NEW YORK, NY.- Sotheby’s spring Photographs auction on 6 April in New York will offer a variety of exceptional works from the 19th to the 21st centuries. Of special note are masterpieces of 20th-century photography by Man Ray, László Moholy-Nagy, Robert Frank, Ansel Adams, Irving Penn and Alfred Stieglitz, among many others. The sale is currently on view in their New York galleries, alongside the 5 April single-owner sale of The Modern Image: Photographs from an Important American Collection.

Originally in the collection of Andy Warhol, Man Ray’s arresting study of Calla Lilies (est. $300/500,000) demonstrates the photographer’s mastery of the darkroom technique of solarization. The catalogue’s cover features avant-garde visionary László Moholy-Nagy’s experimental In The Sand (est. $100/150,000), one of four works by Moholy-Nagy being offered in the sale. This image, as well as the unique multi-media composition Advertising Poster (Pneumatik) (est. $150/250,000) and the exhibition-sized The First Hour of the Hot Sun (est. $100/150,000), come originally from the collection of Soviet filmmaker Esfir Shub.

The sale will also feature a remarkable twenty-one photographs by Robert Frank, ranging from rare European studies such as Paris (Man on Motorcycle) (est. $100/150,000) from 1949, to icons from Frank’s seminal series The Americans such as New Orleans (Trolley) (est. $200/250,000). The photographer’s early Paris (Mannequins in Window) from 1947 is also included and was reproduced as a two-page lead-in to a selection of Frank’s photographs published in the December 1951 issue of the American photography magazine Photo Arts. Nineteen of these photographs were purchased in the 1970s from the pioneering photographs dealer Harry Lunn, and many of these have never appeared before at auction.

In addition, the auction will present a rich selection of nearly thirty photographs sold by the Philadelphia Museum of Art to benefit acquisition funds. Offerings comprise five works by photographer Alfred Stieglitz, including his masterful Music – A Sequence of Ten Cloud Photographs, No. VI (est. $50/80,000), originally in the personal collection of Dorothy Newman, who in 1968, inspired the founding of the Alfred Stieglitz Center at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Also on offer from the Museum is a rare platinum print of Alvin Langdon Coburn’s Snow in the Canyon (est. $20/30,000), an oversized print of Ansel Adams’s iconic Moonrise, Hernandez, New Mexico (est. $70/100,000), as well as numerous works originally collected by gallerist Julien Levy.

Classic American photographs featured in the sale are, first and foremost, the striking mural-sized Ansel Adams Monolith, The Face of Half Dome (est. $150/250,000), believed to be the largest version of this enduring image to have been offered at auction; and a number of other Adams icons, including Bridalveil Fall, Yosemite Valley (est. $30/50,000) and Aspens, Northern New Mexico (est. $18/22,000). The sale also features an exceptional group of ten of Berenice Abbot’s best-known images of New York from the 1930s, including Automat (est. $10/15,000). The commanding oversized portrait of Winston Churchill (est. $20/30,000) leads a selection of Yousuf Karsh’s outstanding portraiture, including his portfolios Fifteen Portraits (est. $50/80,000) and Artists Portfolio (est. $25/35,000). Other classic images include an exhibition-sized print of W. Eugene Smith’s The Walk to Paradise Garden (est. $40/60,000); two platinum-palladium prints by Irving Penn, Cuzco Children (est. $150/250,000) and Dahomey Children (est. $20/30,000); and Diane Arbus’s Woman with a Veil on Fifth Avenue, N. Y. C. (est. $15/25,000), originally in the collection of Graham Nash.

Two oversized multimedia works by Peter Beard, each unique, as well as a selection of smaller works, are included in the sale’s Contemporary offerings. The arresting Francis Bacon in His Studio at 7 Reece Mews (est. $40/60,000) is extensively embellished with blood and ink; and Buffalo Springs Cow Elephant Herd (est. $40/60,000) features the fascinating collage elements for which the artist is renowned. Bernd and Hilla Becher’s monumental 9-part sequence Blast Furnaces (est. $70/100,000) typifies the photographers’ mastery of the industrial landscape. Other significant contemporary offerings include Richard Avedon’s striking portrait Stephanie Seymour, Model (est. $60/80,000), Robert Polidori’s colorful cityscape Dashashwemedh Road, Varansi, India ($20/30,000), three movie theatre studies by Hiroshi Sugimoto (each est. $20/30,000), and Joel Brodsky’s portrait of music legend Jim Morrison (est. $25/35,000).