The Expert Eye

How important are names? How important are titles of photographs? In this episode Aimee identifies 3 major ways that things become mistitled and how they can make a significant difference in the ways images are viewed using examples by Henri Cartier-Bresson, Josef Koudelka, Robert Capa, and George Hoyningen-Huene.

In this episode, Aimee discusses Roy DeCarava’s lyrical photographs with Saul Robbins, who was DeCarava’s studio assistant during graduate school. We talk about one photograph in particular that encapsulates the photographer’s masterful printing style as well as his efforts to communicate his personal experiences.

Denise Bethel joined Swann Galleries in 1980, soon after photographs auctions were inaugurated in New York.  After a decade at Swann, she moved to Sotheby's in 1990, where she rose from senior specialist to Chairman of the Department in her 25 years there. At Sotheby's, she set records in a host of categories, among them the record for any photographs auction worldwide, at $21.3 million, in December 2014. She orchestrated the sales of no less than eight of the eleven classic photographs that have sold at auction to date for over $1 million or more, and she wielded the gavel for all of them. One of these, Edward Steichen's "The Pond, Moonlight," at $2.93 million in 2006, is still the world record for any classic photograph at auction.

In this episode, Denise and I discuss the first half of her auction career at Swann Galleries, here in New York City.  She transformed what was then known as Photographica sales into Photographs auctions, impacting the way people think about buying and collecting photographs.  This is the Expert Eye.

The layers within this story are many: Director James Cameron drew a picture of a picture and then gave said picture to an actor to use as a prop in a movie about a real thing that happened but is actually completely fabricated, and he talks about a woman who actually existed but no one knew who she was although she was photographed by someone whose pictures were sometimes fabrications.

Formerly a photographer and founder of The Center for Photography in Woodstock in 1977, Howard Greenberg has been one of a small group of gallerists, curators and historians responsible for the creation and development of the modern market for photography. Howard Greenberg Gallery—founded in 1981 and originally known as Photofind—was the first to consistently exhibit photojournalism and 'street' photography, now accepted as important components of photographic art.

Howard Greenberg Gallery maintains diverse and extensive holdings of photographic prints including Eugène Atget, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Bruce Davidson, André Kertész, William Klein, Gordon Parks, Edward Steichen, Paul Strand, Josef Sudek, and Edward Weston on its roster of artists. More recent additions include Edward Burtynsky, Jungjin Lee, Joel Meyerowitz, and Vivian Maier. In 2013 Howard Greenberg Gallery announced exclusive representation for the estates of Berenice Abbott and Arnold Newman. In 2018 Howard Greenberg Gallery became the primary representative of the Ray K. Metzker Archive.

In 2019 Greenberg sold 447 photographs from his collection to the Museum of Fine Art in Boston.

This conversation took place over Zoom in January 2023.

Emily Bierman, SVP and Global Head of Sotheby’s Photographs, comes back to chat with Aimee about the spectacular results of the Sotheby’s Photographs May 1 and 2, 2023 auctions: Pier 24 Photography from the Pilara Family Foundation Sold to Benefit Charitable Organizations. Covered: Sale strategy, lot order, exhibitions, and what we learned about the Photo market in the first half of 2023.

O. Winston Link is the King of Steam Train Photography. His mastery of the medium of photography and artistry in creating night shots is unparalleled. But while he was obsessive over trains and lighting, he left a lot of details to chance when it came to what his wife and business manager was up to. What happened seems like something straight out of a Lifetime movie.

Cartleton Watkins is considered by many to be the foremost 19th century photographer of the American West.  His ‘mammoth plate’ prints can sell for six figures at auction.  How do we rate Watkins prints when they come through the Sotheby’s Photographs department? How do we judge what is a “good” and “bad” print, and what are the metrics that we use to decide?  I’ll give you all of the details in this episode, alongside Watkins’ heartbreaking personal story.

Margaret Bourke-White was commissioned for what was to be the largest photo-mural in the world for the newly-constructed 30 Rockefeller Plaza.  She worked furiously and it was unveiled in December, 1933.  At the opening ceremony, what someone had done to her work would upset her so badly she omitted the whole affair from her autobiography.