Christie’s Spring 2020 Photographs Results

From the 19th May to 3rd June Christie’s ran the spring edition of their annual Photographs auction. Adapting to current global events the auction was exclusively held online with 238 lots available for bidding.

The auction combined prints from several collections including property from David Scheinbaum and Janet Russek and the Beaumont and Nancy Newhall Estate, property from the collection of Sarah Bachir and Jacob Yerex, property from Richard L. Weisman’s collection, as well as property from an important Japanese collection.

The marquee print for this auction was Gordon Parks’ Emerging Man with a estimate of $10,000 to $15,000 (selling for double its estimate at $23,750). The image was chosen to lead the auction to coincide with the ongoing Black Lives Matter protests throughout the United States. Parks was a ‘pioneer of African American photography and cinema’. Read the full feature here.

The auction included works by various masters of the craft including the recently deceased Peter Beard, Edward Weston, Hiroshi Sugimoto and Herb Ritts.

The most expensive lot was Peter Beard’s But past who can recall or done, which had an estimate of $70,000-$100,000 and sold above its top estimate for $118,750.

Beard was followed by two lots from Irving Penn. Rag and Bone Man, London doubled it’s $40,000-$60,000 estimate by selling for $106,250, and Butcher, London ,1951 sold for $87,500 with the same estimate.

Of 238 lots, 130 sold with a total combined sales total of $2,422,125. View all the lots from this sale on Christie’s page here.

image: Victoria kubiaki