This year Sotheby’s offers an unrivalled selection of classic works in the Photographs sale on 23 May 2015 in London, with the auction timed to take place alongside Photo London, a major international photography event that will be held in the heart of the capital from 21-24 May 2015.
This year Sotheby’s offers an unrivalled selection of classic works in the Photographs sale on 23 May 2015 in London, with the auction timed to take place alongside Photo London, a major international photography event that will be held in the heart of the capital from 21-24 May 2015. With a strong emphasis on fashion and glamour, the sale opens with a chapter devoted to one of the greatest fashion photographers of all time, Helmut Newton, and is supported by iconic works from Irving Penn, Horst P. Horst and Erwin Blumenfeld amongst others.
The auction’s two top lots belong to the avant-garde master Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, the two photograms Untitled (fgm78), 1923- 25 and Untitled (fgm8OA), 1923-25, with important vintage photographs from this period by Hans Bellmer, Paul Outerbridge and Edward Steichen also on offer. Two outstanding works by the revered and highly collectable artists Bern and Hilla Becher are for sale, as are key pieces from their Düsseldorf School pupils Andreas Gursky, Thomas Struth, Thomas Ruff, Candida Höfer and Elger Esser. A wonderfully varied selection of works by Peter Beard is available alongside covetable images by Nick Brandt, Sebastião Salgado and Henri-Cartier Bresson. Photographs by Hiroshi Sugimoto, Nobuyoshi Araki and Daido Moriyama feature prominently in the contemporary selection.
Image above: Horst P. Horst. 1906 - 1999 ‘Round the Clock II, New York’, 1987. Platinum-palladium print. Estimate: £4,000 – 6,000. Courtesy Sotheby’s.