Paris – Christie’s presents its Photographies sale, an online auction open for bidding from 23 May to 6 June. The sale will feature major 20th- and 21st-century photographers, including Helmut Newton, Richard Mosse, Zanele Muholi, Shirin Neshat, Wolfgang Tillmans, Irving Penn, Guy Bourdin, Nan Goldin, Cindy Sherman and Hiroshi Sugimoto. The works for sale offer a broad range of different genres, including fashion, documentary, and conceptual photography.

The sale highlight is Roselyne, Château d’Arcangues, 1975 by Helmut Newton, a large-scale ferrotyped gelatin silver print. Although Newton rarely used this technique, he particularly appreciated its speed and quality as well as its unique aesthetic. The shiny finish recalling the world of glossy and glamourous magazines perfectly matches with Newton’s style during the 1970s and a movement famously named “porno chic” by the New York Times. Newton’s rare choice of a high-angle shot highlights Roselyne’s central silhouette, her posture and radiant skin making her stand out against the sumptuous decor (Estimate: €90,000 - €110,000).

The sale will also showcase seven of today's politically committed women photographers, including Cindy Sherman, Ellen von Unwerth, Shirin Neshat and Zanele Muholi (Vukani II, Paris, 2014, €12,000 - €18,000) – the latter currently being celebrated by the Maison Européenne de la Photographie in her first French retrospective exhibition. Nan Goldin will also be highlighted in this sale, as is her recent work in the documentary All the Beauty and the Bloodshed released in March 2023. French Chris on convertible, NYC, 1979 (Estimate: €6,000 - €8,000) is a window into the core of her work, documenting night-time, underground subcultures.

The auction will shine a light on the ever-renewing, evertransforming genre of portrait, combining various methods and artistic expressions. Among fashion photographers, Peter Lindbergh’s portraits are much sought-after. His first book, 10 Women (1996), presents shots of the supermodels who shaped his career. Amber Valletta, Harper’s Bazaar, Times Square, N.Y., 1993, a very fine example of these pictures, will be auctioned during this sale. The photograph of the iconic 1990s model, dressed as an angel with immaculate wings, captures a moment of elegance in the furore of Times Square. This picture, a true embodiment of Lindbergh’s work, epitomises the modern twist he brought to fashion portraits on the eve of the 21st century (Estimate: €18,000 - €25,000). These genre-defining portraits will appear alongside original compositions from groundbreaking perspectives, like Irving Penn’s iconic Bee (A), New York, September, 1995, illustrating a Vogue article that same year. The bee resting on the model’s mouth was a reference to the expression “Bee-stung lips”, used in the 1950s to describe plump, bitten lips. Penn’s surprising and fascinating composition is in between a portrait and a still life (Estimate: €40,000 - €60,000).

Self-portraiture is also a genre often explored by photographers, as demonstrated by Robert Mapplethorpe. Although known for his subversive, erotic pictures, the famed American photographer sometimes depicted himself in an entirely different light. Self-portrait, 1985 is an introspective, contemplative picture quite unlike his better-known work. Its simplicity reveals a more intimate side to the artist also noticeable in his final self-portraits, taken when he was suffering from AIDS. Self-portrait, 1985 is a true memento mori radiating tremendous dramatic power (Estimate: €60,000 - €80,000).

Collectors will also find more conceptual work by photographers such as Hiroshi Sugimoto with Surface 0008: Surface with a conic singularity, 2004 (Estimate: €30,000 - €50,000). Sugimoto’s 2002 Conceptual Forms series questioned the relationship between photography and mathematics, capturing plaster mathematical models from the University of Tokyo’s collection. Our perception of these models — intended as visual aids for complex trigonometric functions — is utterly transformed when they are set against a black background, bathed in light, and blown up to vast proportions. This series was influenced and guided by Constantin Brancusi, Marcel Duchamp, and Man Ray’s research.

Richard Mosse upends photojournalism’s codes with his documentary and artistic approach to the genre. Men of Good Fortune (2011) is part of The Enclave series illustrating the war in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. In answer to the flurry of photographs recording the conflict, Mosse catches an incidental moment — the location’s poetry rather than the moment’s horror. He achieves this using Kodak Aerochrome film technology, originally designed by the American army during World War II to reveal camouflaged targets hidden in dense vegetation. Infrared light transforms the green of plant life into a vivid pink in a metaphor for the blood spilled in the African mountains (Estimate: €15,000 - €20,000 - III., at the beginning of this document).

Captions for visuals:
RICHARD MOSSE (born in 1980), Men of Good Fortune, 2011, c-print, flush-mounted on aluminium, edition of 5, 101.6 x 127 cm, Estimate: €15,000 - €20,000 © Richard Mosse. Courtesy of the artist and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York.
PETER LINDBERGH (1944-2019), Amber Valletta, Harper’s Bazaar, Times Square, N.Y., 1993, gelatin silver print, edition 7/25, 60.7 x 44.7 cm, Estimate: €18,000 - €25,000 © Peter Lindbergh Foundation, Paris.
HIROSHI SUGIMOTO (born in 1948), Surface 0008 (Surface with a conic singularity), 2004, gelatin silver print, flush-mounted on board, edition 2/5, 182 x 154 cm, Estimate: €30,000 - €50,000 © Hiroshi Sugimoto

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