NEW YORK, NY.- Phillips announced Passion & Humanity: The Susie Tompkins Buell Collection, an auction taking place alongside the company’s seasonal April Photographs sale. Comprised of over 50 lots, the auction will include masterworks by Edward Weston, Tina Modotti, Edward Steichen, Dorothea Lange and Consuelo Kanaga, among others.

Vanessa Hallett, Deputy Chairman, Americas, and Worldwide Head of Photographs, said, “Susie Tompkins Buell has assembled one of the finest and most select collections in private hands. It is an honor for Phillips to have been entrusted with this sale, which is composed of iconic images by photographers who helped to define the visual culture of the 20th century.”

While primarily known for co-founding Esprit and The North Face, as well as for her political activism and philanthropy, Susie Tompkins Buell has played an equally large role in the photography market. Ms. Buell developed a reputation as a market maker at a crucial time in the photography world, when the medium was just beginning to come into its own, and to evolve from a “collectible” into a mature and fully-formed feature of the fine-art market. Susie Tompkins Buell’s early engagement with the medium in the 1980s and 1990s shaped the market in the decades that followed and brought a new awareness to photography. The quality of the collection, in terms of its overall aesthetic, thematic unities, and the fineness of its individual parts, is a testament to her vision and determination.

The proceeds from the sale of these photographs will benefit charitable causes. Ms. Buell said, “I bought these photographs thirty years ago, not as an investment, but as objects of astounding beauty that spoke to me. I didn’t acquire them only because they were stunning works of art, but because they woke me up and gave me a sense of responsibility. As the world becomes so challenged by humanitarian crises, I feel the resources from these photographs can be put to work in ways that will help those involved in the struggles we face.”

More details of the collection will be announced in the coming weeks.