E-Photo
Issue #63  10/7/2003
 
Highlights For November Bassenge Photography Auction

The Fall photography auction at Bassenge in Berlin, Germany, will offer a wide range of photographs from the earliest days of the medium through to contemporary images. It will be held on Friday, November 28 at 2 pm. A catalogue is available in print and online at http://195.143.237.194/Bassenge/engl/Default.asp .

Nineteenth-century highlights include: a half-plate ambrotype showing three young men, two in hats, one in top hat; a very rare and explicit anonymous Arabian erotic vintage albumen print; Leopold Ahrendts' Berlin castle from Lustgarten, 1861, transitional albumen print; and Thomas Houseworth's City of San Francisco, 1868, albumen print.

Twentieth-century photographers represented in the sale include: Wilhelm von Gloeden, Alfred Cheney Johnston (Kathleen Burke), Willy Kessels (Figure Studies), Ewald Hoinkis, Andre Kertesz (Corsica landscape and New York subway scene), Heinrich Kühn, (Edeltrude and Hanns Kühn, 1904) Jacques Henri Lartigue (Renee Perle in satin lounging suit), Herbert List, Elliot Erwitt, Philip Jones Griffiths (Vietnam), Hilmar Pabel (Vietnam), Jan Saudek (Chains of Love), Jock Sturges, (Lenea, Northern California), Bruce Weber (On the Rooftop of the Shangri-La Hotel), Joel Peter Witkin (Apollinia & Domenatrix), Albert Renger-Patzsch, (Chemical Factory, Merseburg, Germany), and August Sander (A view of the old town of Cologne from Heribertus church, including the suspension bridge to St. Martin).

A number of German contemporary photographers are included in the sale, such as Boris Becker, Matthias Hoch and Candida Höfer.

There is also a group of portraits of artists by well-known photographers, such as Marc Chagall by Henri Cartier-Bresson, Tsuguharu Foujita by Ida Kar, Alberto Giacometti by Franz Hubmann and by Ida Kar, Fernand Leger by Robert Doisneau, Henry Moore by Robert Hummel, and Pablo Picasso by Andre Villers.

Also of interest is a large album of WWI of a German officer, with 225 silver prints by a professional Western front photographer. The album includes a portrait of General von Einem, a group portrait of the 46-man general staff (in Vouziers, Feb. 1915), various front visits by the Kaiser, signed portraits of Hindenburg and General Groener, images of destruction, civilian and industrial buildings, and weapons including cannons, balloons and airplanes. This group also contains probably one of the first aerial photos of Jerusalem as well as one of Port Said. The low estimate is 3,000 euros.

For further information including ordering catalogues and getting condition reports, and to make advance arrangements to bid during the auction, please contact Jennifer Augustyniak at Galerie Bassenge, Photographs, Erdener Str. 5a, D-14193 Berlin, Germany. Her phone number is +4930 893 8029 20; Fax: +4930 891 8025. She can also be reached by email at jennifer@bassenge.com . By the way, as with most European experts, her English is excellent.