Press Release Auction No. 159 „Modern and Contemporary Photography“

November 27, 2008, 3 p.m.

Preview Exhibition November 22–26, 2008 at Villa Grisebach Auktionen, Fasanenstraße 73, Berlin Saturday through Tuesday from 10 a.m.–6:30 p.m., Wednesday from 10 a.m.–5 p.m.

The Online Catalogue will be available in November at www.villa-grisebach.de.

Berlin, October 7, 2008: On November 27, Villa Grisebach Auktionen will hold its fall auctions in modern and contemporary photography in Berlin with more than 240 lot numbers for sale..

Spearheaded by Larry Clark’s (*1943) portfolio Tulsa, published in 1980, with an estimate of 40,000- 60,000 EUR, Villa Grisebach starts off its fall auction of modern and contemporary photography with an American classic. Including fifty images, Clark’s portfolio documents the youth scene of his hometown in the late 1960s with an unsparing and direct attitude. Other masterpieces offered in this sale are the well- known Portfolio 1, a compilation of distinct compositions executed by the renown German architectural photographer Werner Mantz (1901-1983) and published by Edition Galerie Schürmann & Kicken in 1977 (estimate of 12,000-18,000 EUR), as well as a photograph by Ruth Orkin (1921-1985) entitled American Girl in Italy, which by now has been recognized as an icon in the history of photography (estimate of 8,000-10,000 EUR). Photographs by Albert Renger-Patzsch (1897-1966) will be represented in this auction with a series of garden landscapes depicting the country estate of the Warburg family near Hamburg. Commonly considered as rarities, two exceptional vintage prints are also on sale this fall: a portrait of Ellen Auerbach by Grete Stern (estimate of 3,000-4,000 EUR) and an image taken by the American photographer Helen Levitt depicting James Agee. In addition, the fall photography auction will offer works by Josef Maria Eder & Eduard Valenta, William Henry Fox Talbot, Félix Teynard, and Eadweard Muybridge (19th century) among others, as well as works by Bernd & Hilla Becher, Erwin Blumenfeld, Robert Capa, Frantisek Drtikol, Alfred Eisenstaedt, Hugo Erfurth, Andreas Feininger, Man Ray, Martin Munkàcsi, and Erich Salomon.

For a number of years, the section featuring contemporary photography has experienced an emphasis within the photography sales conducted by Villa Grisebach Auctions. The artists represented in this section vary from familiar names to possibly new discoveries. Top lot in this segment, this fall, is an early work by Andreas Gursky (*1955) entitled Teneriffa, Bajamar produced in 1987 (estimate of 40,000- 60,000 EUR). Other remarkable works are Shirin Neshat’s I am it’s Secret (estimate of 6,000-8,000 EUR), Peter Beard’s Polaroid Loliondo Lion Charge (estimate of 2,500-3,500 EUR) as well as three examples of Jörg Sasse’s celebrated color landscape photographs (estimate each with 6,000-8,000 EUR). Furthermore, photography coming out of the Scandinavian schools will be represented in this sale with two rather picturesque works by Olafur Eliasson from his Iceland series (estimate each with 7,000-9,000 EUR), a large-format, panoramic image entitled Qaanaaq by Tiina Itkonen (estimate of 8,000-12,000 EUR), as well as two small, b/w photographs by Pentti Sammallahti (estimate each with 800-1,200 EUR). Works by internationally renowned photographers such as Sebastiao Salgado, Stephen Shore, Massimo Vitali, Bettina Rheims, Gregory Crewdson, and Robert Mapplethorpe will complement the offer in Villa Grisebach’s contemporary photography sales this fall.

Franziska Schmidt Telephone: +49 (0)30-885 915-27, Email: [email protected]