SOTHEBY’S FALL PHOTOGRAPHS SALE

IN NEW YORK BRINGS $6,485,300

ANSEL ADAMS’ MOONRISE, HERNANDEZ, NEW MEXICO,
SETS A NEW RECORD FOR THE ARTIST AT AUCTION

October 17, 2006 – Today, Sotheby’s sale of Photographs in New York brought $6,485,300 (est. $4.2/6.3 million) and set a new record for a work by Ansel Adams at auction when an extremely rare, early print from 1948 of Adams’s 1941 icon, Moonrise, Hernandez, New Mexico, from the collection of photographer Pirkle Jones sold for $609,600 (lot 17, est. $150/250,000) to a buyer over the telephone after competing with at least four other bidders. This follows the record sale of Adams’s Surf Sequence, San Mateo Coast, California, which brought $352,000 at Sotheby’s New York this past spring. The sale featured a select group of photographs of great rarity and exceptional provenance, including works from the collections of the Center for Creative Photography, Tucson; the late curator and author Richard Lorenz; and The Hampden-Booth Theatre Library of New York City.

Denise Bethel, Director of Sotheby’s Photographs department in New York, said: “We were thrilled to surpass by so many hundreds of thousands of dollars the record price of $136,000 we set in 2002 for Adams’s Moonrise, Hernandez, New Mexico. Pirkle Jones’s very beautiful and very early print of this true icon of photography has placed Adams beyond the half a million dollar mark at auction, and deservedly so. The year 2006 has been a remarkable one for photographs at Sotheby’s New York: we began the year with our $14.98 record-setting Metropolitan Museum of Art sale in February, and followed up with two strong various-owners’ sales in April and October, all achieving totals over their pre-sale high estimates. The fine art photography market could not be stronger, and we look forward to 2007.

Among the featured 20 th-century photographs that performed well in today’s sale was a very modern Study of a Nude by Edward Weston, cropped to focus on the sitter’s breasts and hands, which achieved $262,400 (lot 140, est. $250/350,000). Made by Weston in early 1920s, this lushly-printed platinum print, signed on the image and tipped to its original mount, may well be the only example of this image extant.

Among the post-1950 photographs from the sale were several Irving Penn platinum-palladium prints, including the Harlequin Dress, which sold for $240,000 (lot 170, est. $200/300,000), the Woman with Roses, which achieved $204,000 (lot 205, est. $100/150,000); and Black and White Vogue Cover, which brought $192,000 (lot 173, est. $150/250,000). Additionally, Robert Frank’s 1977 print of the famous ‘New Orleans’ Trolley sold for $204,000 (lot 205, est. $80/120,000), a record for the artist at auction.

A quarter-plate daguerreotype of Edgar Allan Poe -- a copy-plate daguerreotype of a daguerreotype made in Richmond, Virginia, just a few short weeks before Poe died in 1849 -- sold for $150,000 to a Private Collector (lot 37, est. $30/50,000). This was only the second daguerreotype of Poe to appear at auction in the last century, and one of the most significant American portrait daguerreotypes to appear on the market in recent decades. All recorded Poe daguerreotypes and copy daguerreotypes are owned by institutions; the daguerreotype offered today was consigned by The Hampden-Booth Theatre Library of New York City.

Also from the Collection of the photographer Pirkle Jones, assistant to Ansel Adams from 1947 to 1953 and one of Adams’s good friends throughout his life, was a fine copy of Adams’s Portfolio II: The National Parks and Monuments, which sold for $120,000 (lot 18, est. $40/60,000), and Parmelian Prints of the High Sierras, which sold for $88,800 (lot 16, est. $30/50,000), a record for the work.

Among the lots from The Center for Creative Photography of the University of Tucson were a number of early prints by Garry Winogrand, which brought the strongest prices for the artist ever achieved at auction. The cover image (lot 123) from Winogrand’s classic volume, Women Are Beautiful, sold for $74,400, a record for the artist at auction. Also from the Center was Winogrand’s Women Are Beautiful, a portfolio of 85 photographs, which sold for $98,400 (lot 116, est. $60,000/90,000).