Sotheby’s Photographs, April 2021
Sotheby’s hosted their first Photographs auction of the year on Wednesday with a sale of 162 lots by ‘many masters of the medium, and features a range of material from the 19th to 21st centuries’. Lots included Celebrity portraiture, still life, landscapes and architectural studies, as well as ‘property of a prominent corporation’. In total the auction raised $2,093,994 in sales.
The most expensive sale of the auction was Richard Avedon’s Marilyn Monroe, Actress, New York City which was estimated to sell for $80,000 to $120,000 but outperformed that projection by $43,800 by selling for $163,800. Completely surprising everybody was the second place sale which was expected to reach $20,000 to $30,000 but brought in $107,100 for Catherine Opie’s Untitled 7 (Surfers). More than triple its top estimate.
In third place was the ever popular Clearing Winter Storm, Yosemite Valley by Ansel Adams which sold for $100,800 after an estimate of $50,000-$70,000, outperforming its top estimate by $30,000.
View each photograph by clicking on the title or see all the results from this sale at Sotheby’s website here.