CHICAGO, IL.- Wright presents a First-generation Apple iPhone, model A1203 as a leading lot of the March 30th Design auction. Released in 2007 as the first smartphone to be offered by Apple, the iPhone 1 is an unparalleled object born from the intersection of design, technology, and communication, and it is hard to overstate the impact that its arrival has had on the world.
This rare, factory-sealed iPhone 1 comes to Wright via Donald Gajadhar of Fox-White Art & Antique Appraisals. "[It] slowly dawned on me when I held [this] boxed Apple cellphone," says Gajadhar, "my client not only had an unopened cellphone, but a truly unique version. A Willy Wonka, ‘24 karat' Golden Ticket." Indeed, the present lot features an upside-down Apple logo sticker bearing the words "lucky you."
The iPhone was officially announced by Steve Jobs on January 9, 2007, at the Macworld Conference & Expo in San Francisco. Its release was the culmination of a vision Jobs had for a multi-faceted communication device operated through a glass touchscreen display. “Unless you’ve been in a sensory-deprivation tank for six months, wrote David Pogure for The New York Times in June 2007, “you already know what the iPhone is: a tiny, gorgeous hand-held computer whose screen is a slab of touch-sensitive glass.” In summarizing the anticipation that led up to the device’s release, Pogue reported that the iPhone had been the subject of 11,000 articles in print and yielded “about 69 million hits on Google.” Manufactured on contract by Foxconn and issued with a 2 megapixel camera and either 4 or 8 GB of storage, the first-generation iPhone was arguably an icon of the 21st century before it was ever used by the public.
In 2005, Apple forged a high-profile-but-secret partnership with Cingular Wireless to build the iPhone, operating under the project code name Project Purple 2. Impossibly sleek, stylus-free, and virtually button-less, the original iPhone was, as Jobs put it, "an iPod, a phone, and an internet communicator" to be held in the palm of one's hand: "These are not three separate devices," Jobs told a charged crowd, "This is one device...and we are calling it iPhone." The iPhone would, unsurprisingly, be named 2007 Invention of the Year by Time magazine. It was followed just over a year later with the release of the iPhone 3G on June 9, 2008, and the first-generation iPhone 1 was officially discontinued on July 15th, 2008. The rest, as they say, is history.
Wright’s inclusion of this historic device in Design represents an understanding of industrial design and technology as constantly evolving arenas, punctuated by paradigm shifts such as the development of the iPhone. “For over 25 years,” says Gajadhar, “Wright has been at the forefront of art and design auctions, and so was the obvious choice [for this iPhone]. Richard Wright understood its importance and leapt at the opportunity to include it.”
The Apple iPhone 1 and all works featured in Design will be on view in Chicago, Lambertville, and Los Angeles from March 23rd to 30th from 10 am to 4 pm local time, Monday through Friday. The live auction will take place at Wright in Chicago on Thursday, March 30th, beginning at 12 pm Central and accommodates advanced bids, telephone bidding, and live online bidding via www.wright20.com.
Immediately preceding Design, Wright will hold a special auction in Chicago, Taking Shape: The Akari Light Sculptures of Isamu Noguchi, on March 30th at 11 am Central. Curated by Adam Edelsberg, this represents the first dedicated sale of its kind featuring more than fifty lots of early and rare examples of Noguchi's Akari. For further information, please reach out to press@wright20.com.
