Photography Collection

Villa Grisebach's fall season is marked by an emphasis on photography with two sales "Modern and Contemporary Photographs" & "Elective Affinities. Selected Works from a European Private Collection" and a total of almost 600 lots of classic and contemporary photographs that will be on offer. Both sales will be on November 29th, 2007 and will start at 3 p.m. with "Modern and Contemporary Photographs" followed by "Elective Affinities"

Analogies, similarities, elective affinities: Since its beginnings, photography has given both, photographers and collectors alike a tantalizing field for the joys of comparison. This "double gaze" is the focus of a European private collection that Villa Grisebach will showcase for the first time before offering it in the sale "Elective Affinities".

Two of the highlights of the special sale will be William Henry Fox Talbot's 1843 view of "The Boulevards of Paris" (10,000 - 12,000 €) and Edward Weston's "Chinese Cabbage" from 1931 (85,000 - 100,000 €). Among other important works are Jaromir Funke's "Composition with a bottle" from 1925 (20,000 - 25,000 €), seven photographs from Aaron Siskind's 1972 portfolio "Terrors and Pleasures of Levitation" (18,000 - 22,000 €), Manuel Alvarez Bravo's "The big fish eats the little ones" (1932; 15,000 - 20,000 €), a Man Ray rayograph from the "Champs Délicieux" portfolio of 1922 (14,000 - 16,000 €), "Handbag and Fur" (1924) by Paul Outerbridge, jr. (10,000 - 15,000 €), the delicate "Mademoiselle Pogany II", c. 1920, by Constantin Brancusi, as well as works by Heinrich Kühn, Frantisek Drtikol, Albert Renger-Patzsch, the late Bernd and Hilla Becher, William Eggleston and many more. Apart from such masterpieces, "Elective Affinities" includes works of vernacular and anonymous photography that are lucky finds for the young collector.


Grit Kallin-Fischer. "Freddo Bartoluci". 1928-1929. Vintag Gelatin silver print. 11 3/8 x 9 in.


The collection ows its appeal to the sensitive and curious eyes of a major collector of contemporary art and proves once again that photography can create a magical world entirely its own. A catalogue comprising the collection in its entirety of 299 lots and with an essay by Prof. Christoph Stölzl will be published. A preview exhibition of selected works from the collection will be held in New York City (Oct. 16-17) and Berlin (Nov. 3-21). For details, see www.villa-grisebach.de.

The approximately 160 lots of this fall's sale of "Modern and Contemporary Photographs" include more classical photographs of the highest quality, among these are masterworks such as "Gerbera Daisy (Three Flowers) by Irving Penn (2006; 18,000 - 22,000 €), Jean Painlevé's "Pince de Galithée" (1929; 8,000 - 9,000 €) or Paul Citroen's 1923 avant-garde photo-montage "Johnson training again" (7,500 - 10,000 €). The contemporary photography section comes up with the sought after names of Andreas Gursky, Peter Beard, Helmut Newton, Peter Lindbergh, Richard Avedon, Stephen Shore, William Eggleston, Ruud van Empel, Martin Parr or Michael Wesely. The sale ends with the newly established section "The cabinet", this time introducing a selection of unique prints by Czech shooting star Miroslav Tichy.