What The Winter Auctions Mean For Photography

As we slip into March we shake off the vestiges of 2018 and welcome the promise of spring. As far as photography auctions are concerned we are at the cusp of some of the biggest photography auctions in the calendar, so it seems an appropriate time to reflect on what has come so far.

The start of 2019 has provided scant winter offerings with only three auctions concerning photography, all of which were mixed-media auctions with two held online.  Without Sotheby’s there would have been no activity for photography this season as all three auctions were hosted by the house. It has, however, provided a little preview into photography’s current position. 

At The Fine Art Society: 142 Years on New Bond Street Sotheby’s brought together 312 lots of furniture, illustrations, sketches, paintings and a handful of photographs. Photography made up less than 2% of the consignments, consisting of un-editioned works by relatively undervalued artists (compared with the usual marquee names like Cecil Beaton and Man Ray), but saw 40% of those lots sell for over their highest estimates. At the close of sale, 2 photographs remained unsold of 71 unsold lots. Though this is hardly a news-worthy item it shows that even in a largely pre-20th century auction with somewhat obscure photographic offerings, there is still a taste for photography, be it for their subject or historical value, such as a collection of 39 prints of 1851 The Great Exhibition, which sold for £1,125 (£325 above its top estimate).

A similar story was the case for the second auction, Erotic: Passion & Desire, an annual online auction that saw 67 lots available with only 9 photographs. Together the photographic lots brought in £45,000 (10%) to a combined sales total of £446,375. This time photography lots were a combination of black and white and colour, with the highest selling print (£23,750) created as recently as 2017.

Finally Now! Online, another annual online auction, saw 40 photographs available from 255 lots (15%) going up against contemporary paintings (the highest selling genre at auction). Together photography contributed €146,875 (just under 12%) to the combined sales total of €1,259,250. For a category that is still one of the smallest and least funded departments, and one of the newest art forms, photography is proving itself as a steady seller. With the most anticipated auctions of spring approaching photography could yet prove its headline-grabbing value too.