Swann Galleries opened the 2018 season with a $1.6M auction of Icons & Images: Photographs & Photobooks on February 15. Important rare and unique work, both fine art and vernacular, brought a variety of buyers to the fore, with especially active bidding by institutions. Leading the auction and closing to applause was Photographic Views of the Red River Raft, 1873, one of three extant copies of Robert B. Talfor’s documentation of the second attempt to clear debris from Louisiana’s Red River. Several institutions competed for the 113 hand-colored albumen prints, and the album quadrupled its high estimate to sell for $93,750. A collection of 24 prints of Lewis W. Hine’s most iconic photographs, spanning the entirety of his career, made their victorious auction debut, selling 92%. The works—each boasting the handstamp of Hine’s Hastings-on-Hudson studio, as well as notations in his
|
