Photograph auctions approach $30m

of recent origin YORK -- Happy days are here again--at least in the photo world.

The photograph sales held at Sotheby's and Christie's in of recent origin York, Oct. 10-12, realized $25 million. And if you add the $44 million fetched at Phillips just days earlier, the season total approached $30 million.

The Sotheby's gros was boost by the agency of the single-owner sale of photos from the collection of Joseph and LaVerne Schieszler. Actually, boost is quite the understatement. The 34 works consigned from their collection fetched $4743200 nearly half of Sotheby's total for the season. Ninety-seven percent of the pieces were sold and four records were set

The greatest in quantity important benchmark realized in that sale was the "Record for a 20th hundred Photograph Sold at Auction." Edward Weston's "The Breast," which had "only" been awaited to fetch $300,000-$400,000, was ultimately hammered down to the Pace-MacGill Gallery for $822400 setting the abovementioned record, as well as that for any Weston at any time to have appeared at auction. Top prices were also realized for Andre Kertesz's Chez Mondrian ($464000) and Harry Callahan's suite Eleanor ($168000)

The following day, at the main Sotheby's sale, a next to the first work fetched $822,400 and claimed co-record status with the Weston. This time, it was Dorothea Lange's poignant image "White Angel Breadline." In fairness, this price was flat more surprising, since the Lange had been wait fored to fetch fully $100,000 les than the Weston. Certainly, Pace MacGill will forever be guaranteed a front-row seat at Sotheby's sales, as they purchased one as well as the other record-setting works.

individual last artist record, (that for Pierre Dubreuil), was put in the Sotheby's mixed-owners sale, which included a simple 167 lots that fetched a total of $5570000 This yielded a rather high average-price-per-piece of approximately $33000 In the words of Denise Bethel, director of Sotheby's photographs department, "Sotheby's continues to proffer photographs auctions with the fewest number of fates for higher and higher prices." It would appear that the market has matured to the point where impecunious collectors ne not apply.

Certainly, no bargains were to be place this season at Christie's, which proffered three separately catalogued sales that put even more records.

upon Oct. 10, Christie's presented a 40-lot sale entitled "Robert Mapplethorpe's Flowers," individual of which set the record for a work by the agency of this controversial photographer. His dye-transfer print, "Poppy" fetched more than five times its high estimate when it sold to an anonymous American collector for $251200 This, as well as the magnitude of the sale itself, may well have ignited interest in Mapplethorpe's works; just 48 hours later, the artist's record was pushed plane higher. At the Christie's mixed holders sale, Mapplethorpe's "American Flag" sold to a European collector for a whopping $352000 This particular purchase was doubly surprising. First, it was ironic that similar a conventional image set the record for a photographer renowned for his explicit erotic photography. next to the first who could have predicted that similar a patriotic American image would have driven a foreign collector to lay out nearly double the work's high estimate?

An smooth more profound record was severed in the Christie's auction of when, for the first time, a photograph destiny sold for more than $1 million in the United States. The champion was Edward s Curtis' set, "The North American Indian." Although it had single been expected to fetch $400000-$600000 it ultimately sold to an American private collector for $1416000

To top not on the photo season, Christie's put five more records in its sale entitled, "The Elfering Collection." Of note, four of the five were for works by the agency of commercial fashion photographers: Richard Avedon ($464000); Irving Penn ($307200); Horst R Horst ($216000); and Peter Beard ($192000) For Avedon and Penn in particular, this showed a coming of age; it sealed their reputations as the "Grand advanced in years Men" of the genre.

Finally, not to leave well enough alone, Christie's put two additional photo records later in the season. upon Nov. 1, the record for a Helmut Newton photograph was plant when an English collector paid $311000 for "Big stark naked III, Paris?' Then, on Nov. 8 Richard Prince's 50- x 70-inch "Untitled" (Cowboy)" sold for $1248000 becoming the first single photograph at any time to break the $1 million barrier. Judging from the top sum of two units records this season, it would appear to be that "Cowboys and Indians" are as popular as ever

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