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• Issue #241
• Article

Julia Margaret Cameron, Portrait of Mary Ryan (lot 5, £3,000-5,000)

Forum Auctions is launching its inaugural Photographs and Photobooks auction, taking place on Friday, June 1, 2018 in London at 1 pm London time.

Spanning the history of photography, the auction contains powerful works from the medium’s earliest decades to the present day. It also features a strong selection of photobooks.

Highlights from the 19th century comprise two portraits by the Victorian photographer Julia Margaret Cameron, including one of her protégé Mary Ryan (lot 5, £3,000-5,000), two delicate landscapes of the Fontainebleau Forest in Corot style by Eugène Cuvelier (lot 13 & 14, £1,500-2,000 each) and one of Oscar Gustave Rejlander’s last portrait taken in 1874 (lot 4, £1,000-1,500).

This section also showcases a rare group of intriguing and delicate hand-colored albumen prints of botanical studies by Pietro Guidi (lot 7, £1,500-2,000) and fine examples of travel photography including views of and portraits from Japan, Italy, Hong-Kong, Macau. One particularly highlight is the iconic view of Siniolchu in the Himalaya by mountaineer photographer Vittorio Sella (lot 23, £1,000-1,500).

Further on in the sale is a rare group of six vintage gelatin silver prints from the famous Romi Gallery series by Robert Doisneau, including ‘La Dame Indignée’ (lot 27, £6,000-8,000). Other iconic French humanist photographers such as Brassai, Martine Franck, Edouard Boubat and Willy Ronis are also featured in the sale.

Six vintage gelatin silver prints from the famous Romi Gallery series by Robert Doisneau, including ‘La Dame Indignée’ (lot 27, £6,000-8,000)

A unique Darwin Tulip print by Charles Jones opens the British photography section (lot 45, £3,000-5,000), followed by a large vintage print of Bill Brandt’s nude from the 1977 photo session in East Sussex. This is a piece that is rarely offered at auction (lot 46, £5,000-7,000). Bert Hardy’s best-known image Gorbal Boys (lot 32, £1,000-1,500) leads the early British photography section, along with early views of London by Thurton Hopkins, and followed by three strong and dramatic prints by Graham Smith (lots 87 to 89).

Eastern European street photographers and their raw aesthetic captures scenes of everyday life, as seen in works included by Rimaldas Viksraitis, Jindrich Streit and Romualdas Pozerskis.

The sale also incorporates a wide selection of nudes, from unknown models taken by the lens of Iwase Yoshiyuki (lots 50 to 53) to Marilyn Monroe’s iconic pose captured by Tom Kelley (lot 65, £1,200-1,500) to the polemical shot of Christine Keeler by Lewis Morley following the Profumo affair in 1963 (lot 86, £3,000-5,000).

The sale also features a selection of photographs of fashion muse Kate Moss—from her first photo session by David Ross, then an unknown teenager of 14 years old (lots 136 & 137) to some of her most famous photographs at the top of her career by Bruce Weber, Albert Watson and Paolo Roversi.

Albert Watson, Kate Moss, Marrakech, 1993 (lot 142, £4,000-6,000)

Unique photomontages of chromogenic Kodak Instamatics by talented artist Antonio Lopez in the 1980s bring to light the timeless elegance of Gingers Rogers and Gloria Swanson (lots 102 & 103, each £2,000-3,000). In her style, Diane Arbus captured an incredibly intimate portrait of two men dancing at a drag ball (lot 104, £5,000-7,000).

Other interesting highlights include photojournalist Don McCullin posing alongside the Mujahideen in Afghanistan (lot 121, £800-1,200), a vintage print by Robert Capa snapping the Loyalists soldiers on the Aragon front in 1938 (lot 79, £2,500-3,500), Sebastiao Salgado capturing the mine of Sera Pelada in Brazil, as well as unique enlarged Polaroids taken by Walker Evans at the end of his career (lots 54 & 55, £1,500-2,000 each).

The sale concludes with a curated selection of first editions photobooks, including Henri-Cartier Bresson signed copy of ‘The Decisive Moment’ (lot 162, £2,000-3,000).

Other photographers featuring in the sale include: Eugene Atget, Manuel Alvarez Bravo, Harry Callahan, William Klein, Bruce Davidson, O. Winston Link, Horst P. Horst, Marc Hispard, Steve McCurry, Richard Misrach, Tracey Moffat, Nan Goldin and Alison Jackson, among others.

Additional information:
Pre-Auction Viewing at The Westbury Hotel, London W1S 2YF:
Wednesday. May 30, 9.30 am - 7.30 pm
Thursday, May 31, 9.30 am - 8.00 pm
And the day of the sale from 9.00 am.

The full catalogue is online here: https://www.forumauctions.co.uk/Photographs-and-Photobooks/01-06-2018. Auction contact: Justine Gruse, Email: j.gruser@forumauctions.co.uk; Tel: + 44 (0) 20 7871 2640. The auction house's website: http://www.forumauctions.co.uk/.