Photography Collection

More than 40 photographs by Edward Weston and nine photographs by his son Brett were offered at this morning sale, all of which had remained with descendants of the Weston family since their making. The sale achieved $1,530,375 (est. $900/1.4 million), and the top lot was Nude on the Sand, Oceano, which sold for $325,000 (est. $120/180,000). Other top prices were achieved for Dunes, Oceano, which went for $181,000 (est. $120/180,000) and Bananas, which demanded $85,000 (est. $80/120,000). A number of rarely-seen Edward Weston photographs from his Guggenheim fellowships and his Leaves of Grass project were offered, setting new benchmarks for this work, including $44,200 for Grand Cañon of the Colorado (est. $20/30,000), $55,000 for a study of Connecticut Barns (est. $20/30,000), and $37,000 for Gulf Oil, Port Arthur (est. $12/18,000). Brett Weston’s Dune, Oceano, was among the top lots, bringing $44,200 (est. $20/30,000).
The various-owners Photographs sale brought record-breaking prices for photographs from across the history of the medium. The top lot, Diane Arbus’s Family on the Lawn One Sunday in Westchester N. Y. from 1968 far exceeded its high estimate of $300,000 when it sold for $553,000, a new record for the artist at auction. But following the Arbus closely on the price scale was a half-plate daguerreotype created more than 100 years earlier: Albert Southworth & Josiah Hawes’s Portrait of Samuel Appleton circa 1850, which went for $409,000, more than four times its top estimate of $90,000, setting a new record for the artists as well as for an American daguerreotype at auction. Karl Struss’s Metropolitan Tower—Twilight from 1909 rounded out the top three lots, again achieving multiples of its high estimate ($50,000) when it brought $313,000, and again setting a new record for the artist at auction. All in all, seven records were set for artists as diverse as the three mentioned above, plus William Dassonville, Minor White, Walter Peterhans, and Henry Wessel, Jr.