Photography - Post-Auction Report

Auction 1255 Photography on 29th November 2024
Auction 1256 Evening Sale on 29th November 2024
Auction 1257 Day Sale on 30th November 2024
Post-Auction Report

The three photography auctions at Lempertz this autumn generated high hammer prices for works by William Eggleston, Candida Höfer, Bernd and Hilla Becher and other great names in the history of photography. The sales featured important works from the holdings of Galerie Clairefontaine in Luxembourg.

William Eggleston was the author of the auction's top lot. His untitled photograph from 1996 (Boy in Red Sweater) attracted a great deal of international interest in the run-up to the auction. However, the piece was eventually acquired by a saleroom bidder. The lot was sold for € 25,000.

The Day Sale on 30th November included two works by Bernd and Hilla Becher. Here, too, several bidders were active on the phones and in the saleroom and lifted "Hüttenwerk Duisburg-Bruckhausen, Ruhrgebiet", created in 1999, to a final result of a € 20,000, well above the estimated € 15,000.

Candida Höfer, another prominent representative of the Düsseldorf School, was also featured in the auctions with several works. Her ‘Academic Art Museum of the University of Bonn IV’ realised € 3,780.

Anton Corbijn's photographs of music stars also shone out in the auction. ‘Bono, Tokyo’ came from a private collection in the Rhineland. Following its successful appearance in Cologne, the image is now to be passed on to an international bidder for € 8,100 (estimate € 5,000).

The estate of Galerie Clairefontaine, an instituion in Luxembourg for the art and especially the photography scene, also boasted stars in front of and behind the camera. Lempertz considers itself highly fortunate to have been grated the opportunity to offer the gallery's holdings up for auction in several sales following the end of its business operations. Eliott Erwitt's ‘Marilyn Monroe, New York City’, for example, came to Cologne from this estate. Valued at € 3,000, this photograph from 1956 was sold after a bidding war for a hammer price of € 6,300. Helmut Newton's ‘Woman with Horse, Burbank (Los Angeles)’ also came from the Clairefontaine collection. At € 9,450 euros, this work achieved the same result as two large-format works by Edward Burtynsky: both ‘Pivot Irrigation #40, High Plains, Texas Panhandle, USA (from the series: Water)’ and ‘Dryland Farming #7, Monegros County, Aragon, Spain (from the series: Water)’ were successfully auctioned from the Clairefontaine Gallery's collection.

I would be happy to answer any questions and provide print-ready images.

With kind regards,

Jan Bykowski
Press and Public Relations
info@lempertz.com
Tel. 0221 925729 -57