Phillips' Photographs Auction
Phillips New York
11 October 2023 10am & 2pm EDT
Memphis, circa 1969
Estimate $250,000 - 350,000
Photograph Courtesy Phillips
Phillips’ 11 October Photographs auction will present an exceptional selection of work across the history of the medium, including the special single-owner sequence HIGH VOLTAGE: Contemporary Photographs from the Collection of Fred and Laura Bidwell. Offering over 300 lots, the sale features some of the most desirable classic photographers, such as William Eggleston, Ansel Adams, Richard Avedon, Dorothea Lange, Edward Steichen, and many others, as well as numerous contemporary practitioners, among them Hiroshi Sugimoto, Laurie Simmons, Zanele Muholi, Gillian Wearing, and Anne Collier. Also on view will be Inside the Photograph: Further Selections from the Peter C. Bunnell Collection, Phillips’ final online sale from the collection of this esteemed curator and photographic historian which opens for bidding on 10 October.
Vanessa Hallett, Deputy Chairwoman, Americas and Worldwide Head of Photographs said, “The wide range of works in this sale allow us the opportunity to see that the creative continuum of photography remains unbroken, and that truly expressive and creative work is present throughout the medium’s timeline. Collectors will have ample opportunity to compete for stellar works, whether their collecting focus is contemporary, Modern, or 19th century. We look forward once again to welcoming photography lovers to our pre-sale exhibition and our live auction.”
Leading the auction is William Eggleston’s iconic Memphis, 1969, his classic study of a tricycle that was the cover illustration for his seminal 1976 monograph William Eggleston’s Guide. Presented here as a rare dye-transfer print, Memphis monumentalizes its subject, and is exemplary of William Eggleston’s unique ability to utilize color to portray the American cultural landscape.
Moonrise, Hernandez, New Mexico, 1941
Estimate $100,000 - 150,000
Photograph Courtesy Phillips
Ansel Adams’s classic study of the Western American landscape, Moonrise, Hernandez, New Mexico, 1941, presents an especially nuanced example of this famous image. Printed in the early 1960s, this is one of the comparatively few examples of Moonrise made before the 1970s and shows Ansel Adams working at the peak of his abilities as a printer.
Radio City and Rockefeller Center, 1933
Estimate $80,000 - 120,000
Photograph Courtesy Phillips
Edward Steichen’s likely unique mural-sized multiple-exposure Radio City and Rockefeller Center, 1933, captures the soaring architecture of New York City in a dynamic abstract composition. This monumental photograph is a rare survivor from the brief period in the 1930s when Edward Steichen experimented with printing his images in increasingly larger sizes for a number of exhibition projects. Measuring roughly 50 by 40 inches, Edward Steichen’s mural is charged with the unique energy of the city.
Bob Dylan, Singer, New York, New York, 2.10.65, 1965
Estimate $20,000 - 30,000
Photograph Courtesy Phillips
Diane Arbus and Richard Avedon, two of the great portrait photographers of the 20th century, are well represented in the auction. A lifetime print of Diane Arbus’s Boy with a straw hat waiting to march in a pro-war parade, N.Y.C., 1967, is one of the photographer’s best known images and was featured on the cover of Artforum magazine in 1971. Taken at a demonstration on the streets of New York City, Diane Arbus’s incisive portrait shows a young man whose visible support of the Vietnam War was in contrast to the overall ethos of his generation. Richard Avedon’s portrait of Bob Dylan, Singer, New York, New York, 2.10.65, 1965, shows the musician as a cosmopolitan sophisticate posing along Manhattan’s Fifth Avenue. The sale also includes Richard Avedon’s elegant fashion studies, Suzy Parker, Evening dress by Dior, Paris studio, August, 1956, and Carmen, Homage to Munkácsi, Coat by Cardin, Place François-Premier, Paris, August, 1957, as well as several other portraits.
Four Lipsticks (New York), 1987
Estimate $40,000 - 60,000
Photograph Courtesy Phillips
Irving Penn’s masterful color work includes his excellent cosmetic still life Four Lipsticks (New York), 1987, as well as Contact Lens, New York, 1981, and Red Lips, New York, 2005, all of which show Irving Penn’s elegant and sometimes mischievous approach to photographing fashion and beauty.
Migratory Cotton Picker, Eloy, Arizona, 1940
Estimate $40,000 - 60,000
Photograph Courtesy Phillips
The sale also boasts a strong selection of work from the 1930s and 1940s including Dorothea Lange’s classic The Road West, New Mexico, 1938, depicting the measureless expanse of highway traversed by American migrants as they made the arduous journey from the dustbowl to California. Dorothea Lange’s Migratory Cotton Picker, Eloy, Arizona, 1940, is a penetrating portrait of one such worker, and Mission District Firetrap, San Francisco, 1936, illustrates her ability to create tightly composed images that transcend their documentary purpose. Also featured are several early works by Walker Evans, Alma Lavenson, and Berenice Abbott.
Hiroshi Sugimoto
Opticks 161, 2018
Estimate $100,000 - 150,000
Photograph Courtesy Phillips
Hiroshi Sugimoto’s Opticks 161, 2018, grew out of the photographer’s deep interest in the science of light. To make this image, Sugimoto transformed his studio into a camera obscura; as the sun rose and set outside, pure light, in all its infinite colors, was cast from a prism onto a customized mirror and then captured by Hiroshi Sugimoto’s lens, creating the stunningly saturated image offered here. This body of work debuted in 2020, and this is the first print from the project to be offered at auction.
Hyacinth, 1987
Estimate $20,000 - 30,000
Photograph Courtesy Phillips
Ele Portfolio, 1965-1984
Estimate $80,000 - 120,000
Photograph Courtesy Phillips
Walking Purse, 1989
Estimate $50,000 - 70,000
Photograph Courtesy Phillips
The October auction features a range of work by Robert Mapplethorpe including Hyacinth, 1987, a large-format photogravure on silk that makes elegant use of its materials, as does his Tulips, a platinum print also from 1987. Peter Beard’s Ele Portfolio, published in 2008, contains 15 of the photographer’s most seminal photographs of African elephants, a subject central to his body of work. Laurie Simmons’s Walking Purse, 1989, is one of the definitive images of her career and embodies the conceptual photographer’s multi-layered commentary on consumerism in popular culture.
Manning the Rail, USS Tortuga, Java Sea, 2010
Estimate $15,000 - 25,000
Photograph Courtesy Phillips
Significant contemporary offerings include An-My Lê’s Manning the Rail, USS Tortuga, Java Sea, 2010, from the photographer’s extended pictorial investigation into the effects of American’s foreign policy, as well as work by Gillian Wearing, Sohei Nishino, Ryan McGinley, Wolfgang Tillmans, and Erwin Olaf.
Phillips’ 11 October Photographs auction includes the special single-owner sequence HIGH VOLTAGE: Contemporary Photographs from the Collection of Fred and Laura Bidwell to be featured in a dedicated section within the auction. The offering includes 40 works showcasing the diversity of contemporary photography with artists such as Kehinde Wiley, Dawoud Bey, Zanele Muholi, Hank Willis Thomas, Andrew Moore, Lee Friedlander, Paul Mpagi Sepuya, and many others. Collectors and philanthropists, Fred and Laura Bidwell founded the Transformer Station in the Hingetown neighborhood of Cleveland, Ohio, that has become a premier exhibition space for contemporary photography and art. High Voltage offers a glimpse into the Bidwells’ collection and exhibition program at the Transformer Station. The Bidwells gifted the Transformer Station to the Cleveland Museum of Art earlier this year. Proceeds from the works in Phillips’ auction will support the Bidwells’ active philanthropic endeavors.
The Rouge, Dearborn, Michigan from Detroit Disassembled, 2008
Estimate: $25,000 - 35,000
Photograph Courtesy Phillips
New York City, 1966
Estimate: $4,000 - 6,000
Photograph Courtesy Phillips
Fred Bidwell said, “Laura and I are excited to show a slice of our collection and give an opportunity for other collectors to be a part of the lifecycle of these incredible photographs that we’ve loved throughout the years. Photography has never lost its fascination for the two of us with its unique ability to capture a moment of reality and time. Our collecting journey was always about the things we loved, that lightning strike moment when you see something that resonates so clearly within you. That energy is felt throughout these works, the tension between the material and the conceptual being felt in each piece, and it is our hope that this energy can go on to capture the minds of others as they did for us.”
HIGH VOLTAGE: Contemporary Photographs from the
Collection of Fred and Laura Bidwell
Lightning Fields 128, 2009
Estimate $40,000 - 60,000
Photograph Courtesy Phillips
Central to the collection is Hiroshi Sugimoto’s monumental Lightning Fields 128, which transforms raw electrical energy into photographic form. The series has its origins in the photographer’s fascination with 18th and 19th century experiments with electricity and reflects Sugimoto’s deep knowledge of photographic history and technique. The Lightning Fields photographs are made without a camera in the darkroom, and electricity is both the source of illumination and the ‘object’ whose form is captured photographically. Rendered here in a bravura large-format print, the image delivers a distinct visual charge and, as such, was foundational at the Bidwells’ Transformer Station exhibition space.
Bona, Charlottesville (9781),
from Somnyama Ngonyama, 2015
Estimate $20,000 - 30,000
Photograph Courtesy Phillips
Zanele Muholi’s Bona, Charlottesville (9781) is a key example from their Somnyama Ngonyama (Hail the Dark Lioness) series. In this celebrated body of work, Zanele Muholi occupies the role of both subject and image-maker in a way that is distinctly their own, challenging stereotypes and provoking the viewer to reconsider expectations about beauty and societal roles. A major survey of Zanele Muholi’s work is planned for 2024-25 at the Tate Modern.
Baron of the Crossroads, 2012
Estimate $25,000 - 35,000
Photograph Courtesy Phillips
Baron of the Crossroads, from Hank Willis Thomas’s signature Crossroads series, explores the complexities and ambiguities of race. The image features fellow artist Sanford Biggers in the character of Elegba, the Yoruba deity, trickster, and protector of travels and crossroads. In Hank Willis Thomas’s rendering, the Baron is both black and white simultaneously—neither wholly one or the other, and seemingly possessing the attributes of darkness and light. With his use of a selectively-filtering film laminate called Lumisty, Hank Willis Thomas intensifies the experience of looking at the work which shifts as the viewer changes position. Earlier this month Hank Willis Thomas was awarded the prestigious 2023 United States Department of State Medal of Arts.
Untitled #25 (Lake Erie and Sky) from
Night Coming Tenderly, Black, 2017
Estimate $20,000 - 30,000
Photograph Courtesy Phillips
Dawoud Bey’s evocative study of Lake Erie enshrouded by darkness is from the photographer’s 2017 Night Coming Tenderly, Black series, a project commissioned by FRONT International and headed by Fred Bidwell. Shot exclusively in Cleveland and Hudson, Ohio, Dawoud Bey recreates the experience of fugitive slaves as they made their way along the Underground Railroad to freedom in Canada prior to the Civil War. Lake Erie would have been the last obstacle that many escaped slaves encountered.
Big Bear, CA A2, 2012
Estimate: $8,000 - 12,000
Photograph Courtesy Phillips
Excerpts From Silver Meadows, circa 2013
Estimate $12,000 - 18,000
Photograph Courtesy Phillips
The Bidwells’ have long been intrigued by photographic works that are unique, and this theme is prevalent throughout the lots on offer. This includes fellow Ohioan, Todd Hido’s unique assemblage, Excerpts from Silver Meadows (exhibited at Transformer station in 2014), and works by Adam Fuss, Richard Learoyd, Chris McCaw, Alison Rossiter, Matthew Brandt, Christopher Bucklow, and multi-disciplinary artist Wilmer Wilson IV. Wilson’s Rate Who Rate You, 2016, will be his auction debut. Whether unique or editioned, each work from the Bidwell collection is arresting, appealing and High Voltage – speaking to the couple’s personal background in advertising, their impactful vision, and dedicated focus on living artists.
Shopping Bag, 2008
Estimate: $20,000 - 30,000
Photograph Courtesy Phillips
Darkroom Mirror Study, or Aperture (0X5A3449), 2017
Estimate: $7,000 - 9,000
Photograph Courtesy Phillips
Following the sale on 11 October, a select offering from the Bidwell Collection will also be included in the April 2024 Photographs auction.
Fred Bidwell serves as Executive Director for FRONT International. Launched in 2018, FRONT International: Cleveland Triennial for Contemporary Art is a free, public, contemporary art exhibition comprising artist commissions, performances, films, and public programs that takes place across Cleveland, Akron, and Oberlin every three years. The third edition of FRONT will take place in 2025.
Sarah Krueger, Head of Photographs, New York, said, "Phillips is honored to work with Fred and Laura Bidwell. Through their important work with Transformer Station and FRONT International, they have pushed the boundaries of photography in the public sphere, enriching the cultural landscape and providing access to the best of contemporary photographic practice in the Midwest and beyond. The Bidwells’ vision and support have enabled the photography community to flourish, fostering creativity and innovation. Their enduring passion for this extraordinary medium leaves an indelible mark, inspiring future generations of photographers and enthusiasts."
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