Photography - Spectacular self-photograph

The top lot of the Photography Auction on 1 June is Willi Ruge’s 1931 spectacular ‘Photo of Myself at the Moment of my Jump’ showing the photographer parachuting over the outskirts of Berlin (lot 529, € 30/40,000). Published many times, the picture is part of the reportage with which the photographer celebrated his greatest international success. The vintage print offered here for sale is from the archive of the Argentinian weekly paper ‘Caras y Caretas’. The impressive close-up, with its strong black and white contrasts and intense internal-pictorial dynamics, can be interpreted today as an allegory of an era that was characterised by the fascination for technical progress, speed, and optical sensation. A vintage print identical to our motif is currently on show in the noteworthy exhibition 'Masterworks of Modern Photography 1900 – 1940. The Thomas Walther Collection at The Museum of Modern Art, New York', with stops in Lugano, Paris and Turin. This shot, of which to current knowledge only the above-mentioned print in the Museum of Modern Art is known, is offered for the first time at auction.

László Moholy-Nagy’s portrait of his Bauhaus student Xanti Schawinsky (lot 523, € 12/15,000) is from the sitter’s estate and was taken in 1927 during a joint sojourn in Ascona on a summery beach. In his notes, Moholy-Nagy titled the close-up portrait ‘Sun worshippers invoking a sun god'. The image was used in the vertical in 1933 with the title ‘Unter der Douche [Under the Shower]’ on the cover of the ‘Basler Illustrierte’, demonstrating the frank way the picture editors of the time dealt with their material, but can also be seen as proof of Moholy-Nagy's well-known postulate that a good photograph should ‘function’ from different points of view.

Although created several years before the actual beginning of his career, Irving Penn's early work 'Fish made of Fish' already shows those characteristics that would later establish his reputation as one of the most recognised photographers of the 20th century: Here, the visually concise composition, reduced to its essentials, goes hand in hand with Penn's typical high-level technical precision (lot 560, € 12/15,000). From his fellow countryman, Man Ray, is the elegant portrait en profil of the sophisticated Karin Kluth (lot 545, € 8/10,000). It was taken in 1929 in Paris where the German-born artist presented her work that same year in the Galerie Georges Bernheim. Karin and her later husband, the Dutch artist Ernst van Leyden, were associated with the artistic circles around Marc Chagall, Ossip Zadkine and Francis Picabia.

Presumably also taken in Paris is a nocturnal shot of the shiny-wet pavement by Brassaï’ which is transformed into a graphic-looking pattern in the narrow picture frame (lot 549, € 5/6,000). Several important works by the French Photographes Humanistes are offered, amongst them Édouard Boubat’s picture of children playing in the wintery ‘Jardin du Luxembourg’ (lot 585, € 3/3,500), Robert Doisneau’s rainy ‘Manège de Monsieur Barré’ (lot 586, € 4/5,000) and Henri Cartier-Bresson’s country idyl in ‘Beauce, France’ (lot 589, € 3/3,500).

US American photography is prominently represented in several works by Helen Levitt (lots 564/565 and 596/597, € 1,8/2,000 and € 4/5,000) as well as Lee Friedlander’s famous shot in ‘New York City’ of his self-portrait looming on a lady’s fur collar (lot 599, € 5/6,000).

Within the area of Contemporary Photography, Tracey Moffat’s ‘Something More #5’ stands out (lot 649, € 8/10,000). The present shot, with its oversaturated colours and dramatic staging of figures – with the photographer herself in the red dress – evokes a supposed ‘story’, pregnant with meaning and marked by subliminal violence. Moffat plays with the viewing habits of a cinema-savvy audience, and with her series ‘Something More’, the Australian photographer gained international regard. Anton Corbijn is represented by three portraits of significant personalities from the field of music (lots 642-644, € 5/6,000), including his famous portrait of the U2 singer, Bono, pictured with his wife Nassim and which was used for the cover of the 1991 album ‘Achtung Baby’.

The photographic highlight of the Evening Sale on 1 June is Maurizio Cattelan’s large-format ‘Untitled’ which originated in 1999 from his performance 'Project#65 - Maurizio Cattelan' at the MoMA, New York (lot 44, € 100/150,000). The performance consisted of a performer wearing a costume and an oversized head-mask with the traits of Pablo Picasso in his later years, mingling with museum visitors as a ‘caricature’ of this greatest of modern artists, communicating with them in pantomime, and posing for photographs.

Candida Höfer is present with an imposing shot of the ‘Biblioteca universitaria di Bologna’ (lot 90, € 30/40,000), whilst a group of six shots of winding towers from the 1970s comes from her teachers Bernd and Hilla Becher (lot 91, € 35/40,000).

Further photographic works will be offered in our Day Sale on 2 June.

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact me at 0221/92 57 29–30.

Edgar Abs
Press and public relations
Cologne, May 2022