By Stephen Perloff
Editor of The Photograph Collector Newsletter

Most dealers came to AIPAD's Photography Show New York with low--or no--expectations. And most were pleasantly surprised that their expectations were often exceeded. And of course many dealers were upset that the auction houses moved up their schedule to follow directly on the heels of the Photography Show, fearing that it would dilute their business. But if anything, it seems it was the auctions that suffered more this time out.

Sotheby's led off the auction season on March 30 with a sale that could best be described as desultory. In fact, that describes all four of the auctions this spring. It's clear that not many people were willing to consign to these auctions, especially prime material. Sotheby's sale consisted of many printed-later chestnuts--the kind of material that they have refused to take in recent years--and they fleshed out the sale with some 21 lots that they had an ownership interest in--from Margaret W. Weston and the Museum of Modern Art. It was definitely not an ecologically-minded crowd as only nine of the recycled lots sold.

The auction began with only 40 people present in the room, which made Sotheby's large saleroom seem like the prairie; and there were only eight people manning the phones. Maybe another dozen people drifted in as the sale went on, but the room was deathly quiet.

A vintage print of Brett Weston's "Ford Trimotor", 1935, flew off for $22,500, not particularly remarkable, except that the print was marked "$15.00" on the reverse. Ansel Adams's "Parmelian Prints of the High Sierras" ($60,000–$90,000) sold on the phone to the Alinder Gallery for $62,500, tied for seventh place on the sale. Alinder also bought Adams's Portfolio Three for the same price. "The Grand Tetons and the Snake River" ($50,000-$75,000) passed, but a "Moonrise" hit its low estimate at $37,500.

Manuel Álvarez Bravo's portfolio, Fifteen Photographs, also fetched that same price, but a group of five nude studies of Sonya Noskowiak by Edward Weston ($50,000-$70,000) found no takers.

Boston dealer and former AIPAD president Robert Klein captured Frantisek Drtikol's modernist Nude, 1932, for $53,125. Alfred Eisenstaedt's "Children at a Puppet Theater, Paris", the LIFE edition of 250 ($25,000-$35,000), has sold for $30,000 up to $48,000 in the last few years. Here it went for $23,750, $19,000 hammer. But Yousuf Karsh's portfolio, Fifteen Portraits, garnered $40,625, just over the midpoint of its estimate.

Sotheby's got a lot of good press, especially in New York, for the half-plate daguerreotype "A Country Home Along 'A Continuation of Broadway,'" October 1848 or earlier by an unknown photographer. It's an early and important work, though not an esthetic masterpiece. Collectors Billy and Jennifer Frist had little competition and their order bid won at the low estimate, $62,500.

British dealer Eric Franck got a bargain when he bought Robert Frank's London, 1951 ($25,000-$35,000)--a man walking through a fog-shrouded park--for only $10,000 hammer, $12,500 with premium. At least a few consignors were willing to sell at almost any price. Peter MacGill reached the third highest price of the sale, $98,500, the low estimate, for Frank's "London (Hearse)". But a European phone bidder bested MacGill for Frank's "New Orleans (Trolley)" at $122,500, the midpoint of the estimate, and good for second place.

Galerie Thierry Marlat, Paris, bidding by phone, went to $62,500 for Irving Penn's "Picasso (B), Cannes", under low estimate and the fourth tie for seventh place. Then New York art consultant Kevin Moore took first place by a wide margin, bidding $242,500, the low estimate, for László Moholy-Nagy's stunning portrait of his first wife, Lucia Moholy.

Richard Avedon's portrait of Marella Agnelli eked out $46,875, but a platinum-palladium print of Irving Penn's "Woman in a Moroccan Palace" ($200,000-$300,000) passed at $190,000, meaning the low estimate was the reserve. Along with a retrenching Penn market in a cautious economy, I think this image has appeared a bit too often at auction. Absence makes the heart grow fonder. Likewise Penn's "New York Still Life" ($50,000-$70,000) passed at $42,500.

Anything with 15 photographs did reasonably well. Garry Winogrand's Fifteen Photographs brought $59,375. Robert Mapplethorpe's "Calla Lily", the cover image of "The Perfect Moment" catalogue, took fifth place at $92,500, a bit below its high estimate. And Galerie Thierry Marlat came back for Mapplethorpe's "The Coral Sea" ($100,000-$150,000) at $98,500, fourth place. Lastly, Peter MacGill hit the produce aisle as he took William Eggleston's Untitled (Peaches! Near Greenville, Mississippi) for $80,500 and sixth place.

Sotheby's sale totaled $2,384,690 with a 36.6% buy-in rate. That was a higher buy-in rate than Christie's or Phillips, but the highest total of the season on the strength of their top ten. That's $14,195 per lot offered and $20,209 per lot sold. However, along with the 68 lots that passed, 60 lots sold under the low estimate, 55 within the estimates, and only three above the high estimate. On the whole, the estimates were quite reasonable at all the auction houses and seemed to take into account the prevailing economic climate. And the reserves were likewise often very reasonable, though with exceptions, of course.

Denise Bethel, head of Sotheby's photographs department, said, "Although the market remains very selective, we saw active bidding for lots at all price levels--from photos estimated at $5,000 to those estimated at $200,000–$300,000. We were especially pleased with the prices achieved for the László Moholy-Nagy portrait of Lucia, and for the rare early daguerreotype of New York City."

Christie's smaller saleroom seemed rather livelier as some 50 people were in the seats for the 2 p.m. session of only 115 lots. Plus auctioneer Philippe Garner kept things moving very quickly. The first 20 lots of prints by Helmut Newton constituted the third and final part of the Constantiner Collection. Fifteen of the 20 lots sold for a sum of $195,250, bringing the total for the three parts of the collection to $8,828,375, against a reported $10 million guarantee.

Irving Penn's "Harlequin Dress" ($150,000-$200,000) started off the various owners' part of the sale, but it passed at $90,000. The top price had been $384,000 in April 2007. Robert Mapplethorpe's "Calla Lily", 1988 ($100,000-$150,000) sold to a European collector on the phone for $122,500, the top lot of the sale.

Then came a run of prints from a private Manhattan collection. But even such chestnuts as Ormond Gigli's "Girls in the Window" and Avedon's "Dovima with Elephants" (8x10", edition of 100 version) both passed. Herb Ritts's modestly nude pyramid of the five supermodels beat its high estimate at $43,500. And a different Mapplethorpe "Calla Lily" sold to the phone for $52,500.

Back to various owner properties, neither Ansel Adams's Portfolio Two nor Portfolio Four (both at $70,000–$90,000) had any bidders at $48,000. A Mapplethorpe portrait of Andy Warhol reached its low estimate and sold to order for $50,000. But his four prints of Ajitto ($120,000–$180,000) passed at $100,000.

A large print of Avedon's "Dovima with Elephants", 1955, printed no later than 1979 ($70,000-$100,000) trumpeted a bid of $116,500 from an American order bidder, good for second place in the sale. Robert Polidori's "Death of Marat" ($25,000-$35,000)--I always hear Judy Collins singing when I see this picture--went to order for $47,500.

Ansel Adams's "Old Faithful Geyser" was rather faithless as it passed. Garner introduced it as "the Ansel Adams geezer." I'm not sure if that was a Briticism, a French interpolation, a Freudian slip for this old warhorse, or a fillip to wake everyone up. It did spur bidding on the next Adams lot, "Frozen Lake and Cliffs", which skated to $40,000. But it couldn't save "Clearing Winter Storm" ($40,000–$60,000), which blew by without a bid.

Helmut Newton's portfolio, Fifteen Photographs ($80,000-$120,000) passed as did Penn's "Three Single Oriental Poppies" ($70,000-$90,000) and Shirin Neshat's "Faezeh+Amir Kahn", 2008 ($50,000-$70,000). The sale closed with the third highest price of the day, Danny Lyon's "Conversations with the Dead, 1967-68", 1983, with 76 gelatin silver prints ($50,000–$70,000). An institution bidding on the phone captured it for $56,250.

The total for the sale was $1,554,250 with a 28.7% buy-in rate. So 33 lots passed, 42 sold under the low estimate, 9 over the high estimate, and 31 within the estimates. That's $13,515 per lot offered and $18,954 per lot sold.

Philippe Garner, international head of photographs, said, "We are pleased with a solid sold percentage, confirming the demand for correctly estimated works of good quality. Our top price underscores the continuing and high collector interest in exceptional works by Robert Mapplethorpe."

Phillips de Pury & Company's sale on April 1 was held in a long, narrow room on the third floor rather than in the normal first floor saleroom. It began with 25 people in the seats (growing eventually to about 40) and at least 15 at the desk handling the phones, which was a good thing as almost all of the top lots went to phone bidders.

Here Eisenstaedt's "Children at a Puppet Theater" was estimated at $30,000-$40,000 and passed at $20,000. Richard Avedon's "Dovima with Elephants, Evening dress by Dior, Cirque d'Hiver", Paris sold for $27,500 to the phone. Lee Friedlander's "Jazz and Blues" portfolio passed at $38,000, one increment below the low estimate.

Larry Clark's "Tulsa Portfolio" ($40,000-$60,000) shot to $43,750. But Timothy Greenfield-Sanders huge, in-your-face double portrait of porn star Jenna Jameson (Clothed/Nude) ($30,000-$40,000) didn't even get a bid at $17,000. Now that's a recession.

Cindy Sherman's Untitled #122 brought $116,500, almost at the high estimate and the second highest price of the sale. Two Hiroshi Sugimoto theaters did well: "Metropolitan Orpheum, Los Angeles" at $30,000 and "Vermont Drive-In, South Bay" at $27,500. Andres Serrano's "Klansman (Imperial Wizard)" realized $31,250.

The cover lot, David Dreben's "Movie Star" ($5,000-$7,000) was a box office smash at $16,250, an auction record for the artist. It was a sign of the times here (and at the other houses) that a picture estimated at $5,000-$7,000 would get a whole page in the catalogue, let alone the cover. There was a record, too, for Gavin Bond's teenage fantasy, "Backstage: Volume Two", with 12 prints, which just topped its high estimate at $23,750.

David LaChapelle's "Jesus is my homeboy: Last Supper" rapped its way to $27,500. And Andrew Moore's "Fishing Village, White Sea" set an auction record at $19,375. Thomas Ruff's "Substrat 5 II" claimed third place at $74,500.

The afternoon session began with the third installment of offerings from Robert Mapplethorpe: Photographs from the Collection of Lisa Lyon with 10 (of 13) lots selling for an aggregate total of $85,000. The only other significant lot of the afternoon was the portfolio "Avedon/Paris", which hit its low estimate and claimed the top spot on the sale at $122,500.

"We are proud to have successfully offered cutting edge photographs by artists whom we introduced into our sale for the first time alongside strong classic works," said Vanessa Kramer, photographs specialist and head of sale. "We will continue to introduce fresh talent into our auctions in order to create a diverse sale with widespread appeal for our international clientele."

The sale sold 77% by value and 67% by lot. Of the 279 lots offered, 187 sold. The total was $1,890,875, second to Sotheby's and ahead of Christie's. The $6,777 per lot offered and $10,112 per lot sold was behind both those houses, representing a lower average lot price for the sale, but in some ways it was a livelier and more successful sale as along with the 91 lots passed, more than twice as many sold within the estimates (108) than below (50) and 30 lots sold above the high estimate.

As I've said, I wish Bloomsbury well, but they started at a particularly bad time. Their second photographs auction on April 2 was the final of the season. The sale began with as many staff members--13--as people sitting in the audience, although a couple more bidders wandered in as the sale progressed. Bloomsbury's buy-in rate was one lot short of half: 44 of 88 photo lots passed as did 23 of 47 lots in the photographic editions part of the sale, or 67 of 135 overall. In photographs 22 lots sold under the low estimate, two over, and 20 within the estimates. In editions it was five under, two over, and 17 within. Together that's 27 under, four over, and 37 within. It is likely there were a few sales after the auction.

The top lot was a first American edition of "The Americans", with attendant ephemera, which brought $17,080 from a phone bidder. Among the few lots sold in the room, collector David Runtz got a bargain on one lot, Stan Kaplan on two, and Michael Feldschuh on three. And book dealer Harper Levine bought two of the editioned lots. The sale totaled $318,908, $2,362 per lot offered, $4,705 per lot sold.

This auction season was a rude reminder of how much things have changed in a year. The total sales of $6,148,273 was the lowest total since Fall of 1997, more than $10 million less than the Fall 2008 total of $16,164,838 (which included Swann Galleries; or $14,678,398 without Swann), and a mere one-sixth of the Spring 2008 total of $38,179,975 (which included neither Swann nor Bloomsbury, and when Sotheby's and Christie's each did over $17 million).

Clearly it will take a substantial improvement in the economy before collectors are willing to consign their best material and before buyers feel comfortable spending significant amounts of money. But this is a new reality and it is time that the auction houses take the one step that is within their control: reduce their premiums.

(Copyright ©2009 by The Photo Review. My thanks to Steve Perloff and The Photograph Collector Newsletter for giving me permission to use this information. The Photograph Collector, which is a wonderful newsletter that I can heartily recommend, is published monthly and is available by subscription for $149.95 (overseas airmail is $169.95). You can phone 1-215-891-0214 and charge your subscription or send a check or money order to: The Photograph Collector, 140 East Richardson Ave, Langhorne, PA 19047.)

 

This year's spring photography auction at Villa Grisebach Auktionen in Berlin, scheduled for June 4, 2009, 3 p.m., will feature 190 lots for sale. A number of lots are focused on the work of the German architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. These consist of around two dozens photographs and two original glass negatives depicting his work. The top lots in this segment include Curt Rehbein's vintage prints from 1922 depicting Mies van der Rohe's famous model for a glass skyscraper (est. 10,000-15,000 euro) as well as the architect's project for the "Tower house at Friedrichstraße" (5,000-10,000 euro).

On the occasion of the ninetieth anniversary of the founding of the Bauhaus, Grisebach furthermore offers a collection of selected photographic works by various Bauhaus artists. Featured work in this auction includes: the experimental portraits by Kurt Kranz (8,000-10,000 euro) and Hajo Rose (3,500-4,000 euro), Werner David Feist's "electronic still life" (4,000-6,000 euro), as well as images showing the Bauhaus in Dessau during its construction taken by Lucia Moholy (1,800-2,200 euro). Additional architectural photographic highlights in this segment include work by Kurt Kranz, the Atelier de Sandalo and Iwao Yamawaki.

Within the section on modern photography, Grisebach will present a few exceptional and rare prints such as Martin Munkácsi's photograph from circa 1932 depicting himself in one of the windows of the Zeppelin LZ 127 (18,000-24,000 euro), Erwin Blumenfeld's inimitably personal view of the cabaret artist Valeska Gert (8,000-10,000 euro), two unique and original photograms by Christian Schad (each 5,000-7,000 euro), a vintage print from Herbert List's metaphysical-surreal "The Spirit of Lycabettos" (5,000-7,000 euro), and an early print of the famous 1953 photograph of Marilyn Monroe by Alfred Eisenstaedt (8,000-10,000 euro).

Further highlights featured in Grisebach's photography auction are--among others--the rare portfolio "Portraits" by American photographer Arnold Newman estimated at 15,000-20,000 euro, Irving Penn's "New Guinea Man and Sitting Woman" (10,000-15,000 euro), and a version of the "Odalisque" by Horst P. Horst in a later platinum-palladium print.

Contemporary works presented in the sale include a diptych entitled "Portrait of a Girl 1+2" by Loretta Lux (12,000-15,000 euro), as well as photographs by artists such as Roger Ballen, Elger Esser, Axel Hutte, Helmut Newton, Bettina Rheims, Sebastiao Salgado and Frank Thiel.

The auction is scheduled for June 4, 2009, 3 p.m. You can view the catalogue at https://www.villa-grisebach.de/en/catalogues/listview/katalog_uid/164/ . For more information, contact Franziska Schmidt (head of the photography department), phone: +49 30-885 915-0, extension -27; fax: +49 30-885915-4627 (from the U.S. dial 011 then the number); or email: f.schmidt@villa-grisebach.de .

 

Soler y Llach of Barcelona will offer more than 400 lots of photographs and photo books, divided into two sessions in its spring photographical auction, which will take place on May 28th in Barcelona, Spain. The auction catalogues are available on the company's website at: http://www.soleryllach.com .

The first photographic session will focus on the important collection of photographs put together by the painter Bernardino Montañés during his student days in Rome between 1848 and 1852. The auction consists of 86 photographs taken by Giacomo Caneva and Frédéric Flacheron, two of the most representative photographers of the Café Greco circle in Rome. Among the lots, there is the only known portrait of the photographer and painter Giacomo Caneva, which was taken together with a group of Spanish artists living in Rome and of Mr. Robinson, another of the photographers who belonged to this circle, along with a large number of views of Rome.

The second session will be broader ranging and will consist of photographs and photo books from 1839-2004. The session has been organised chronologically and has been divided into two parts, Fotografías (Photographs) and Fotolibros (Photo Books).

The first part, Fotografías, starts with a group of daguerreotypes taken by Franck and Wigle, there are also photographs by Charles Clifford, Édouard Baldus, Charles-Henri Plaut, John Stewart and Charles Money, among others.

The 20th-century part of the sale starts off with a focus on Spanish photography, with work by some Spanish pictorialist photographers, such as Miguel Goicoechea, José Ortiz Echagüe and Joaquim Plá Janini through between-the-wars photography from some of Spain's most committed avant-garde artists, such as Josep Sala, Pere Català Pic and Antoni Arissa, a photographer whose photographic archive is offered for sale, which is made up of more than 800 negatives.

There is also an important group of photographs by Dora Maar, Bill Brandt, Jaromír Funke, Raoul Hausmann, Arkady Shishkin and Joan Andreu Puig Farran, Baron Adolf de Meyer (a set of portraits), Brassaï, Horst P. Horst, Cecil Beaton Robert Capa (war photos), Agustí Centelles, Boris Kudojarov and Alexander Zhitomirsky (political photomontages).

Humanist photography is also represented including work taken at the end of WWII by Alfred Eisenstaed, Robert Doisneau, Joan Colom and Xavier Miserachs.

There is also work by contemporary artists such as Andrés Serrano, John Coplans, Roland Fischer and Joan Fontcuberta.

Fotolibros, the second area, is composed of more than 100 publications that have been ordered chronologically--from the first news that appeared in the press in 1839 to publications in the 1990s. Books by P.H. Delamotte, Disderi, Moi Ver, Germaine Krull, Jaromir Funke, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Paul Strand, Robert Frank, Eikoh Hosoe and Joan Colom, among many others, will be auctioned off in this important sale.

A preview will be held in Madrid at Esparteros, 1-2, on 5/21, Thursday, from 9:30-1:30 pm and 3-7 pm; the preview in Barcelona will be at Beethoven 13, 5/26-27, Tuesday and Wednesday, from 9:30-1:30 pm and 3-7 pm. The auction will be held on May 28th beginning at 5 pm.

The two catalogues of this photography auction can be found on the Soler y Llach web site at: http://www.soleryllach.com . The auction will be held at Soler y Llach, Beethoven 13, 08021 Barcelona, Spain. You can contact the auction house for condition reports, catalogues or to bid by phoning 011-(or from Europe 00)-34 93 201 87 33, or email at: syl@soleryllach.com .

 

The Argenteuil auction house in the nearby Paris suburbs of the same name will put on sale the photographic archive of Cami and Sasha Stone on June 4th. The archive and sale will include more than 800 works realized--for the most part--in Berlin between 1925 and 1930 and Brussels between 1930 and 1938.

Saved from WWII's destruction by the family of Cami Stone, these photographs that were thought lost will be auctioned off on Thursday, June 4th, at Argenteuil Maison de Vente (near Paris).

This sale may be the only occasion to acquire photographs of the Stones's workshop of its between-the-wars images of Berlin and Brussels. The catalogue will be an historical publication with great documentation of this important duo's work.

Beyond the historical document value of its images of Berlin of the 1920's and 30's, this photographic ensemble is an indispensable element to understanding the European Avant-Garde of this period.

Cami and Sasha Stone are among the most important photographers of the Weimar Republic. Their work in numerous press publications, the innumerable advertisement orders and their participation in the historic exhibition "Film und Foto" in 1929 (in which their works were exhibited in large numbers) all indicate the quality and modernity of their photographic creations.

The photographs on auction represent the last trace of Cami and Sasha Stone's work: indeed, after the war, Cami sold all the glass negatives she had in order to recover the silver salts they contained. This is the last such opportunity to purchase some of their rarest and most important images.

The auction will be held on Thursday, June 4, 2009, at 2 p.m. at Argenteuil Maison de Vente, 9 rue Denis-Roy, 95100 Argenteuil, France. Phone: +33 1 34 23 00 00; fax: + 33 1 39 61 34 77; and email: Argenteuilauction@wanadoo.fr . The expert for the sale is Christophe Goeury, 6 rue Gaston Couté, 75018 Paris. Phone: +33 1 42 54 16 83; mobile: +33 6 16 02 64 91; and email: christophegoeury@hotmail.com . There will be a private viewing at the expert's home by appointment only from Monday, May 25 to Friday, May 29, from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m.

The public exhibition will be held at the Argenteuil auction house on Tuesday, June 2, from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m., Wednesday, June 3, 10 a.m. to 9 p.m., Thursday, June 4, 10 a.m. to noon. The auction itself will be held at June 4th at 2 p.m.

The catalog can downloaded in pdf form online at: http://www.bee-web.com/argenteuil/catalog_stone .

 

"Everything about photography, everything I write about photography, everything I photograph has a feedback system which says: This is what it's like to be human."--Bill Jay in a 2007 interview by Darius Himes of the Photo District News.

Bill Jay passed away in his sleep in Costa Rica Sunday night, May 10th. As Tucson photography dealer Terry Etherton noted in an email to fellow AIPAD photography dealers, "For those of you who knew Bill, you understand what a huge loss this is to the photography world."

Bill Jay began his career in the U.K. His first article to appear in print was published in "Practical Photography" magazine, then the largest circulation monthly in Europe, when he was only 19 years old. It was the start of career writing about the photography medium that extended over more than 40 years.

He later became the first director of photography at the Institute of Contemporary Arts and was the first editor/director of "Creative Camera" magazine from 1968-1969. In 1970 he founded and edited a new London-based journal, "Album". It only survived for one year, 12 issues.

To pay the bill during this early period, he was also picture editor of a large circulation news/feature magazine and the European manager of an international picture agency. He left England in 1972 to come to the U.S.

After studying with Beaumont Newhall and Van Deren Coke at the University of New Mexico, he founded the program of photographic studies at Arizona State University, where he taught history and criticism classes for 25 years.

Bill Jay published over 400 articles and was the author of more than 20 books on the history and criticism of photography. Most of these books have been published with Chris Pichler of Nazraeli Press, a former student of Jay's. Some of his recent titles include: Cyanide and Spirits: an inside-out view of early photography; Occam's razor: an outside-in view of contemporary photography; USA Photography Guide; Bernard Shaw: On Photography; Negative/Positive: a philosophy of photography; 61 Pimlico; Sun in the Blood of the Cat; Men Like Me, etc.

Jay was also frequently asked to contribute essays to monographs by well-known photographers, such as Jerry Uelsmann, Bill Brandt, Michael Kenna and Bruce Barnbaum.

Until his retirement, Bill Jay was a frequent guest lecturer at symposia and conferences and at colleges and universities in England and Europe, as well as throughout the U.S.

His own photographs have been widely published and exhibited, including a solo show at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. His previous monograph, "Photographers Photographed", included a selection of the thousands of portraits he has taken of prominent individuals of the medium of photography, a database of which is located at the Center of Creative Photography, which also houses his research archives.

 

I will be previewing the London auctions next week (May.17-19), and attending the auctions themselves that week. And then the Paris auctions June 4-5, and previewing them earlier. If you wish me to preview any work for you, please call my associate at 1-215-822-5662 or email us at info@vintageworks.net , or just call my mobile while I am in Paris at 011-33-661-033-387 (do not use my mobile for other calls, because I only use it while traveling in Paris).

My normal terms are 5% of the hammer price, which excludes the Buyer's premium. There is a minimum charge of $250 whether or not you are successful.

My services include a condition report, consultation on pricing and evaluation of the item and, when necessary, bidding on it for you.

You need to notify the auction house by fax that I, through my company Vintage Works, Ltd., will be bidding for you.

 

By Matt Damsker

SEIZING THE LIGHT: A SOCIAL HISTORY OF PHOTOGRAPHY.
Second Edition. By Robert Hirsch. 2009, McGraw-Hill, New York. 480 pages; numerous black-and-white and color plates; softback. ISBN No. 978-0-07-337921-0. Information: http://www.mhhe.com .

Few textbooks are as casually readable as this one, and perhaps that is as much due to the lively subject matter--photography's place in the social world--as to scholar Robert Hirsch's cogent writing, meticulous research and thorough understanding of the medium. This second edition of his definitive work addresses new topics, such as the photo booth and the effect of the Internet on photography, but "Seizing the Light" is effectively timeless, stretching back to the underpinnings of the camera (da Vinci's description of the camera obscura, for example) and moving through the birth of modernity, as depicted in the urban visions of 19th-century photographic pioneers, to the "arrival" of photography at the hands of Fox Talbot, Hill and Adamson, Le Gray, Negre and others via the calotype, and through to the aesthetically fragmented present day.

Countless well-chosen photos illustrate the text and help bring it to life, but it is Hirsch's sensitive understanding of photography's epochs that make this an invaluable book that will steer no student wrong, and can help codify the warp and weft of the medium for more knowledgeable collectors and enthusiasts. His assessment, for example, of pictorialism's place in history ("Once photography was established as an interpretive medium, its own photographic art theory was free to emerge. The pictorial movement was a big stride…") brings fresh clarity and wisdom to the subject, just as his descriptions of modern innovations such as cubism, futurism and collage delineate their roles in a new complexity that began to attach to photographic images in the 20th century.

Hirsch is, expectedly, at his strongest in constructing a narrative of photography as social document, the mid-point of this history, identified as "an American urge" to use photographs as "weapons for social change," as in the street portraits of Jacob Riis, the class-conscious images of Lewis Hine, and so on. From there, the era of fragmentation swallows photography, and Hirsch captures it all, from advertising and fashion work to the avant-gardism of the 1970s and beyond. His final chapter, "Thinking About Photography," connects the intangibles of conceptual art to photography's ongoing impulse to create concrete images and artifacts almost against the grain of a post-postmodern emphasis on transient, infinitely mutable digital content. Hirsch calls the present moment "the postphotographic age…a conceptual shift from a medium that records reality to one that transforms it."


PHOTOGRAPHY AND REALISM IN THE 19TH CENTURY--ANTWERP:
THE OLDEST PHOTOGRAPHS 1847-1880.
Herman Van Goethem. Published in conjunction with the exhibition of the same title, at the Ronny Van de Velde Gallery, Antwerp. ISBN No. 90-5325-2266 (English version). 420 pages; approximately 180 color plates; hardback.

Photography as a preserver of the past is never more evident than in vintage images of places like Antwerp, a formerly medieval city whose long-gone Spanish ramparts, old quays and canals are largely the subject of these photos, mostly albumen prints, all shot in the early decades of the medium. Many of these are the work of Brussels-based Edmond Fierlants, a pupil of Hippolyte Bayard. Fierlants' architectural studies of Antwerp's landmarks, the facades of of its churches, houses grand and humble, its curving streets and alleys are properly credited by author Van Goethem, who notes that the photographer's instinctive mastery led him to avoid peopling his shots, preferring images of pure, uncluttered architectural form, careful exposed and angled to convey depth, texture and detail.

The catalogue's centerpiece is Fierlants' breathtaking 1860 panorama of the port of Antwerp, spanning four fold-out pages and richly observant in the late afternoon sunlight, with tall cathedral spires, neatly planted trees, and row upon row of warehouses and residences spread out before us. Indeed, this study of Fierlants' masterwork would itself be enough to justify this book and exhibition (which took place early in this decade at Ronny Van de Velde's gallery), but Van Goetham gives us much more, including less well-known artists such as Dubois de Nehaut, Hugo Pieron and Louis Schweig.

Pieron's emphasis on the canals and watercraft of Antwerp sets him apart, as does his attraction to rough-and-tumble, crowded locations that suggest busy life and commerce in a way that Fierlants' stately images do not. If anything, the atmospherics of these images are powerful in their monochromatic way, as the photographers strive to convey a sense of place and time--specific time of day, that is--in a way that courts photography's essential realism as opposed to its pictorial potential. Thus, we are left with a sense of this primly picturesque old city as it must have felt in its everydayness, its people and spaces gathered before us as they truly were--and are no more.


IN BRIEF:
Chicago's Stephen Daiter Gallery offers a wonderful look at ANDRE KERTESZ: THE LOST YEARS -- NEW YORK, with a selection of vintage photographs shot after 1937, when the Hungarian master and his wife immigrated to Manhattan and to a low-profile period of disillusionment with the New World; this was before his "rediscovery" in the 1960s, thanks largely to John Szarkowski. As collected in this compact catalogue, these shots, displayed by Daiter at the recent AIPAD New York show, are the classically introspective images--of everything from rooftops to mannequins to shadowy warehouses and snow-caked park benches--that drew Kertesz's unerring eye for the modernist drama of urban geometries and the soul's gray weather. Information: info@stephendaitergallery.com , or by phone at 1-312-787-3350.

LUCIEN CLERGUE: THE INTIMATE PICASSO is a genuinely charming memoir-cum-photo album by the French photographer. Clergue was a friend and protégé of the 20th century's most protean artist during Picasso's later, and still very robust, years. This elegantly hardbound catalogue recounts the recent exhibition at Louis Stern Fine Arts in West Hollywood, California, and its more than two dozen candid images of the master and his milieu are uniformly vivid, overflowing with joie de vivre and affection. We witness Picasso at home, relaxed and formidable in Arles, Mougins, swimming in Cannes, honored by matadors at the bullring, surrounded by friends, family, musicians, courtiers. The old titan devoured his moments, it is clear, and Clergue offers up a wonderful study in elderly grace and infinite charisma. The places and poses are widely varied, yet there is that one, center-of-gravity constant: Picasso Himself, cigarette insouciantly in hand, those pitchblende eyes relentlessly appraising. Information: info@louissternfinearts.com , http://www.louissternfinearts.com , or by phone at 1-310-276-0147.

Finally, there is a catalogue by a young photographer, Max Snow, with the disarmingly picaresque title, IT'S FUN TO DO BAD THINGS. New Yorker Snow is in his early 20s and fearless enough to tramp the back country of Kentucky, Tennessee and the ganglands of Los Angeles, making portraits along the way of Ku Klux Klansmen in full hooded garb and regalia, posing with their firearms, brandishing their flaming swastikas. He captures them in their squalid homes and in the wild, as it were; and their pointy-headed pride and prejudice comes at you through the familiar enrobings. The catalogue's other series is of LA gang members, photographed bare-chested, tattoos screaming, against pure white backdrops. Snow's full-frontal, in-your-face style is redolent of Avedon, while his color work evokes Eggleston, but there is an eye for telling detail and an uncondescending desire to document that somehow wins the trust of these troubling subjects. Information: Moeller Snow Gallery, at http://www.moellersnow.com .


Matt Damsker is an author and critic, who has written about photography and the arts for the Los Angeles Times, Hartford Courant, Philadelphia Bulletin, Rolling Stone magazine and other publications. His book, "Rock Voices", was published in 1981 by St. Martin's Press. His essay in the book, "Marcus Doyle: Night Vision" was published in the fall of 2005.

(Book publishers, authors and photography galleries/dealers may send review copies to us at: I Photo Central, 258 Inverness Circle, Chalfont, PA 18914. We do not guarantee that we will review all books or catalogues that we receive.)

 

Heritage Auction Galleries experiment with photography lasted a whopping two sales. The house decided to discontinue its photo sales and with it its expert Lorraine Davis. Davis is one of the more knowledgeable people in the business, but dealing with a house primarily known for its coins and Western art based in Dallas was clearly a difficult assignment.

Sotheby's has also parted company with its former London photography expert Francis Hodgson.

 

With its annual Focus Awards, the Griffin Museum of Photography recognizes the work of people who are not photographers, but who have been instrumental in increasing awareness of the photographic arts among the general public.

Awards are presented in five categories: Lifetime Achievement, given to an individual whose ongoing commitment to photography has far-reaching impact; Rising Star, awarded to an emerging force the photographic community is watching with interest; New England Beacon, recognizing an individual whose work brings prominence to the local photographic scene; and the Spotlight Award, given to an entity that consistently shines a light on photography and enhances the art form. This year, for the first time, the Scribe Award will be presented to a writer who has consistently elevated the medium through his writing on photography.

Recipients of the 2009 Focus Awards are:

Lifetime Achievement: Eliane Laffont. For more than 40 years, Laffont has been a leading creative and entrepreneurial force in the world of photojournalism. In 1968, she opened the first U.S. office of Gamma Press Images in collaboration with her husband, Jean-Pierre. In 1973, they co-founded Sygma Photo News Agency, where Laffont served as general manager, then president of North American operations, for nearly three decades (with a two-year hiatus at LOOK magazine). Under Laffont's leadership, Sygma blossomed into the world's largest photo news agency with more than 500 photographers in 50 countries. In 1999, Sygma was acquired by Bill Gates' Corbis Images and Laffont was appointed U.S. operations general manager and later was promoted to global vice president of editorial content of Corbis-Sygma. In 2001, Laffont joined Hachette Filipacchi Media as editorial director, supervising the photographic production of the group in the U.S. and developing the photo division around three sectors: photojournalism, photo illustration and photo reportage.

Rising Star: Rob Haggart. Haggart is the former director of photography for Men's Journal and Outside magazines. He has received photo editing recognition from Graphis, American Photography, Society of Publication Designers, Communication Arts, American Society of Magazine Editors and Photo District News, and was chosen as part of the creative team of the year by Ad Week. He currently freelances as a photography director and runs APhotoEditor.com, a blog on photography.

New England Beacon: Rosalind Smith. Roz Smith, a native of Newton, is a features writer for Shutterbug, Photographers Forum, View Camera, Black and White and Camera Arts. She has also written feature articles for the Robb Report, Photo District News, and the Boston Globe. She has written articles on scores of photographers including Richard Avedon, James Nachtwey, Ron Haviv, John Isaac, Jill Enfield and Duane Michals.

Spotlight Award: Modern Postcard. Photographers worldwide rely on Modern Postcard, a San Diego commercial printing company. Founded by Steve Hoffman and nurtured by Jim Toya-Brown, Modern Postcard provides small runs of high quality postcards at an affordable price. Modern Postcard is at the forefront of the postcard industry.

Scribe Award: Russell Hart. Hart is executive editor of American Photo magazine and editor of American Photo On Campus. In addition to editing and authoring numerous magazine stories and posts on the American Photo blog, State of the Art , Hart oversees many of its technical reviews and organizes the "Editor's Choice" issue. This year, he will be on the jury of American Photo's "Emerging Artist" and "Student Portfolio" showcases. Russell has written about photography for the New York Times, US and Men's Journal. Co-author of the popular college textbook, Photography, with Henry Horenstein, he has taught at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; Tufts University; and Mount Ida College. His personal work is included in collections such as the DeCordova Museum and Sculpture Park, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, as well as the Hallmark and Polaroid Collections.

The master of ceremonies for the Focus Award ceremony on May 7th was photographer Lou Jones. Presenting the awards were: Jean François LeRoy, founder of Visa pour L'image Festival in Perpignan, France; Jill Enfield, photographer; John Isaac, photographer; Howard Bernstein, CEO of Bernstein & Andriulli, NY, and publisher of Spread Artculture magazine; and Henry Horenstein, photographer.

 

The Metropolitan Museum of Art announced late last month a new endowment fund and promised gift of artwork in memory of the street photographer, Helen Levitt, who died on March 29, 2009, at the age of 95.

The Helen Levitt Memorial Fund has been established through a generous planned gift of the artist's sister-in-law, Mrs. Robert O. Levitt, and will support the Museum's acquisition of photographs by Helen Levitt and other mid-20th-century American photographers working in her tradition. Mrs. Robert O. Levitt has also made a promised gift to the Metropolitan Museum of 12 of the artist's photographs.

 

Hubert Van Es, a Dutch photojournalist who had covered the Vietnam War, died in Hong Kong on Friday, May 15. He was 67.

Van Es photographed one of the best-known images of the American evacuation of Saigon in 1975 of people trying to climb a ladder to a CIA helicopter on a rooftop.

Born in Hilversum, Netherlands, Van Es became a photographer after seeing an exhibition of Robert Capa's. He then came to Hong Kong as a freelancer in 1967 and joined "The South China Morning Post" as chief photographer and initially went to Vietnam the following year, after getting a job as a sound man for NBC News, according to Associated Press reports. He later joined the A.P. photo staff in Saigon from 1969 to 1972 and then covered the last three years of the war, from 1972 to 1975, for U.P.I.

When he took the Saigon picture, Van Es was apparently in the process of leaving U.P.I. to become a freelancer again and was upset that he did not receive any royalties from the photograph, which belonged to U.P.I.

He covered the Moro rebellion in the Philippines and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.

Van Es fell into a coma a week ago when he suffered a brain aneurysm. He died at Queen Mary Hospital. Besides his wife Annie, Van Es is survived by an older sister in the Netherlands.