Having photographs sell for more than $100,000 at a world famous auction house is no small feat, and it’s one that will likely soon be accomplished by a photographer who gives new meaning to the term “chimping” every time he snaps a frame. The photographer is Mikki, a chimpanzee.
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In the first week of April, the three major auction houses in New York managed to post over $30 million in photography sales, showing that the photography as collectible market is thriving, to say the least. The houses posted a record-setting week as almost every auction blew away projected sale prices. Read more…

A signed print of Edward Weston’s Nautilus Shell purchased for $10 in 1927 has been auctioned off for a whopping $1,082,500 at Sotheby’s auction house in New York.

We reported last month that the print, purchased by a young photographer named Bernice Lovett, was estimated to fetch up to $500,000.

The photo ended up going for more than double that amount.

Edward Weston created the photograph in 1927, the same year Lovett purchased it at San Francisco’s East West Galleries. The photograph is now regarded as one of the great modernist photographs of all time, and this sale places it among the most expensive photographs in the world.

Another of Weston’s photographs on the list is Nude (1925), which sold for $1,609,000 at the same auction house in April 2008.

In 1927, a young photographer bought a print at San Francisco’s East West Galleries for $10 — roughly $125 today. Bernice Lovett could not pay the full price of the image at once, so she paid for it in monthly 50 cent installments. Lovett’s family held on to the photograph for over 80 years.

As it happens, the print was a signed, early print of Edward Weston’s Nautilus Shell, which became widely recognized as one of the greatest modernist photographs of all time.

The photograph will be sold in April at Sotheby’s auction house and is estimated to fetch somewhere between $300,000 to $500,000.

We reported last month that the New York auction house, Sotheby’s will be facilitating the sale of more than 1,200 photos from the Polaroid company’s collection this June. The photos include images captured by legendary photographers and artists such as Ansel Adams and Andy Warhol. Sotheby’s estimates that the collection will raise some $7.5 million to $11.5 million, which will go towards paying for Polaroid’s Minnesota bankruptcy court.

Yet while Polaroid regains its financial footing, several featured photographers feel they are at a loss — if the photos change hands, they may lose their contractual rights.

According to the British Journal of Photography, some of the photographers are motioning for a re-hearing, hoping that the courts will reconsider selling the collection.

When the auction was first announced, photographer Chuck Close shared his disapproval in an interview with the New York Times that such a groundbreaking collection should go to the auction block:

“There’s really nothing like it in the history of photography.” But, he added, “to sell it is criminal.”

While the sale of these images is not technically illegal, the copyright laws are muddied in this situation. Typically, when a print is sold, the artist or photographer retains the copyright, along with the ability to reproduce his or her image. However, with these Polaroid images, the original image is unique.

Originally, when the artists gave the images to the Polaroid collection, their contracts granted them perpetual access to their work. But when the auction occurs, the contract will be nullified once the work is sold. Since the one of a kind images shot on instant film cannot be replicated, the artists require direct access to their work in order to license it.

In an interview with the British Journal of Photography, American critic Allan Coleman sums up the problem:

“Since they don’t have access, they can’t license the works. All they have is the copyright, which is meaningless now. I don’t think the court understood the unique nature of the collection.”

(via The British Journal of Photography)

It’s no secret that Polaroid has seen its share of financial troubles over the last few years. This year, Polaroid will be forced to bring some of its historic prints and images to Sotheby’s auction block in order to offset debts incurred as a result of its current bankruptcy, the New York Times reports.

In the lineup are some 400 photos by Ansel Adams, and work by artistic legends such as Andy Warhol, Chuck Close, and Robert Mapplethorpe. The auction will be held in Sotheby’s New York, the Times cites that is expected to bring in $7.5 million to $11.5 million.

Featured photographers have mixed feelings about the auction; many feel that the historic collection is museum-worthy, the Times quotes:

“It’s an amazing body of work,” Mr. Close said in a telephone interview. “There’s really nothing like it in the history of photography.” But, he added, “to sell it is criminal.”

The collection was initiated and owned by Polaroid founder, Edwin H. Land, who made sure creative minds of his time had a chance to use and tinker with his product, and give him hands-on professional feedback, the Times noted:

It was a handy arrangement, the collection’s longtime curator, Barbara Hitchcock, explained: Polaroid provided some of the greatest talents around with equipment and film, and they gave the company photographs. “Experimentation was encouraged by Polaroid,” Ms. Hitchcock added. “It was a mantra — experimentation, creativity, innovation, pushing the envelope of photography.”

These early Polaroid images provide fascinating glimpses into the work of famous photographers, as well as into the early development of a consumer camera culture that transcended merely functioning as an industry — though ironically, the company would later fall on hard times as a struggling industry.

Some of the remarkable pieces up for auction can be viewed on the NYT’s Lens Blog.

(via The New York Times)