Lot 14 D

Vittorio Sella, who came from a family of photographers, started to document the high peaks of the Alps at an early age on various mountaineering expeditions. Between 1889 and 1909 he took part as a photographer in a series of international expeditions to the Caucasus (1889, 1890 and 1896), to Sikkim (1899) and to Karakorum (1909). Ansel Adams praised Sellas' work in an obituary in 1943: „With Sella's sensitive insight and response the magnificence of mountains is clarified and destilled into a high order of expression. For, to a very definite degree, the work of Sella contains the qualities of greatness. […] The contemporary photographer will do well to study Sella's craft." (zit. nach Ansel Adams, in: Summit by Vittorio Sella. Mountaineer and photographer. The years 1879-1909, exhib.cat. Mount Holyoke College Art Museum u.a., New York 1999, pp. 7)