Auction: Photographs, November 14, 2009 @Phillips

Phillips has switched the order of its New York and London photographs sales this year, putting the London photographs sale right next to Frieze (and generally in line with the New York photographs season earlier in October) and the New York photographs sale later this week, right on the heels of the main New York Contemporary Art season. Both moves reinforce the house's positioning of photography away from the traditional vintage crowd and more toward the world of contemporary art.

This sale has echoes of Phillips' other recent photographs sales, as it is bookended by a further installment of Mapplethorpe prints from Lisa Lyon's collection, as well as another sampler of vintage Japanese work from the Jacobson/Hashimoto collection. In the middle, a selection of images (many celebrity/fashion) by Albert Watson can be found. There are a total of 294 photography lots on offer, with a Total High Estimate of $3461100. (Catalog cover at right, via Phillips.)

Here's the breakdown:

Total Low Lots (high estimate up to and including $10000): 203

Total Low Estimate (sum of high estimates of Low lots): $1121100

Total Mid Lots (high estimate between $10000 and $50000): 81

Total Mid Estimate: $1655000

Total High Lots (high estimate above $50000): 10

Total High Estimate: $685000

The top lot by High estimate is lot 105, Thomas Ruff, Nude ox03, 2006, at $60000-80000.

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

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Robert Mapplethorpe (14)

Albert Watson (11)

William Eggleston (10)

Iwao Yamawaki (8)

Horst P. Horst (7)

Shikanosuke Yagaki (7)

Ansel Adams (6)

Nobuyoshi Araki (5)

Diane Arbus (5)

Peter Beard (5)

Larry Clark (5)

Patrick Demarchelier (5)

Yasumasa Morimura (5)

Koyo Okada (5)

Minayoshi Takada (5)

George Tice (5)

Joel-Peter Witkin (5)

Bill Brandt (4)

Nan Goldin (4)

Irving Penn (4)

Sebastiao Salgado (4)

Wolfgang Tillmans (4)

Berenice Abbott (3)

Helena Almeida (3)

Edward Burtynsky (3)

Henri Cartier-Bresson (3)

Emmet Gowin (3)
Sally Mann (3)

Thomas Ruff (3)

Flip Schulke (3)
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For our particular collection, there are a few lots that caught our eye. They include:

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Lot 210 Dennis Hopper, Double Standard, 1961

Lot 244 Edward Weston, Nude, 1927 (at right, bottom)

Lot 289 Iwao Yamawaki, On the street, Germany, 1930s (at right, middle)

The complete lot by lot catalog can be found here.

Photographs
November 14th

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

Auction: Photographs, October 15, 2009 @Phillips London

For some reason, Phillips has decided against a spot in line with the rest of the auction houses in New York this season, and scheduled a various owner photographs sale in London a week later. This sale is a mixed bag of material, tilted as usual toward the contemporary, with additional installments of Mapplethorpe prints from Lisa Lyon, vintage Japanese work from the Jacobsen/Hashimoto collection, and a handful of fresh works from the Humble Arts Foundation. There are a total of 180 lots on offer, with a total high estimate of £1283600.

Here's the breakdown:

Total Low Lots (high estimate up to and including £5000): 87

Total Low Estimate (sum of high estimates of Low lots): £268600

Total Mid Lots (high estimate between £5000 and £25000): 86

Total Mid Estimate: £715000

Total High Lots (high estimate above £25000): 7

Total High Estimate: £300000

The top lot by High estimate is lot 131, Irving Penn, Girl behind glass (Jean Pacthett), New York, 1949, at £50000-70000.

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Here's the list of photographers with at least 3 images in the sale (with the number of lots on offer in parentheses):

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Robert Mapplethorpe (8)

Hiroshi Sugimoto (8)

Iwao Yamawaki (8)

Nobuyoshi Araki (5)

Shikanosuke Yagaki (5)

Rene Burri (4)

Horst P. Horst (4)

Farhad Moshiri & Shirin Aliabadi (4)
Lillian Bassman (3)

Henri Cartier-Bresson (3)

Helmut Newton (3)

Koyo Okada (3)

Norman Parkinson (3)

Sebastiao Salgado (3)

Chris Steele-Perkins (3)

Minayohsi Takada (3)

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While there weren't too many great fits for our collection in this sale, we did like:

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Lot 108 Susan Derges, River Taw (Crab Apple), 13 May 1998

Lot 146 Reem Al Faisal, Untitled from Jeddah Port, 1995

Lot 152 Hiroshi Sugimoto, Honen Dam, 2001

Lot 165 Iwao Yamawaki, View from a lookout tower, 1932 (at right)

The complete lot by lot catalog can be found here.

Photographs

October 15th

Phillips De Pury & Company

Howick Place

London SW1P 1BB

Book: Iwao Yamawaki

JTF (just the facts): Published in 1999 by Edition 7L at Steidl. Unpaginated, with 62 black and white plates, a short essay by Ingrid Sischy, and a biography. Slip covered in cardboard, with a partially transparent dust jacket. (Poor cover shot at right.)

Comments/Context: The odds are pretty good that most collectors don't recognize the name of Japanese photographer Iwao Yamawaki. Yamawaki was an architect by training and profession who made up his mind that he wanted to study at the Bauhaus. So in 1930, he took a leave of absence from his job, packed up his wife, and moved to Dessau, where he took classes from Josef Albers, Wassily Kandinsky, Walter Peterhans and Kurt Kranz among others, and developed a strong interest in making photographs.

During the period from 1930 to about 1933, Yamawaki focused his camera on architectural studies (both interior and exterior), portraits, and still lifes, making straight images, dominated by contrasts of line and form, often taken from unexpected steep angles and viewpoints (reminiscent of Moholy-Nagy or Rodchenko). His work is perfectly representative of the theories being taught at the Bauhaus, emphasizing simple, sculptural forms. The pictures themselves are well composed, stylish and elegant, brimming with the confidence of modernism. After his time in Germany, Yamawaki returned to Japan and restarted his career as an architect, and while he continued his interest in the teachings of the Bauhaus, his work as a photographer came to an end. That said, his short career with a camera produced some superior images.

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This monograph was made with attention to detail, with excellent reproductions on luxurious paper, exquisitely matched to the richness and refinement of the pictures.

Collector's POV: We were first introduced to Yamawaki's work last year, when several of his images came up at various auctions. (We know, we're a decade behind most of you.) While we didn't know much about the photographer, we were drawn to the prints we saw, given they were strong, vintage Bauhaus images, offered at reasonable prices. Going back into the auction records, very few Yamawaki images have come up for sale in the past few years, most selling in a range between $3000 and $7000. At retail, Howard Greenberg Gallery (here) appears to have a good selection of Yamawaki inventory on its website.

Auction: Photographs, November 22, 2008 @Phillips London

Given the nature of the auction business, it is often the case that collections and groups of work are sold all at once, the result of death, divorce, or some other life changing event that requires the liquidation of one's assets. Parsing through the catalog's fine print, it is sometimes possible to reconstruct where the lots came from en masse, or where the original groupings were. The current London sale from Phillips has a very structured feel as a result of this kind of group selling, with distinct sections of work that are nearly unrelated, intermingled with various lots from other consignors. Let's take a look at the underlying framework of this sale:

Lots 1-5 Oxfam benefit lots
Lots 6-23 Mixed/random (mostly pre 1975)
Lots 24-31 Mapplethorpe lots from Lisa Lyon
Lots 32-101 Mixed contemporary lots (Phillips' bread and butter)
Lots 102-120 Arab/Iranian lots (new area of exploration, perhaps another area to separate themselves from the rest of the auction pack)
Lots 121-130 Contemporary Chinese/Korean lots (area of Phillips' leadership, due to being the first to bring this type of work to the auction market)
Lots 131-175 Japanese lots from the Jacobsen/Ishimoto collection (mostly 1930s)
Lots 176-188 Other Japanese lots (mostly contemporary)

So depending on your interests, you can likely focus on certain parts of this catalog and browse through the others as background or general education. The sale has a total of 188 lots up for sale, with a total high estimate of 1623500 Pounds. Here's the price breakdown:

Total Low Lots (high estimate below 5000 Pounds): 98
Total Low Estimate (sum of high estimates of Low lots): 296500 Pounds

Total Mid Lots (high estimate between 5000 and 25000 Pounds): 81
Total Mid Estimate: 807000 Pounds

Total High Lots (high estimate above 25000 Pounds): 9
Total High Estimate: 520000 Pounds

The heaviness at the Low end of this sale is due to the large number of low priced lots in the vintage Japanese collection. Otherwise, this is a generally strong Mid range sale.

For our collection, there are some interesting pieces among the Jacobsen/Ishimoto collection, many of which aren't often readily available here in the US:

• Lot 134 Ori Umesaka, Flower I, II, III, IV, c1930
• Lot 156 Iwao Yamawaki, Bicycle rack, 1930-1932 (image at right)
• Lot 173 Iwao Yamawaki, Abstraction (scissors and cardboard with shadow), 1932

Beyond these, we also like the following contemporary lots, even though they don't fit into our collection as directly:

• Lot 66 Desiree Dolron, Librario Escuela Julio Mela, 2002-2003
• Lot 70 Ruud van Empel, Moon #1, 2005
• Lot 82 Edward Burtynsky, Shipyard #22, Qili Port, Zheliang Province, China, 2005

While these Japanese lots may be of interest to those attending Paris Photo (where this year's focus is on Japanese photography), we wonder about how broad an audience this work actually has. It will also be interesting to see how the Arab/Iranian work does, given that it is new to most collectors. All in all, a bit of a strange mix, but at least it isn't a boring rehashing of the usual suspects.

Photographs
November 22nd

Phillips De Pury & Company
Howick Place
London SW1P 1BB