New York, 24 March 2025 - Phillips has announced its spring Photographs auction in New York, a sale that gathers several distinguished private collections alongside seminal individual works by 20th and 21st century masters of the medium. The auction will take place on 2 April at 432 Park Avenue, following a public exhibition open from 26 March to 1 April. It arrives on the heels of the record-breaking, white-glove auction Color Vision: Masterworks by William Eggleston from Guy Stricherz and Irene Malli, and it is led by the full suite of eleven photographs from Richard Avedon's 1978 portfolio Avedon/Paris, estimated at $150,000 to $200,000.
Sarah Krueger, Head of Photographs, New York, framed the offering as a continuation of a strong season. "After the remarkable success of our auction dedicated to the work of William Eggleston this week, we are thrilled to continue our strong spring season with a stellar variety of photographic work that celebrates the expressive breadth of the medium," she said. That breadth runs from classic mid-century fashion photography through documentary landmarks to contemporary studies in calligraphy and abstraction.
The leading lots
The top lot is the complete eleven-print suite of Richard Avedon's Avedon/Paris (1947 to 1957). These classic fashion images, created in the 1940s and 1950s for Harper's Bazaar and Vogue, display the grace and sophistication that typified Avedon's work of the period, and they were selected in conjunction with the photographer's landmark 1978 retrospective at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Another fashion masterpiece from these years is Irving Penn's Woman in Palace, Marrakech, Morocco (Lisa Fonssagrives-Penn) (1951), estimated at $80,000 to $120,000. The subject is Penn's wife, Lisa Fonssagrives, one of the first supermodels, whom he depicts as a mysterious and seductive beauty within a lavish setting first published in Vogue in 1952.
The private collections
Opening the auction is a selection of twenty classic photographs from the collection of the philanthropist and collector Lois Zenkel (1936 to 2024), an early collector who played an active role in the foundational years of the fine art photography market. Her documentary focus is reflected in Robert Frank's Parade: Hoboken, New Jersey (estimate $60,000 to $80,000) and Political Rally, Chicago, two of the best-known works from his landmark book The Americans, alongside Frank's earlier and more romantic Tulip, Paris and signature images by Walker Evans, Brassai, Henri Cartier-Bresson, and Josef Koudelka. The sale also presents Venus: A Private Collection, a curated group of sensual studies of the female form that includes Helmut Newton's Sie Kommen (sideways) and works by Albert Watson, Herb Ritts, Patrick Demarchelier, Bruce Weber, and Arthur Elgort. Further highlights come from the collection of the brand identity consultant Alan Siegel, celebrated in the 2000 book One Man's Eye: Photographs from the Alan Siegel Collection, and from the estate of the dealer Brent Sikkema, the latter offering Gyorgy Kepes' Juliet (with peacock feather and red concentric circles) ($15,000 to $25,000) and Gerhard Richter's Abstraktes Foto.
Documentary, landscape, and the contemporary
Three large-format prints by Nick Brandt anchor the wildlife offering, among them the monumental Elephant with Exploding Dust, Amboseli (2004), estimated at $40,000 to $60,000. Two of Robert Adams' best-known works are on offer, Longmont, Colorado ($50,000 to $70,000) and Berthoud, Colorado ($30,000 to $50,000), and the architectural icon returns in Julius Shulman's image of Richard Neutra's Kaufmann House, Palm Springs (1947), estimated at $20,000 to $30,000. Among the definitive documentary portraits is Walker Evans' Allie Mae Burroughs, Hale County, Alabama (1936), one of the enduring images of the Depression, estimated at $40,000 to $60,000. Contemporary offerings are led by Hiroshi Sugimoto's unique Brush Impression 0916 (Water) (2023), estimated at $30,000 to $50,000, which unites traditional Japanese calligraphy with analog photographic craft, alongside Andreas Gursky's Bremen, Autobahn ($30,000 to $50,000), sold by the Martin Z. Margulies Foundation, and Thomas Ruff's Substrat 01.
Selected highlights
Further property in the sale includes Bill Owens' Suburbia, a suite of 117 images first published as a book in 1972 and long a touchstone of Post-War photography, and Louis Faurer's The LIGHT Suite, Philadelphia and New York, a group of forty images by the street photographer. The contemporary section is rounded out by a strong selection of work by Robert Mapplethorpe, David Wojnarowicz, Richard Learoyd, Edward Burtynsky, Anne Collier, Vik Muniz, and others.
Phillips is a leading global platform for buying and selling 20th and 21st century works, with dedicated expertise in Modern and Contemporary Art, Design, Photographs, Editions, Watches, and Jewels, and auctions held primarily in New York, London, Geneva, and Hong Kong.
Estimates do not include buyer's premium; prices achieved include the hammer price plus buyer's premium.
(Press Release)
