Photographs

Sotheby's October 2009 sale of Photographs features an exciting selection of masterworks by some of the most important and innovative of 20th-Century photographers.  Paul Outerbridge's Nude with Sculpture Head combines the photographer's technical rigor with his distinctive, frequently Surreal, aesthetic.  Man Ray's Lee Miller and Friend links the Surreal with the sensual.  In Eleanor, Harry Callahan creates a multi-layered double-exposure study of his wife and muse.  Work by László Moholy-Nagy, Edward Weston, Ansel Adams, and Pierre Dubreuil illustrates the range and diversity of the Modernist impulse in photography.  Contemporary work includes images by Cindy Sherman, Chuck Close, Hiroshi Sugimoto, Peter Beard, Robert Mapplethorpe, and Helmut Newton.  Also on offer is the complete set of fine books and portfolios published by 21st Editions, each illustrated with original photographs and photogravures by a variety of contemporary photographers.

Nineteenth-century offerings include a daguerreotype of Maungwudaus, a chief of the Ojibwa tribe, who performed Native American dances in Europe and the United States in the 1840s.  Masterful landscapes by Carleton Watkins and Henry P. Bosse, as well as a rare and early Lincoln portrait, are featured as well.