Dorothea Lange: The Family Collection
Phillips, New York
2 - 13 October, 2022
White Angel Breadline, San Francisco, 1933
Estimate: $20,000 - 30,000
Courtesy of Phillips
Street Demonstration, San Francisco, 1933
Estimate $8,000 - 12,000
Courtesy of Phillips
Kern County, California (Olson for Governor), 1938
Estimate $7,000 - 9,000
Courtesy of Phillips
Phillips announces the sale of Dorothea Lange: The Family Collection, a trove of over 100 photographs coming directly from the descendants of this seminal American photographer. The collection will be sold in two separate online offerings scheduled alongside Phillips’ October 2022 and April 2023 Photographs auctions in New York. The first of these two online-only sales will be exhibited at Phillips’ Park Avenue galleries in New York from 2-13 October, with bidding open on 3 October.
The two sales feature some of Dorothea Lange’s most indelible images from her multi-decade career in photography, as well as many images which will be new to collectors. All were in the photographer’s collection at the time of her death, passed along to her descendants, and represent the entirety of her career, from the first socially-conscious images she made outside her portrait studio in San Francisco, through her work for the Farm Security Administration during the Depression, to her post-war documentary projects, much of it done in the company of her husband and collaborator Paul Taylor.
Shipyard Worker and Family in Trailer Camp, Richmond, California, 1944
Estimate $6,000 - 8,000
Courtesy of Phillips
New York City (Man in Raincoat), 1952
Estimate $4,000 - 6,000
Courtesy of Phillips
Selected Images from The Public Defender, 1955
Estimate $18,000 - 22,000
Courtesy of Phillips
Procession Bearing Food for the Dead, Egypt, 1963
Estimate $3,000 - 5,000
Courtesy of Phillips
Highlights of the October offering include a print of one of Dorothea Lange’s earliest and most decisive documentary images, White Angel Breadline, whose central figure embodies the poverty of the Depression and the grit to overcome it. The sale will feature a suite of 16 images from Dorothea Lange’s celebrated Public Defender series of 1955, in which her detailed portrayal of a public defense attorney and his clients set the template for a new kind of photojournalism. It is the largest group from this series to appear at auction.
The sale also includes an unprecedented selection of her international photography, begun in the 1950s, when she traveled with Paul Taylor to Ireland, Egypt, and Asia, creating a panoramic portrait of humanity across all cultures.
Estimates do not include buyer’s premium; prices achieved include the hammer price plus buyer’s premium.
Auction: 3 – 13 October 2022
Auction viewing: 2 – 13 October 2022
Location: 432 Park Avenue, New York, NY 10022
PHILLIPS NEW YORK
432 Park Avenue, New York, NY 10022
