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• Issue #231
• Article

Ansel Adams (American, 1902-1984) Leaves and Raindrops, Glacier Bay National Monument, c. 1948 (Lot 142, Estimate: $15,000-25,000)

On Friday, May 19, Skinner will present its spring Prints & Photographs auction (3010B) in Boston, beginning at 12 pm. The selection of fine photographs on offer features a range of 19th- through 21th-century works by such masters as Ansel Adams, Walker Evans, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Edward Burtynsky and others.

Among the highlights are two mural-sized prints by Ansel Adams. Leaves and Raindrops, Glacier Bay National Monument (lot 142, $15,000-25,000), which is mounted to ¾-inch plywood and varnished, demonstrates Adams's interest in pattern and tonal relationships for works of this scale. It was a gift of the artist to Martha Stiles on the occasion of her marriage to noted Harvard Business School professor Paul Lawrence in 1948, and is being sold to benefit the Cambridge Community Foundation to which is was bequeathed in 2015. Also on offer is an unmounted print of Frozen Lake and Cliffs, Sierra Nevada, Sequoia National Park, California (lot 137, $10,000-15,000) from the collection of a former Polaroid Corp. employee (1966-1989).

The sale features a number of 20th-century photographs from private collections, including a circa 1936 portrait of dancer and photographer Florence Meyer Homolka by Edward Steichen (lot 139, $3,000-5,000); two prints by Henri Cartier-Bresson, including a 1980s print of "In the Last Days of the Kuomintang, Peking" from 1949 (lot 143, $5,000-7,000); an interesting group of Walker Evans's close-up photographs of trash on New York City streets from the 1960s (lot 150, $3,000-5,000, and lot 152, $2,000-3,000); two classic Elliot Erwitt images—Santa Monica, California (1955) and New York City (1974)—both printed later (lots 147 and 160, $3,000-5,000 each); and by Robert Frank, a worm's eye view of Theater-Goers in a Balcony from the mid-1950s to early 1960s (lot 149, $2,500-3,500).

Edward Burtynsky (Canadian, b. 1955) Oxford Tire Pile #5, Westley, California, 1999, printed 2002 (Lot 166, Estimate: $7,000-9,000)

Rounding out the offerings are several exciting contemporary photographs, including Edward Burtynsky's beautiful but unsettling view of the "Oxford Tire Pile #5, Westley, California" from 1998 (lot 166, $7,000-9,000); Tseng Kwong Chi's "Cape Canaveral self-portrait" from 1985 (printed 2005) (lot 163, $2,000-3,000); a camera obscura image by Abelardo Morell—"Camera Obscura Image of Windows in Gallery With Two Paintings, Whitney Museum" (lot 168, $7,000-9,000); and John Coplans's body study "Self Portrait (Back and Hands)" (lot 162, $2,000-3,000).

Additional photographers represented include: Berenice Abbott, Eugène Atget, Cecil Beaton, Bisson Frères, Adolphe Braun, Edward Sheriff Curtis, Frederick H. Evans, John Beasley Greene, Ernst Haas, Philippe Halsman, Lewis Wickes Hine, Phillip Jones, Heinrich Kühn, Clarence John Laughlin, Jim Marshall, Eadweard Muybridge, John Pfahl, Bonnie Porter, Oscar Gustave Rejlander, William Wegman and Brett Weston.

The auction preview will take place at 63 Park Plaza, Boston, with viewing times as follows:
Wednesday, May 17: 12pm-5pm
Thursday, May 18: 12pm-8pm
Friday, May 19: 9am-10am

For more information regarding the auction, please contact Michelle Lamunière, Fine Photographs Specialist, at 1-508-970-3264 or photographs@skinnerinc.com. The auction can also be viewed online at: http://www.skinnerinc.com/auctions/fine-photographs-3010b/. To order a printed catalogue, please email subscriptions@skinnerinc.com, or call 1-508-970-3240.