Press Release - Photography

Auction 1178│Photography

One thematic focus with several top lots is a group of photographs from the context of the Bauhaus and its successors, consigned from a Swiss private collection. Thirteen vintage prints from the estate of Xanti Schawinsky - the Bauhaus student and later lecturer at Black Mountain College in the USA - feature works by Schawinsky himself and by other Bauhaus photographers and reveal the multifaceted life at the Bauhaus with its celebrations and the activities of the stage workshop. Worth noting is the unusual auratic photograph by T. Lux Feininger showcasing two of his self-made theatre masks staged in darkly mysterious lighting (lot 631, € 10/15,000). The double exposure shot by Lucia Moholy of a humorous tap dance performance in the framework of the play “Feminine Repetition” is also unique. Further very rare vintage prints from Umbo (lots 633/634, € 6-10,000) - whose complete print and negative stock was lost in the Second World War – a Gropius portrait by Josef Albers, as well as three experimental photographs by Xanti Schawinsky from the 1940s (lots 641-643, each €4/5,000) also belong to the group and document the manifold aspects of this topic.

A beautiful complement to this thread takes the form of a now very rare brochure designed by Herbert Bayer for the “Section Allemande” of the Paris exhibition of the “Société des Artistes Décorateur” from 1930, which was described by Siegfried Giedion as a “small typographic masterpiece” (lot 649, € 2,500). 

Alongside this is another pearl of art photography, Heinrich Kühn’s “Tonwertstudie III” (lot 612, € 10-12,000), and an icon of classical photography from the Weimar Republic, August Sander’s “Bauernmädchen” from 1925, published by him in 1929 in his book “Antlitz der Zeit”, and presented here in a print by Gunther Sander from the 1960s (lot 618, €5/6,000).

American photography of the 1950s is represented by the artistically excellent “Chicago”, a masterwork of subtle lighting by Ray K. Metzker (lot 690, € 4/5,000). The idyllic location of Italy in the 19th and 20th century features prominently several times in this auction: As has often been the case recently, the auction begins with a group of charming portraits of young people by Wilhelm von Gleoden, Guglielmo PlüschowandVincenzo Galdifromthe Fin de Siècle period (lots 600-610, € 900-1,200). However, the shimmering, midsummer atmosphere of the 1958 photograph of a beach bar on the Adriatic coast by Piergiorgio Branzi also evokes feelings of holidays (lot 700, € 3,000), as do the photographs by Henri Cartier-Bresson of Scanno in the Abbruzzi (lots 701/702, € 2-3,000), and of San Domino and Venice by Luigi Ghirri (lots 741/742, € 5-6,000 each), which picturesquely set the scene for various destinations of the Italian peninsula.

The two untitled, life-size, full body photograms by Floris M. Neusüss featuring a prancing woman with a posy (lot 712, € 9/12,000), and a couple in an ecstatic whirl (lot 713, € 8/10,000), are two important works of experimental photography of the second half of the 20th century which are offered for sale. In the second work in particular, in which Neusüss employed painterly touches using developer and fixer fluid, one recognises the artistic proximity of this photograph to Informel painting. The works comes from the collection of the founder of the Galerie nächst St. Stephan which was a centre of Informel art in Austria in the 1960s.

Two high-class, politically engaged contemporary photographs are also offered, namely “Elephant reaching from the last Branch on the Tree, Kenya”, by Peter Beard (lot 711, € 9/12,000), and “Afghan Girl, Pakistan” by Steve McCurry (lot 733, €15/20,000) – formally conceivably different, but equally forceful in their message.

Auction 1177 and 1178│Evening Sale and Day Sale

The highlight of the Contemporary Photography in our Evening Sale on 17 June is the six-part tableau “Fördertürme” by Bernd and Hilla Becher (lot 36, €40/60,000). As with four further views of winding towers by the Bechers in our Day Sale on 18 June, it comes from the estate of the light artist Horst H. Baumann (lots 406-409, € 4/5,000 and € 5/7,000). Further specialties of the auction are from the area of art documentary photography, such as the portfolio “Azione Sentimentale” by the Italian Body Art artist Gina Pane (lot 473, €10/15,000), and another portfolio “Aktion mit seinem eigenen Körper” by the Viennese actionist Rudolf Schwarzkogler (lot 383, € 7,500) and also a rare early vintage photograph of the performance “Relation in Time” by Marina Abramovic & Ulay from 1977 (lot 472, €6/8,000). Several photographic works by Sigmar Polke, Andy Warhol andGerhard Richter round up the auction offer.

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, June 2021