Swann Galleries’ auction of important Nineteenth and Twentieth Century photographs on October 15 was an historic sale. A partial set of Edward S. Curtis’s “The North American Indian,” sold for $1,048,000, making it the first million-dollar item sold at Swann. That, combined with a stellar selection of vintage and modern photographs, led to Swann’s top photography auction to date.
Daile Kaplan, Swann Galleries vice president and director of the photography department, said, “How marvelous that a classic of photographic literature, Edward Curtis’s ‘The North American Indian,’ is Swann’s first million-dollar lot! The continued growth in the market may be attributed to the fact that buyers from the antiquarian book, contemporary art and design fields are discovering fine art photography. The best is yet to come.”
The partial set of Curtis’s magnum opus, with 16 complete portfolios containing large-format photogravures and 16 fully illustrated text volumes in handsome morocco bindings was set number 74 of a planned edition of 500, signed by Curtis, his financial backer J.P. Morgan and Theodore Roosevelt. Curtis produced only about half of the 500 sets of “The North American Indian” he intended to publish, because he could not attract enough subscribers. Sets of this tour-de-force work are rare, and most of the extant copies are in institutional collections in the United States and Europe.
The auction also offered a rich selection of Nineteenth Century images. Among the highlights was a whole-plate daguerreotype of Bond & Mollyneaux Groceries & Provisions from the 1850s, which far exceeded its presale estimate of $6/9,000 to sell for $57,600. A Barbizon-style study of a pastoral setting with wagon by Eugène Cuvelier, salted paper print, 1862, brought $21,600; Lewis Carroll’s “Fair Rosamond,” arch-topped albumen print, 1863, $28,800; Carleton E. Watkins’s view of the Devil’s Canyon Geysers, mammoth-plate albumen print, circa 1869, $22,800; and a panoramic view of a train heading east on Rockville Bridge, Penn., by Frederick Gutekunst, oversize albumen print, 1877, achieved an auction record price of $33,600.
There were many early images within a collection of nautical and maritime photographs assembled by Tampa, Fla., collector C.W. Sahlman. These included William Henry Fox Talbot’s “Hungerford Bridge,” salted paper print by the inventor of photography, 1842, $16,800; Gustave Le Gray’s “Brig on the Water,” large-format albumen print, 1856, $31,200; and Timothy O’Sullivan’s “Black Canyon, Colorado River, From Camp 8, Looking Above,” albumen print, 1871, an image from the Wheeler Geological Survey of the Western United States, $13,200.
Twentieth Century highlights among the nautical images were Alfred Stieglitz’s “The Steerage,” photogravure on Japan tissue, from Camera Work , No. 36, 1907, $7,200; Margaret Bourke-White’s “Climbing the Mast,” warm-toned silver print, 1934, $9,600; and Adolf Fassbender’s “Just Drifting,” silver bromide print, 1939, $6,000.
Other noted silver prints from the first half of the Twentieth Century were two photographs by Josef Sudek, untitled (interior with two men), and untitled (sun draped interior), 1922′7, $12,000 for the pair; Brassaï’s “Members of Big Albert’s gang, Place d’Italie,” ferrotyped silver print, 1932, printed 1970s, $14,400; Alfred Eisenstaedt’s “Premier at La Scala, Milan,” 1933, printed 1995, $20,400; Manuel Alvarez Bravo’s untitled (Window in Wall), 1938, $33,600; Horst P. Horst’s “Mainbocher Corset,” Paris, 1939, printed circa 1990, $13,200; and Margaret Bourke-White’s “DC-4 Flying Over New York City,” 1939, printed 2001, $14,400.
Midcentury works included Roy De Carava’s untitled (New York City), silver print, 1949, a record $24,000; Henri Cartier-Bresson’s well-known “Rue Mouffetard, Paris,” silver print, 1954, printed 1980s, $13,200; and Robert Frank’s gritty “Miami Beach,” silver print, 1956, $31,200.
Among more contemporary highlights were Larry Clark’s untitled (Man with Gun), silver print, early 1970s, $12,000; Horst’s “Round the Clock I, New York,” silver print, 1987, printed circa 1990, $13,200; and Sally Mann’s “At Warm Springs,” silver print, 1991, $12,000. Mann’s “Jessie at 12 (Parts I and II),” silver prints, 1995, sold for a record $33,600.
Prices reported include the buyer’s premium. For information, www.swanngalleries.com or 212-254-4710.
