Diane Arbus, Ansel Adams and Fritz Bultman are the focus of Brunk’s Oct. 20 sale

Diane Arbus, 'The Junior Interstate Ballroom Dance Champions, Yonkers, New York, 1962,' estimated at $15,000-$25,000 at Brunk Auctions.

ASHEVILLE, N.C. — Ansel Adams, Diane Arbus, Andy Warhol and Fritz Bultman are the headliners at Brunk Auctions’ Photography | Modern Art + Design sale on Friday, October 20. The catalog is now available for bidding at LiveAuctioneers.

The sale’s top lot is a large painting by Fritz Bultman (1919-1985), an abstract expressionist originally from New Orleans. The Ancestress, dating to 1954, measures 72.25 by 35.75in and was originally displayed in an exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art in 1955. Consigned from a private collection, the piece is estimated at $30,000-$50,000.

Atop the photography category is the Ansel Adams (1902-1984) signed and framed print Yosemite Valley Thunderstorm. The famed landscape photographer and environmentalist has a large body of work devoted to Yosemite, including this image dated to 1945.  The lot comes from a private South Carolina estate with an estimate of $15,000-$25,000.

There are few 20th-century photographers who had more impact than Diane Arbus (1923-1971). Her focus on the strange, different and often mundane was never exploitive, but instead sympathetic and celebratory of her subject matter. In The Junior Interstate Ballroom Dance Champions, Yonkers, New York, 1962, we have a classic Arbus shot — two child dancers posing in front of their trophies in a wood-floor gymnasium. The print previously sold at Christie’s in 1997 for $2,530, and now carries an estimate of $15,000-$25,000.

The sale also includes six works by Gordon Onslow-Ford (1912-2003), an English surrealist who lived long enough to become the final surviving member of the 1930s Paris surrealist group headed by André Breton. Live Land I, from 1939, was painted at the Chateau de Chemillieu in Switzerland where Onslow-Ford, his sister Elizabeth, and the group of surrealists, including Breton, had gathered that summer. The painting comes by descent from Elizabeth Onslow-Ford, and is estimated at $12,000-$18,000.

Diane Arbus, 'The Junior Interstate Ballroom Dance Champions, Yonkers, New York, 1962,' estimated at $15,000-$25,000 at Brunk Auctions.

Diane Arbus, 'The Junior Interstate Ballroom Dance Champions, Yonkers, New York, 1962,' estimated at $15,000-$25,000 at Brunk Auctions.

Ansel Adams, 'Yosemite Valley Thunderstorm,' estimated at $15,000-$25,000 at Brunk Auctions.

Ansel Adams, 'Yosemite Valley Thunderstorm,' estimated at $15,000-$25,000 at Brunk Auctions.

Fritz Bultman, 'The Ancestress,' estimated at $30,000-$50,000 at Brunk Auctions.

Fritz Bultman, 'The Ancestress,' estimated at $30,000-$50,000 at Brunk Auctions.

Gordon Onslow-Ford, 'Live Land I,' estimated at $12,000-$18,000 at Brunk Auctions.

Gordon Onslow-Ford, 'Live Land I,' estimated at $12,000-$18,000 at Brunk Auctions.

Jim Bunte

Jim Bunte

Jim Bunte has worked in editorial, design and the toy and auction industries for more than 30 years. He co-founded Auction Central News in 2007.

Five decades of photography celebrated at Portland Museum of Art

Melissa Shook, ‘May 6, 1973,’ from the series Daily Self-Portraits 1972-1973, 1973. Gelatin silver print, 4 3/8 by 4/3/8in. Museum purchase with support from the Irving B. Ellis Fund, the Photography Fund, and the General Acquisitions Fund, 2023.14.1. Image courtesy of the Portland Museum of Art, Portland, Maine
Melissa Shook, ‘May 6, 1973,’ from the series Daily Self-Portraits 1972-1973, 1973. Gelatin silver print, 4 3/8 by 4/3/8in. Museum purchase with support from the Irving B. Ellis Fund, the Photography Fund, and the General Acquisitions Fund, 2023.14.1. Image courtesy of the Portland Museum of Art, Portland, Maine
Melissa Shook, ‘May 6, 1973,’ from the series Daily Self-Portraits 1972-1973, 1973. Gelatin silver print, 4 3/8 by 4/3/8in. Museum purchase with support from the Irving B. Ellis Fund, the Photography Fund, and the General Acquisitions Fund, 2023.14.1. Image courtesy of the Portland Museum of Art, Portland, Maine

PORTLAND, Maine – The Portland Museum of Art is showing Drawn to the Light: 50 Years of Photography at Maine Media Workshops + College through September 10.

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Gaze upon faces from American history at Hindman, June 15-16

Half plate daguerreotype of three gold miners, estimated at $4,000-$6,000. Image courtesy of Hindman
Half plate daguerreotype of three gold miners, estimated at $4,000-$6,000. Image courtesy of Hindman
Half plate daguerreotype of three gold miners, estimated at $4,000-$6,000. Image courtesy of Hindman

CINCINNATI – Hindman will present two days of manuscripts, archives, early photography and artifacts spanning the entirety of American history in its June 15-16 American Historical Ephemera & Photography auction. The June 15 session will focus on American conflicts including the Civil War and Indian Wars, as well as African Americana and early photography, while the second day is devoted to politics, Native American history and the settling of the American West. Absentee and Internet live bidding will be available through LiveAuctioneers.

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Closing soon at Maine museum: Judy Glickman Lauder photography collection

Richard Avedon, ‘Audrey Hepburn and Art Buchwald, with Simone D’Aillencourt, Frederick Eberstadt, Barbara Mullen, and Dr. Reginald Kernan, evening dresses by Balmain, Dior, and Patou, Maxim’s, Paris, August 1959,’ 1959. Gelatin silver print. Judy Glickman Lauder collection, museum purchase with gift in honor of Judith Glickman Lauder, 2020.7
Richard Avedon, ‘Audrey Hepburn and Art Buchwald, with Simone D’Aillencourt, Frederick Eberstadt, Barbara Mullen, and Dr. Reginald Kernan, evening dresses by Balmain, Dior, and Patou, Maxim’s, Paris, August 1959,’ 1959. Gelatin silver print. Judy Glickman Lauder collection, museum purchase with gift in honor of Judith Glickman Lauder, 2020.7

PORTLAND, Maine – The Portland Museum of Art has unveiled Presence: The Photography Collection of Judy Glickman Lauder. It will remain on display through January 15.

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Redlands to auction long-held trove of rare NASA Apollo Moon, astronaut photos, Dec. 1

NASA Apollo 15 (1971) photograph of Astronaut James B Irwin with Lunar Rover, Lunar Module, and planted American Flag against Mt Hadley Delta in the background. Size 8 x 10 inches. NASA IDs at top left margin. Estimate $20-$20,000

 REDLANDS, Calif. – As governments and private entities fast-track their goal to explore and colonize space, interest in images documenting the earliest days of space exploration has increased by leaps and bounds. A rare opportunity to acquire 1960s/’70s NASA photos and prints of Apollo astronauts working on the Moon, ultraviolet shots of Earth from the Moon, and shots of the Moon’s terrain itself, will take place on December 1 as Redlands Antique Auction sells a collection that has been quietly stored and unpublicized for 40 years. Absentee and Internet live bidding is available through LiveAuctioneers.

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Full spectrum of photographic greats presented at Heritage, Oct. 11

Thomas Struth, ‘Pantheon, Rome,’ estimated at $500,000-$700,000. Image courtesy of Heritage Auctions
Thomas Struth, ‘Pantheon, Rome,’ estimated at $500,000-$700,000. Image courtesy of Heritage Auctions
Thomas Struth, ‘Pantheon, Rome,’ estimated at $500,000-$700,000. Image courtesy of Heritage Auctions

DALLAS – Key photographs by Thomas Struth and Bernd and Hilla Becher are prominent lots in Heritage’s October 11 Photographs Signature® Auction. Absentee and Internet live bidding will be available through LiveAuctioneers.

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Brad Walls: Taking fine art photography to new heights

Brad Walls, Water Jewel. Copyrighted image courtesy of Brad Walls. Used by permission

NEW YORK – If you haven’t heard of Brad Walls, just wait. You will. For the past few years, the 30-year-old aerial photographer from Australia has been charting new territory in visual art, fusing drone technology with an astonishing talent for composition.

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Detroit Institute of Arts explores how photographers tell their tales

Genesis Baez, ‘The Sound of A Circle,’ 2018. Pigment print. Courtesy of the DIA
Genesis Baez, ‘The Sound of A Circle,’ 2018. Pigment print. Courtesy of the DIA
Genesis Baez, ‘The Sound of A Circle,’ 2018. Pigment print. Courtesy of the DIA

DETROIT – On view now through January 8, 2023, the Detroit Institute of Arts presents the photography exhibition Conscious Response: Photographers Changing the Way We See. It explores the history of visual storytelling and image-making through the eyes of more than 25 artists who have used photography to record and reflect upon human experiences that impact the work they make and our perceptions of the world.

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Feast your eyes: PBA Galleries offers Margaret Keane painting, July 28

Margaret Keane, ‘Girl with Lace Gloves,’ est. $15,000-$25,000

 

Margaret Keane, ‘Girl with Lace Gloves,’ est. $15,000-$25,000
Margaret Keane, ‘Girl with Lace Gloves,’ est. $15,000-$25,000

BERKELEY, Calif. – On Thursday, July 28, PBA Galleries will host Part II of the Jack and Beverly Waltman Collection of Photography and Art with Additions. The nearly 450 lots feature photographers of the legendary Group f/64, including Edward Weston, Imogen Cunningham, Ansel Adams, Peter Stackpole, Brett Weston and Sonya Noskowiak. Also represented are several notable photographers of the next generation, including John Sexton, Morley Baer and Jerry Uelsmann. Complementing the Waltman collection are several exquisite prints and artists’ books, including work by Robert Motherwell, the artists of the Berlin Secession and George Grosz. A poster collection featuring work by David Lance Goines and the Bay Area rock poster artists of the 1960s rounds out the sale. Absentee and Internet live bidding will be available through LiveAuctioneers.

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