Sotheby's to Sell Photographs from The Polaroid Collection - 21-22 June 2010
On 21 and 22 June 2010, Sotheby’s New York will offer Photographs from the Polaroid Collection. The collection of more than 1,200 works provides unique insight into the influence of Polaroid’s revolutionary technology - which all but eliminated the distance between inspiration and realization - on the history of photography. The collection was begun by Edwin Land, the inventor and founder of Polaroid, and is vast in its breadth and ambition. Works by many of the leading photographers of the second half of the 20th century will be offered, among them Peter Beard, Chuck Close, William Wegman, David Levinthal, Robert Frank, David Hockney, Andy Warhol, Robert Mapplethorpe and, perhaps most significantly, Ansel Adams, who is represented by over 400 photographs.
In order to give context to the new Polaroid photography, Edwin Land charged his good friend Ansel Adams with the creation of a collection of other significant photographs of the time, but ones made by more conventional means. Armed with a small budget, Adams approached such photographers as his friends Dorothea Lange, Imogen Cunningham, Edward Weston, Harry Callahan, and Margaret Bourke-White, acquiring a small group of classic images that came to be known within Polaroid as the “Library Collection.” Those works will also be offered in June, and together, the collection is estimated to fetch $7.5/11.5 million.
The first significant exhibition of highlights from the collection will be shown at Sotheby’s New York from 17-21 March.
