistical analysis on Bloomsbury's Rome Photographs sale coming up on December 3rd, the lot by lot catalogue can be found here.

(Lot 21, Julia Margaret Cameron, Cecilia Tennyson, 1871-1872, at £3000-5000, at right, bottom, lot 77, Walker Evans, Fulton Market Area, New York, c1934, at £3000-4000, at right, middle, and lot 195, Ed van der Elsken, Vali a St-Germain-des-Pres (Reve), 1952, at £600-800, at right, top, all via Bloomsbury.)

Photographs

December 2nd

Bloomsbury Auctions

24 Maddox Street

Mayfair

London WS1 1PP

Ed van der Elsken, My Amsterdam @Mireille Mosler

JTF (just the facts): A total of 14 images (8 black and white and 6 color), along with a short 16mm black and white film from 1965. The black and white prints are vintage from the 1950s and 1960s and are approximately 9x12. The color prints are from the late 1960s and early 1970s and are posthumous prints, approximately 16x24 in size. There is also a portfolio of 12 color prints, entitled My Amsterdam, edited by Martin Parr in 2005, available for viewing. (Installation shot at right.)

Comments/Context: While the Dutch photographer Ed van der Elsken took pictures all over the world in his 40 year career, it is his pictures of his home city of Amsterdam that are perhaps his most well known. They capture the everyday life in the streets of the city in all its eccentric glory, full of energy and exuberance, spontaneous and happily nonconformist. The black and white images in this small show capture kids playing in grimy streets, climbing on burned out cars and wearing cardboard boxes, and yet, these are somehow positive pictures, documenting that life does go on amidst the chaos.

The color prints have a more 70s time capsule feel showing store fronts and people in the streets in saturated, dated colors. These images also have the signature van der Elsken spirit, and Parr has made some excellent selections for the portfolio; it is well worth looking through if you have the time.

The artist's website is located here.

Collector's POV: The vintage black and white images in the show are priced at 5500 Euros each. The color prints range from 2000 Euros to 12000 Euros based on their place in the edition, and the portfolio is available for 5000 Euros. There have been a small number of van der Elsken's prints available in the secondary markets over the past few years, selling for affordable prices, usually under $5000. The Ed van der Elsken estate is represented by Annet Gelink Gallery in Amsterdam (here) and Howard Greenberg Gallery in New York (here).

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

Ed van der Elsken, My Amsterdam
Through February 21

Mireille Mosler Ltd.
33 East 67th Street
New York, NY 10021