Historic Sothebyâ€™s Photographers Sale

Uma Nair
24 April 2014, 12:18 PM IST

Art bodies and dealers and institutions all over the world could learn from this philanthropic confluence at Sotheby's London. Leading contemporary photographers have donated major works to help save the Fox Talbot Archive. The act of coming together itself is a gesture of epic proportions in a world that has seen so much of innate selfishness amongst greedy money obsessed art aficionados.

Photographs, dating from the early 19th century to the current decade, will make a welcome return to Sotheby's in London when the Company stages a 148-lot sale on May 7, 2014.

Simone Klein, Sotheby's head of photographs, Europe, commented: "Featuring works by established names and shooting stars, and with estimates starting at £2,000, the auction will appeal to collectors looking for exceptional examples of photography, specifically images that beguile and seduce the viewer for all the reasons that have made this medium an art form in its own right."

The sale opens with a 16-lot selection of generously donated photographs by leading contemporary photographers in support of the Bodleian Library's campaign to save the personal archive of William Henry Fox Talbot. The bid to acquire the archive of Fox Talbot's life and work was launched by the institution in 2012, in an effort to preserve a major record in the history of photography. With this gesture, these photographers pay homage to the father of photography on paper and of the art they are exponents of. Hiroshi Sugimoto (b. 1948) has donated two works, neither of which has ever been released onto the market before. Talbotized 011, 2012, and Talbotized 004, 2012, are each estimated at £6,000-8,000.

Since the mid-1970s, Hiroshi Sugimoto has used photography to investigate how visual representation interprets and distils history. By photographing subjects that reimagine or replicate moments from the distant past, Sugimoto critiques the medium's presumed capacity to portray history with accuracy. His two works in this show are historic in terms of impact and spectacular in terms of the detailing in monochrome.

Visual artists as well as writers have long extolled the presence of the tree. From the origins of photography to the present day, photographers have considered the tree, with its strong graphic form and evocative power, to be a popular subject. Many works personify the image of the tree in its many connotations—as graphic form, symbolic icon, and role model for the beauty of nature.

The selection of 148 Lots presents the tree in various contexts: the single tree; trees in the urban landscape; uses of trees; tree reflections and shadows; and details, abstractions, and conceptual views of trees as conceived by contemporary photographers.

The sale includes an exciting discovery that has been hidden in a French private collection since the 19^th century: An album of 44 photographs by John Beasley Greene of Egypt and Algeria, 1852-1856, which captivate the viewer by their sheer modernity. Audacious framings and an ambitious treatment of light make Greene's views some of the most radical in early photography. Acquired in Paris, this album, estimated at £100,000-150,000, was assembled by its first owner who may have become personally acquainted with John Beasley Greene in 1853.

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