E-Photo
Issue #12  3/1/2000
 
Anonymous Jammes Bidder L080 Identified

By Alex Novak

After months of speculation, the identity of the mysterious L080 has reportedly been revealed. 

I had been hearing details for several weeks about the anonymous Sotheby's London buyer who spent nearly $8 million at this past October's sale of the Jammes photography collection.  One major collector told me that he absolutely knew who the buyer was and that he was a wealthy Middle Eastern individual. 

Finally, yesterday the French newspaper Le Monde reported that Saoud Al-Thani, a relative of the Amir Hamad Bin Khalifa Al-Thani, who is the head of the gulf state of Qatar, was probably the bidder. 

Saoud Al Thani is reportedly responsible for the Emirate's cultural policies and plans on building a major museum of modern art in his country.

Novak has over 47 years experience in the photography-collecting arena. He is a long-time member and formally board member of the Daguerreian Society, and, when it was still functioning, he was a member of the American Photographic Historical Society (APHS). He organized the 2016 19th-century Photography Show and Conference for the Daguerreian Society. He is also a long-time member of the Association of International Photography Art Dealers, or AIPAD. Novak has been a member of the board of the nonprofit Photo Review, which publishes both the Photo Review and the Photograph Collector, and is currently on the Photo Review's advisory board. He was a founding member of the Getty Museum Photography Council. He is author of French 19th-Century Master Photographers: Life into Art.

Novak has had photography articles and columns published in several newspapers, the American Photographic Historical Society newsletter, the Photograph Collector and the Daguerreian Society newsletter. He writes and publishes the E-Photo Newsletter, the largest circulation newsletter in the field. Novak is also president and owner of Contemporary Works/Vintage Works, a private photography dealer, which sells by appointment and has sold at exhibit shows, such as AIPAD New York and Miami, Art Chicago, Classic Photography LA, Photo LA, Paris Photo, The 19th-century Photography Show, Art Miami, etc.