Auction: Photography from A to Z at Christie's

[Pippa Jane Wielgos]

140 lots will go under the hammer at Christie's (South Kensington) on Wednesday 31 October with estimates ranging from £600 to £120,000.

This auction will include examples by over fifty 20^thcentury Masters, from Irving Penn to Peter Beard with a strong focus on contemporary and architectural photography, led by the works of Trine Sondergaarde, Paolo Ventura, Candida Hofer, Philip-Lorca diCorcia and Desirée Dolron.

It will include:- HOMAGE TO VOGUE - with the iconic 1950 Vogue cover by Irving Penn (illustrated above), key highlights of fashion photography include Vogue photographer Hans Feurer’s CameraWork portfolio 1969-1986, consisting of 11 dye-transfer prints offered as one lot (estimate: £10,000-15,000).

INSIDE OUT - Paolo Ventura’s digital chromogenic print War Souvenir No. 26 (Christmas 1944), 2005 (101.6 x 50cm.), (estimate: £5,000-7,000); and Candida Hofer’s Fundación Marcelino Botin Santander V, 2004chromogenic print (29.6 x 22.1cm.); (estimate: £800-1,200), just two of the colour works in a surrealist-inspired section of contemporary photography this season.

SAFARI OF ELEGANCE – will include works by Peter Beard and Nick Brandt including Beard’s Giraffes on the Tarn Desert for The End of the Game, Kenya, 1960 – which characterises the artist’s study of African wildlife (estimate: £15,000-20,000, illustrated below left) and Brandt’s stunning over-sized archival pigment print: Elephant group on bare earth, Amboseli, 2008,(101.6 x 228.6cm.), (estimate: £15,000-20,000).

PORTRAITS OF DISTINCTION – includes celebrities and men of distinction, which cover all from science, art and literature;: Michael Cooper’s album cover of “Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band”, 1967, (38 x 46.2cm.), the only known dye-transfer print of this image, accompanied by an illustrated pamphlet, The Making of Pepper (estimate: £40,000-60,000; David Bailey’s portrait of Nelson Mandela,1997 (estimate: £4,000-6,000); 3 very rare vintage chromogenic prints shot by Neil Armstrong (1930-2012) for NASA, Buzz Aldrin with Lunar Module reflected in his visor, Apollo 11, July 1969 (59.2 x 49.5cm.), (estimate: £4,000-6,000); and Samuel Beckett, Hyde Park Hotel, London, 1980 by John Minihan (101.5 x 66.2cm.), (estimate: £4,000-6,000).

 

Image: Lot 24, Sale 7272
IRVING PENN (1917-2009)
Black and white Vogue cover, 1950

Gelatin silver print, toned in selenium, printed 1984
signed, titled, dated, annotated 'Ref. 7369' and initialled annotation 'Print made 1984' in ink, 'edition not exceeding 16' stamp, 'toned in selenium' stamp, and Penn/Condé Nast copyright credit, reproduction limitation and edition stamps (verso)
image 17¼ x 15¾in. (44 x 38.5cm.)
sheet 18 x 15¼in. (45.7 x 39.8cm.)
This print is from the edition not exceeding 16.

Estimate: £80,000-£120,000