LONDON.- Phillips announced highlights from the forthcoming November Photographs auction, featuring 144 lots with a combined pre-sale estimate of £1,530,000 to £2,150,000

“This November we are delighted to offer a far-reaching, exciting and eclectic mix of works from the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Photography as an ever-evolving medium has so much to inspire, to please and to fall in love with and I think the sale definitely meets these needs ” --Lou Proud, Head of Photographs, London.

The sale begins with an exciting mélange of fashion photographs featuring works by Richard Avedon, Michel Comte, Mario Testino, Irving Penn and George Hoyningen-Huene among others. Two works from Helmut Newton’s celebrated series Sex and Landscapes are represented with Blonde and T.V., Hotel Gallia, Milan, 2002 and Henrietta in my backyard, Ramatuelle, 1980, each estimated at £55,000-£75,000. These oversize prints reflect the artist’s preference to depict his beloved female subjects as unabashedly empowered and embodying an unwavering sense of glamour. Other fashion highlights include Irving Penn’s collaboration with his muse and wife, Balenciaga ‘Little Great’ Coat (Lisa Fonssagrives-Penn), Paris, 1950, estimated at £20,000-£30,000 and his timelessly elegant Girl Behind Glass (Jean Patchett), New York, 1949, estimated at £15,000-£20,000; Erwin Blumenfeld’s portfolio Color, estimated at £15,000-£20,000, featuring 10 dye transfer prints that showcase the artist’s unique style, technical mastery and unique vision; three works by Horst P. Horst including Estrella Boissevan, Fashion Shot, New York, 1938 estimated at £18,000-£22,000, which displays all of Horst’s trademark characteristics – elegance, love of classicism and a superb printing quality; and ten works by John Swannell that collectively portray his seductive, playful aesthetic. Additional fashion images include works by Miles Aldridge, Lillian Bassman and Ormond Gigli.

Edward Steichen, a pioneering force in early twentieth-century photography is represented with a powerful portrait of the Romantic composer Richard Strauss, New York, 1904 estimated at £80,000-£120,000, taken during his first visit to New York to promote his new work Symphonia Domestica. This strong example of a gum pigment print gives an intense and moving impression of Strauss’s personality and undisputed gift. Another classic highlight includes August Sander’s Selbstbildnis (Self portrait), Cologne, 1922 estimated at £18,000-£22,000, which successfully depicts his multi-faceted personality: part romantic philosopher and part meticulous workman who had become an important pillar of twentieth-century photography whose portraiture has impacted subsequent contemporary interpretations of the genre. Other notable classic works in this section are Tina Modotti’s A proud little agarista (Mexican peasant boy), circa 1927 estimated at £20,000-£30,000, a 1970s printing of Frederick Sommer’s Coyotes, 1945 estimated at £5,000-£7,000, and a group of early prints by Germain Krull from Metal, Electricite de France and Rotterdam.

A desirable group of works by renowned American photographers provides an insight to an important shift in mid-century American photography. William Eggleston’s portfolio, Cadillac, 1966-1971, estimated at £35,000-£45,000, provides a strong, documentarian survey of his surroundings and brings the everyday to viewers’ attention, while William Christenberry’s Selected Images, 1967-2000 estimated at £12,000-£18,000, present a prolonged chronological revisit to an ever-shifting edifice. Additionally, Robert Frank turned his lens on the prolific American identity and its endless manifestations Newburgh, New York, 1955, estimated at £12,000-£18,000.

The contemporary selections in the sale are led by the smart-suited and booted gentlemanly anarchists Gilbert & George’s Tag Black, 2004 estimated at £100,000-£150,000. The work is formed of 12 panels featuring the artists flamboyantly dressed in electric blue and shocking red, duplicitously peering from a tagged wall and facetiously engaging the viewers. Other contemporary works included in the sale are Candida Höfer’s Bibliotheque Administrative de la Ville de Paris I, 2007, estimated at £25,000-£35,000 displaying a calm and clean environment uninterrupted by human form or interaction; Thomas Ruff’s architectural LMV 09 h.t.b. 03, 1999 estimated at £22,000-£28,000 and the cleverly appropriated and re-configured jpegca04, 2004 estimated at £25,000-£35,000; Vik Muniz’s majestic The Dream, after Picasso from Pictures of Pigment, 2007, estimated at £25,000-£35,000; and Sam Taylor-Wood’s Self-Portrait Suspended I, 2004 estimated at £10,000-£15,000, in which artist presents herself as if floating, dreaming or perhaps sleeping in a space unrestrained and free from control. Larger format contemporary works by Robert Polidori, Michael Wolf, David LaChapelle and Liu Wei will also be included in the sale.

Other highlights throughout the sale include works by Nobuyoshi Araki, Henri Cartier-Bresson, W. Eugene Smith, Sebastião Salgado, Bill Brandt, Josef Koudelka, Elliott Erwitt, Brian Duffy, Curtis Moffat & Olivia Wyndham and Sally Mann, among others.