The Fall New York auctions seem to be bouncing back despite a dearth of stellar material, which perhaps reflected the uncertainties spanned by the conflict in Iraq, which was happening during the normal consignment period. Buy-in rates were down substantially from the last few previous sales, in some case nearly half the rate of the Spring sales, which themselves were pretty strong considering the environment. (A buy-in occurs when an item fails to meet or beat its reserve and fails to sell.) Christie's, for instance, went from a buy-in rate of 42% in the Spring to a very strong 24% in the Fall; Sotheby's improved from just over 25% to under 23%; and Phillips also bettered its Spring buy-in rate going from just over 40% to under 35%. Swann's buy-in numbers were similar for both its Spring and Fall sales. Total sales for all houses improved dramatically, which showed overall market strength considering the lack of top-end material.

Despite all of this very positive news, some sources inevitably get it wrong. Dealer Robert Koch forwarded to me an email promotion for Artprice, a company that sells auction results and who has a banner on our I Photo Central pages. While the company does produce good auction information for individual photographers and images, it went awry when it tried to take that information and build a market analysis. The promotion tried to use fear and distortion to get new subscribers--hardly a reliable marketing approach. The company sent out an email that showed a trend chart for photography that indicated a huge dip in its "basket" of key photographers along with copy that partially read, "After riding the speculative wave of 1997-2001, prices have crashed since the start of the year." All the drop-off was based primarily on the October New York City sales. This was patently ridiculous. The photography market in general has had a rough 18 months, but it began to recover in June after the Iraq conflict military action had ended. The October sales actually reflect the strength of that recovery and not a sharp decline as indicated by Artprice.

So what was the process that got Artprice to claim that the "sky was falling" when the opposite was really what was happening? Artprice uses a very limited number of key photographers as a part of their basket approach to looking at the market. Dealer Bruce Silverstein and I have both explained the shortcomings of such approaches for indicating trends in past newsletters. This focus on only a few photographers can produce huge swings in market indications that are exactly opposite to the realities of the market itself, because the prices for many of these artists depend on the specific images being offered for sale. For instance, Man Ray and Kertesz were two of the photographers in the Artprice basket. There were several very important Man Ray and Kertesz prints that had come on the market over the last year and a half, but none of importance were in the October sales. In other words, Artprice was comparing apples to oranges. That never works.

Likewise, sometimes bids on a few items are too high and they correct at the next auction. For instance, Ansel Adams, who is also in the basket, had his Moonrise drop in the last auctions--although to still high levels--because in the previous auctions people had just bid it up too high for the standard size, which is not particularly rare. This happens every auction and is hardly a trend.

The chart itself was drawn in scary distorted fashion. Add the desire to sensationalize and you have a recipe for silliness.

To quote dealer Robert Koch's email to Artprice: "Your firm might love this sensationalism, but this kind of unsophisticated and distorted representation of the results is of a great disservice to the market and your audience! This would only be valid if you had taken a broader sampling and evaluated the material coming to market. The downward curve is more representative of the reluctance of consignors holding better material to offer it for auction in a down economic environment, fearing that it would not fare well. Also, it is always dangerous to use a selected sampling of artists. Who decided that these artists are representative of the market as a whole? There were certain artists, not on your list, who have been moving up steadily. But without a qualitative analysis of the images and condition of the material coming to auction this kind of analysis is only useful as sensationalist fodder for firms such as yours attempting to lure new subscribers."

Unfortunately, the general press eats up this type of misinformation. The Wall Street Journal is particularly well known for getting the photography market wrong: usually hyping it when it is actually in decline and blasting it when it is doing quite well. Keep that in mind as the general press gets a hold of this misinformation.

The reality is that the market is coming slowly out of the doldrums that it has weathered much better than those of the early 1990s. The auctions have done exceeding well, even though quality material continues to be in short supply. Dealers have done less well, but almost all have reported stronger sales beginning in June and continuing throughout the Fall. Our own sales saw a very sharp drop in the first half of the year compared to the previous year, which was a record year for Vintage Works, Ltd., but we project that our second half will nearly double the previous year's second half. From my discussion with most dealers, this is a typical pattern, although perhaps not quite as strong for most in the second half. The direction though is clearly recovery and strength.
 

The first commercial sale of the auction week was the Joshua P. Smith Collection, which was sold at Phillips. Phillips continued its string of successful auctions by netting $1,383,595 for the 261 lots offered. Because the sale was a no-reserve sale, the sold rate was 100%. The only negative here was that the total hammer price was considerably lower than the total low estimate ($1,478,050), but the material was also not the most exciting.

Usually when a personal collection is auctioned, you will see rare material that shows the impact of the eye and the emotional involvement of the collector. Here the material was sometimes pedestrian and did not seem like the collection of just one individual. Certainly there were a few wonderful lots, particularly the true vintage (this time) Helen Levitt prints, but much of the material was low end, but without true excitement even for its price category. In fact, except for the cover lot of a Helen Levitt image of a young boy with a toy gun, a vintage Manuel Bravo and a Lee Friedlander lot, all of the sales top ten list consisted of groups of photographs, rather than the exceptional single image that usually makes up this kind of list. I was a bit disappointed with all of this, because I expected more from the nephew of photographer Dan Weiner, whose work I have always admired. In fact, I bought the two Weiner images in the sale.

The prices below will include Phillips 19.5% buyer's fee. Most of the lots did not hit a level high enough for coverage, but I have noted the highlights. With this sale Phillips instituted a new and highly confusing policy of dating lots by the image date and NOT the print date, unless that print date was known or absolutely obvious to the auction house. The intent was good, but the execution was downright confusing, considering that the auction industry only provides one date when that date is sufficient for image and prints, in other words, only if the print is a vintage one. The result was that many of the Phillips lots in this and its regular sale listed the early image date for printed later images as if they were vintage images. I spoke with expert Philippe Garner about the new policy, and he agreed that it might be confusing to some bidders, so Phillips was again considering other language to make the ambiguity of the actual print date known to bidders. Stay tuned for the results.

Kicking off the higher end lots was a portfolio of 18 images (Le Gente) by Mario Giacomelli (lot 32), which sold to an order bidder for $14,340. The next lot, also another portfolio of 18 photos of landscapes by Giacomelli, sold for $16,730, again to the commission bidder versus a phone.

The Water Towers (two prints mounted together with one print showing nine images) by the Bechers drew the expected attention of a phone bidder, who purchased lot 39 for $21,510, which is a reasonable price.

Massimo Vitali's huge color images of beaches and parks (lots 69-72) got to their low estimates, especially with the assistance of dealer Bonnie Benrubi, who represents this artist and obviously stands behind the work with her own bid support--a very laudable action. Most went for about $11,000 to $12,500.

Then came the Manuel Alverez Bravos, which were probably the surprise of this auction. The first Bravo was a vintage print of an animal's skeleton (lot 73) that sold to New York dealer Ramis Barquet for $27,485, which put it in sixth place for the auction.

Barquet then picked up the next two lots of printed-later Bravos. Lot 74, a group of four photographs, sold for $22,705, which was more than double the low estimate and good enough for tenth place in the auction. Lot 75, six portraits and one self portrait, sold for $31,070, which was again more than double the low estimate and made this lot the fourth most expensive of the auction.

London dealer Michael Hoppen scooped up lot 76, two important printed-later nudes by Bravo, for a reasonable, but mid estimate $8,365. Barquet returned to the fray on lot 77, a printed-later Bravo group of nine images that sold for $26,290, which was the high estimate and was good enough for seventh place.

But on lot 78, a good group of 11 printed-later Bravos, he met his match. A phone bidder (paddle 1040) pushed the lot up well past its estimate range of $20,000-$24,000. Up and up it went, until that pesky phone took home the prize at an astounding $95,600, making this the top lot of the auction.

But Barquet came back on the next lot, taking the eight late-printed nudes (lot 79) for double the low estimate at $43,020, putting this lot into third place in the top ten list of this auction.

There was considerable buzz in the room among photography dealers, most of whom felt that the prices were exceedingly high for late-printed Bravos, which are fairly plentiful on the market--at least they were.

Oddly enough Barquet was back on the next big lots, the Helen Levitt prints. Last Spring I reported that most of the dealers who saw the Levitts in the Seagram sale felt that they were not vintage prints as the catalogue had indicated. This time the group were vintage or certainly close to vintage (perhaps 1940s prints in some instances). Because of this, the prices were generally real "buys" this time around.

On the first lot (99), the phone took three Levitt images of New York for $19,120 over Barquet's bidding, but Barquet then came back on the next lot, another group of three images, with a winning bid of $11,950. He also took the next lot, one more group of three, for $14,340. All three bids were bargains, although I preferred the first lot myself.

The next lot was a wonderful and poignant image of a young girl with her arms crossed and a young boy in the background. I underbid this lot against the phone, who stole it away for $16,730--a truly great buy, considering that the estimate of $20,000-$25,000 was very reasonable. Fortunately for me, I was able to buy a great vintage print of this image after the sale, so we both went away happy.

Lot 103 might have gone for considerably more if it had been a better print. It was a tad flat and looked to be a bit later than the other prints, maybe circa 1950, but the image is one of Levitt's best and it was clearly early. It brought only $9,560 from phone bidder 1025, against the estimate of $18,000-$22,000. That is still an incredible bargain for the image.

The cover lot of the little boy with a Popsicle and a gun by Levitt really took off. I was prepared to bid it up myself, but then it soared on past its high estimate and then past double the high estimate. New York dealer Deborah Bell finally got it for her client for $50,190. A rare and wonderful image but certainly bought at a premium, the lot came in at number two on the top ten list for the auction and set a new world auction record for the artist.

Barquet then took the three Levitts of Mexico City (lot 105) for $7,409 and New York dealer Lawrence Miller, Levitt's primary dealer, finally picked up lot 106, two chalk images, for $6,214. Lot 107, Levitt's image of boys at play, sold for $8,365. Barquet then bought the last Levitt of a woman on the stoop with a newspaper for $4,780.

The next lot of note from a financial point of view was lot 159, a William Klein group of 12 printed-later images of New York. The lot went to Carol Ehlers of the La Salle Bank of Chicago.

Lot 173, an image by Garry Winogrand, went to New York dealer Katrina Doerner, who bought it for a client. The price was $14,340, considerably over the estimate range of $6,000-$8,000.

Another Winogrand went for big bucks when the phone picked up lot 179, seven images from the double elephant portfolio for $21,510, about the mid part of the estimate range. Most of the Winogrands either fell below or just in the estimate ranges.

Two vintage Lee Friedlander images of early 1960s television sets captured the attention of a number of bidders. They were pretty interesting images. The price zoomed up way past the estimate range of $8,000-$12,000 to hit $23,900, pushing it into ninth place in the auction's top ten.

Lot 197, a possibly vintage self portrait by Friedlander (his shadow on a wall), got lots of bidders excited. At one point San Francisco dealer Jeffrey Fraenkel jumped the bid from $1,100 to $7,000. He and others still got outgunned by art consultant Thea Westrich, who took it for a stunning $25,095, over an estimate of $8,000-$12,000. That price was good enough for eighth place in this sale and a new world auction record for the artist.

All the other Friedlander lots oddly fell well under their estimate range. Friedlander still gets very erratic results at auction.

On Larry Clark's Tulsa Portfolio (lot 206), the phones provided the action. Estimated at $10,000-$15,000, the portfolio sold to phone bidder 1016 for $31,070. For dealers Clark and Danny Lyon's work is difficult to sell due to the tough subject matter. Lyon's work all sold for considerably under estimates.

Lewis Baltz scored well with his Candlestick Point portfolio (lot 229), which sold for within estimate at $16,730.

Nicholas Nixon did even better against his estimate range for a selection of 11 photographs (lot 241) that sold to a commission bidder for $16,730 over an estimate of $8,000-$12,000.

Two groups of six images by contemporary photographer Abelardo Morell (lot 259, camera obscura images and lot 260, images from the "book" series) sold to the same commission bidder for $15,535 and $14,340 respectively. The winning bids were well below estimates.

Showing considerable variation in his auction results, Philip-Lorca Dicorcia's large color work ranged from a winning bid of a mere $700 (lot 94) against an estimate range of $8,000-$12,000 (this is not a typo) to Dicorcia's signature image of Mario at the refrigerator door (lot 266), which had the same estimate range as lot 94 but sold to Carol Ehlers of La Salle Bank for $22,705. Content certainly matters when it comes to contemporary work.

I will be reporting on the rest of the fall auctions after I return from Paris Photo.
 

IE'S LONDON SALE COMING UP NOV. 18TH

Christie's South Kensington will hold its Fall photography auction on Tuesday, November 18, at 10:30 am at 85 Old Brompton Road, London, SW7 3LD.

The viewings will be held Sunday, November 16, 1:00-4:00 pm and Monday, November 17, 9:00 am-7:30 pm. There will also be a Late Night Viewing & Cocktail Reception on Monday, November 17 from 6:30-8:30 pm.

For further information on the sale contact Yuka Yamaji at +44 (0)20 7752 3270, or yyamaji@christies.com . Or you might try this link if it does break up in transmission to go to the catalogue directly:
http://www.christies.com/LotFinder/search/lotsummary.asp?intSaleID=18394 .

Catalogues can be ordered from the New York office at 1-800-395-6300 or from London at +44 (0)20 7389 2820. The fully illustrated catalogue for this sale (#9740) can also be viewed online via LotFinder at http://www.christies.com .

Comprising 260 lots, the Photographs sale offers a wide range of 19th & 20th-century and contemporary photographs. The 19th century section is divided into the following subject headings: Daguerreotypes & Ambrotypes (4 lots); Cartes-de-visite, Cabinet Cards, Display Albums & Stereographs (8 lots); Early British Photographs (28 lots); Early French & Belgian Photographs (15 lots); Other European Photographs (8 lots); Central & North America (2 lots); The Middle East & Africa (25 lots); India & Burma (17 lots);
Japan & China (7 lots); and Mixed Topographical Photographs (8 lots).

Photographers include Antoine Claudet, Henry White, Louis-Remy Robert, Maxime du Camp, F.M. Good and Alexis de Lagrange. The 20th-century section includes such luminaries as Man Ray, Manuel Alvarez Bravo, Brassaï, Bill Brandt and Irving Penn. The final section features an array of innovative contemporary works by such notable artists as Nobuyoshi Araki, Philip-Lorca Di Corcia, Nan Goldin, Richard Long, Hiroshi Sugimoto, Thomas Struth and Sally Mann.


PHOTO REVIEW BENEFIT AUCTION GOES UNDER THE HAMMER THIS WEEKEND

The Photo Review Benefit Auction is now on-line at http://www.photoreview.org/auction.htm . You can preview the work and submit absentee bids by Friday, but we suggest you call Steve Perloff on his cell phone today or by Saturday before 5 pm to place bids at 1-215-962-6890.

You can also take advantage of the "End This Auction" feature: you may buy any picture instantly and end the auction by bidding the high estimate through Friday November 7 at 5 pm.

A preview at the University of the Arts, Dorrance-Hamilton Building, Broad and Pine Streets, Philadelphia, will be held on Friday, November 7 from 11-5 pm and on Saturday, November 8 from 11-6 pm.

The auction will take place on Saturday, November 8 at 7 pm at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia. Among the work featured are rare vintage prints by such historic masters as Francis Frith, Milton Greene, Russell Lee, Robert Mapplethorpe, John Vachon, Todd Webb, and James VanDerZee, as well as Barbara Morgan's famous image of Martha Graham, Letter to the World (The Kick). Among the contemporary photo stars whose work will go on the block are Tom Baril, Elinor Carucci, Lucien Clergue, Bruce Davidson, Lois Greenfield, Michael Kenna, Jerry N. Uelsmann, and William Wegman, while featured local luminaries include David Graham, Larry Fink, and Ray K. Metzker. In addition, a broad range of 19th-century photographs is up for bid.

On November 8 there will also be a silent auction of restaurant meals, museum memberships, books, photography equipment and supplies, and other collectible items.

A reception at 6 p.m. will honor this year's winner of The Photo Review Award: The Woodmere Art Museum.

The annual auction is free of charge. A fully illustrated catalogue is available for $12 from The Photo Review, 140 East Richardson Avenue, Suite 301, Langhorne, PA 19047-2824. Office phone is 215-891-0214.


BASSENGE AUCTION ON NOVEMBER 28TH; ONLINE CATALOGUE NOW AVAILABLE

Bassenge's auction will be held on Friday, November 28, 2003. You can see the catalogue online at
http://195.143.237.194/Bassenge/engl/Katalog.asp?SID=05511882&KAT=C. I suspect that this long URL address may break in transmission, so you may have to cut and paste it. As an alternative, you can go to the I Photo Central website at http://www.iphotocentral.com/calendar/calendar_items.php/5 , scroll down to the Bassenge listing, and click on the Bassenge logo.

For a listing of Bassenge auction highlights, just click here: http://www.iphotocentral.com/news/article_view.php/68/63/322 .
 

In conjunction with the exhibition "Camera Work: A Centennial Celebration," The Photo Review has published a 64-page full-color catalogue of the same title with essays by Peter C. Bunnell, Lucy Bowditch, Stephen Perloff, Barbara L. Michaels, and Luis Nadeau. Camera Work (1903-1917) was Alfred Stieglitz's pioneering publication that fought for the acceptance of photography as a fine art and also introduced modern art to Americans.

The catalogue is $20 Plus $4 shipping and is available from The Photo Review, 140 East Richardson Avenue, Suite 301, Langhorne, PA 19047. Phone is 215-891-0214. Charge cards and checks made out to the Photo Review are acceptable.

A special expanded limited edition of the catalogue with an essay on 21st - The Journal of Contemporary Photography, by Jean Dykstra; a portfolio by Carl Corey, director of the digital atelier GalleryPrint, including a tipped-in archival pigment print by Corey, is available for $50 plus $4 postage.

Peter Bunnell is represented by two classic essays: "A Photographic Vision / Pictorial Photography, 1889-1923" and "Alfred Stieglitz & Camera Work."

Lucy Bowditch's contribution, "Steichen and Camera Work," describes Steichen's many roles at the journal as an inspiration, designer, talent scout, advertiser, writer, and photographer.

Stephen Perloff's essay "Pictorialism into Modernism" investigates the roots of Pictorialism and the role that Stieglitz, Coburn, and Strand played in moving photographic practice from Pictorialism to Modernism.

Barbara L. Michaels's "On Charles Sheeler, the Camera Work that Wasn't, and Others that Might Have Been" examines the unpublished issue 51 of Camera Work, which Stieglitz had planned to feature the photographs of Charles Sheeler.

Luis Nadeau's "Reproduction Processes Used in Camera Work, 1903-1917" explains the various techniques used to make the plates that were tipped-in to Camera Work.

"Camera Work: A Centennial Celebration" will be seen at the James A. Michener Art Museum in Doylestown, PA, now until January 4, 2004, at the Philadelphia Art Alliance from May-August 2004, at Yavapi College, Prescott, AZ from September 10-October 15, 2004, and closes at the Erie Art Museum, Erie, PA from November 13, 2004-January 30, 2005.
 

As a personal aside and as many of you know, Maria DiElsi Connolly is the Assistant Director for Vintage Works and helps me out on occasion with this newsletter and I Photo Central. She is also a very fine photographer.

Two of her portrait photographs (Lily from the Prague Garden Series and AJ's Garage) were recently chosen for the Center for Photographic Image's Photoimage 03, which opens November 7 (today) at the Nexus Foundation for Today's Art, 137 North Second St., Philadelphia, PA.

Over 650 entries were submitted and Maria's two images were among only 64 selected. Her portrait of Lily was recently featured in the centerspread of Philadelphia's City Paper to promote the event. The exhibit will continue through the month of November.

My congratulations to Maria.