Villa Grisebach's spring auction of Rarities of Modern Photography and Contemporary Photography is scheduled for June 3 at 3 pm in Berlin with over 180 lots for sale.
Lotte Jacobi's Head of a Dancer (1929) is one of modern photography's most iconic images and is presented in the auction in a unusually large print from the 1970s (estimate of 22,000-25,000 EUR). Yet another rare photograph is the humorous snapshot by the Bauhaus artist Josef Albers depicting the musician Bruno Canaresi and the actress Schifra in Ascona. This image is one of only three known vintage prints from the 1930s (estimate of 10,000-12,000 EUR).
A further highlight is Erwin Blumenfeld's self-portrait entitled Masque, which was produced between 1958-1961 (estimate of 9,000-11,000 EUR). Previously in the collection of Elsa Combe-Martin, a close friend of Juliet Man Ray, a group of private photographs of Man Ray is being auctioned in thematic groups of images, as well as in single images such as Double Self-Portrait (estimate of 5,000-7,000 EUR) and Man Ray and Marcel Duchamp Playing Chess (estimate of 3,000-5,000 EUR).
Other remarkable highlights in Villa Grisebach's modern photography section include László Moholy-Nagy's Superimposition II, a composition with photogram from 1939 (estimate of 10,000 to 15,000 EUR), as well as works by Ansel Adams, Manuel Alvarez Bravo, Andreas Feininger, F. C. Gundlach, Horst P. Horst, Frank Horvat, Seydou Keïta, Josef Koudelka, Helen Levitt, Alexander Rodchenko, Julius Shulman, Garry Winogrand, and others.
Perhaps the top lots in Villa Grisebach's Contemporary photography section are Thomas Struth's People on Fuxing Dong Lu, Shanghai (estimate of 18,000-24,000 EUR), followed by Bettina Rheims' famous and controversially discussed portfolio entitled I.N.R.I. (estimate of 15,000-18,000 EUR), and Axel Hütte's large-format image Waardenburg (estimate of 10,000-15,000 EUR). Contemporary images by Nobuyoshi Araki, Guido Argentini, Roger Ballen, Vanessa Beecroft, Andreas Gursky, Eikoh Hosoe, Tiina Itkonen, Steve McCurry, Thomas Ruff, Sebastião Salgado and Miroslav Tichy will be up for auction here.
You can preview the Photography and other Spring Sales in Berlin, May 29-June 2 at Villa Grisebach, Fasanenstraße 25, 28 and 73. Hours are Saturday-Tuesday, 10 am-6:30 pm, and Wednesday, 10 am-5 pm. The auction itself is scheduled for Thursday, June 3 at 3 pm.
For more information go to http://www.villa-grisebach.de/en/ , or contact Franziska Schmidt (head of the photography department), phone: +1-49-30-885 915-27; fax: +49 30-885915-4627 (from the U.S. dial 011 then the number); or email: f.schmidt@villa-grisebach.de . The auction catalogue is available online at https://www.villa-grisebach.de/en/catalogues/listview/katalog_uid/172/ .
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