Photographs from the Polaroid Collection Raise $12.4 million at Sotheby's
Photographs from the Polaroid Collection, one of the largest Photographs auctions ever held at Sotheby’s, concluded last night, bringing a total of $12,467,638, comfortably exceeding the pre-sale estimate of $6.9/10.7 million. The sale was 88.8% by lot. Fourteen new artist records were set, including ones for a single photograph by Ansel Adams, Andy Warhol, Lucas Samaras and Harry Callahan, and for photographic works by Chuck Close, Robert Rauschenberg and David Hockney.
Edwin Land’s great friend and collaborator, Ansel Adams’s iconic mural-sized prints achieved many of the top prices of the sale. They were led by Clearing Winter Storm, Yosemite National Park, which sold for $722,500 after a battle between four different bidders. That price was well-above the high estimate and a record for the artist at auction (lot 100, est. $300/500,000). Among the first three lots of Monday evening’s offering was Chuck Close’s 9-Part Self Portrait, a unique collage of large-format Polapan prints, which sold for $250,500, more than four times the high estimate and record for a photographic work by the artist at auction (lot 3, est. $40/60,000). The auction record for a photograph by Andy Warhol was broken twice – Self-Portrait (Grimace), a unique large-format Polaroid Polacolor print, sold for $146,500 (lot 52, est. $10/15,000) and then, with more than seven bidders competing, his Self-Portrait (Eyes Closed) soared past a high estimate of $15,000 to sell for $254,500 (lot 53, est. $10/15,000).
