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SELECT OFFERING OF FINE PHOTOGRAPHS AT AUCTION AT SWANN GALLERIES ON MARCH 24

On Thursday, March 24, Swann Galleries will conduct an auction of Fine Photographs that features early photographic images and photobooks, classic modern images and examples of contemporary art.

A selection of 19th-century albums kicks off the sale with Linnaeus Tripe’s Photographs of the Elliot Marbles; and Other Subjects; In the Central Museum Madras, a spectacular complete album with 75 photographs, featuring a group of sculptures from the ruined Buddhist stupa at Amaravati, salted paper prints from the dry collodion process, 1858-9 (estimate: $35,000 to $45,000); and Adam Clark Vroman’s Arizona and New Mexico, Volume II, a lavish album with more than 165 platinum prints depicting the famous Snake Dance of the Moqui people, dynamic portraits, images of Native American dwellings, landscapes, and Vroman's traveling party, platinum prints, 1897 ($30,000 to $40,000)

Featured early 20th-century photobooks are a partial run of Camera Work, containing Numbers 12 through 21 & 38 of the beautifully produced fine art magazine edited by Alfred Stieglitz, each illustrated with photogravure reproductions of photographs by Edward Steichen, Stieglitz, Alvin Langdon Coburn and others, New York, 1905-1908 & 1912 ($20,000 to $30,000); a rare signed and inscribed copy of Coburn’s lavish New York, with 20 hand-pulled photogravures of his views of New York City, first edition, London & New York, 1910 ($20,000 to $25,000); and two individual volumes from Edward S. Curtis’s masterpiece The North American Indian, Volume VI ($6,000 to $9,000) and Volume XIII ($5,000 to $7,500).

Classic examples of black and white photography are Helen Levitt’s New York, silver print image of a little boy holding a paper mask, circa 1940 ($14,000 to $18,000); Alfred Eisenstaedt’s Children at Puppet Theatre, Paris, 1963, printed 1991 ($25,000 to $35,000); Roy DeCarava’s Man in Striped Shirt at the Piano, 1954, printed 1983, and Man Coming up Subway Stairs, 1952, printed 1996 ($10,000 to $15,000 each); Harry Callahan’s Wabash Avenue, Chicago, Fall, 1958 ($14,000 to $18,000); and Henri Cartier-Bresson’s Ireland, 1962, printed 1980s ($10,000 to $15,000).

Eye-catching fashion and glamour photographs include Bert Stern’s iconic Marilyn Monroe (from "The Last Sitting"), unique enlarged Fuji Crystal Archive print contact sheet containing nine colorful images, 1962, printed 1979 ($14,000 to $18,000); and Irving Penn’s nude portrait of Alexandra Beller, New York, from the Dancer series, selenium-toned silver print, 1999, printed 2000 ($18,000 to $22,000).

Among color highlights are Ernst Haas’s portfolio The Creation, with 10 vivid dye-transfer prints, one of 300 numbered copies, 1962-1981, printed 1981 ($7,000 to $10,000); Annie Leibovitz’s Robert Redford, Malibu, California, cibachrome print, 1980 ($4,000 to $6,000); and Stephen Shore’s Deerfield St., Greenfield, MA, chromogenic print, 1974, printed circa 1980 ($4,000 to $6,000).

Lot 155: Cindy Sherman, "Diptych: Doctor and Nurse," silver prints, 1980-1987. Estimate:$7,000-10,000 © Cindy Sherman

Other contemporary works of note include Cindy Sherman’s Diptych: Doctor and Nurse, silver prints, 1980-1987 ($7,000 to $10,000); James Casebere’s Kitchen Table, silver print, 1982; printed 1983 ($4,000 to $6,000); an Untitled silver pint photograph by Robert Rauschenberg, from an edition of 25, 1983 ($5,000 to $7,500); Susan Derges’s The Observer and the Observed #6, silver print, 1992, which appears on the cover of the auction catalogue ($9,000 to $12,000); and Robert ParkeHarrison’s Flying Lesson, photogravure with cold beeswax and chine collé, 2000 ($2,500 to $3,500).

Lot 152: Robert Rauschenberg, "Untitled," silver print, 1983. Estimate:$5,000-7,500
© Estate of Robert Rauschenberg

The auction will begin at 2:00 p.m. on Thursday, March 24.

The photographs will be on public exhibition at Swann Galleries on Friday, March 18 by appointment only; Saturday, March 19, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.; Monday, March 21 through Wednesday, March 23, from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.; and Thursday, March 24, from 10 a.m. to noon.