NEW YORK — Ansel Adams was famous for his black and white photos of the American West; Dorothea Lange put faces on the Great Depression; and Diane Arbus made viewers think, and sometimes squirm, with her portraits of those deemed social outcasts. Photographer William Wegman (b. 1943-) takes a somewhat lighter approach to the art form, and in doing so, has created an extensive body of work that is celebrated for its charm and whimsy.
After earning a bachelor of fine arts degree in painting in his native Massachusetts in 1965, followed by an MFA at the University of Illinois, Wegman began teaching at the university level. His talents spanned not only painting and drawing, but also film and video. By 1970, he was already playing around with film and beginning to consider the storytelling possibilities of photography. But an unrelated spontaneous decision he made that year — purchasing a Weimaraner puppy — ultimately shaped his career.
Looking for a puppy for his then-wife, Gayle Lewis, while they were living in California, Wegman spotted an ad listing Weimaraner puppies for $35. He named his new pet Man Ray in homage to the famous artist, and it became the first of many canine muses Wegman showcased as he embraced the Conceptualism art movement then sweeping across Los Angeles. He dressed Weimaraners in elaborate costumes and placed them in settings both silly and serious, posing the animals standing on boxes or stepping up and down on them.
Similar to Cindy Sherman’s repetitive self-portraits in which she uses herself as an avatar, Wegman’s much-beloved portraits of his dogs are also stand-ins for varied concepts that reference art history or embrace minimalism. While Sherman’s photographs are critically lauded, and several have sold for more than a million dollars each, Wegman has been overlooked by art world critics.
Make no mistake: people know Wegman’s work, and he’s had gallery and museum exhibitions. He is both a commercial success and a pop culture icon, having directed several film shorts starring his second Weimaraner, Fay Ray, for the classic children’s TV show Sesame Street. His photographs also led to the creation of several children’s books. His art sells well, but his photographs are not valued at the same levels as those of important photographers, possibly because his dog images might be seen as too popular to count as fine art.
“I think he is an underappreciated artist, while at the same time his work is sort of irresistible,” said Richard Wright, CEO of Rago/Wright. “I think he has been a little trapped in his own success. He has also created other work, but I think what everybody really wants are the dogs, and you see that expressed in the valuations of his work.”
Most of Wegman’s photographs, particularly his editioned photographs, auction for sums well under $10,000, Wright said. “To me, he is sort of in an ironic place where the work is widely loved, but … it’s not expensive in art world terms.”
Wegman’s large-format Polaroid photographs typically bring the highest prices, yet they are still accessible to most buyers. A 1993 large-format Polaroid Polacolor print, Church & Steeple, achieved $5,000 plus the buyer’s premium in January 2023 at Wright.
Richard Wright said that Church & Steeple brought a strong price because it was one-of-a-kind rather than an editioned work. Noting the chemical process involved in creating the print, he explained that its unique color palette, dominated by a pleasing blue hue, also drove up its value.
Whether it is a simple chair, a net, or a blanket, Wegman’s props help the dogs’ personalities shine through in the finished photograph. Proof comes in the form of a collection of nine 1970s gelatin silver prints in which Wegman repeatedly captures a dog stepping up and down on a box. The Dog/Box (Stormy Night) images together earned $12,000 plus the buyer’s premium in November 2023 at Millea Bros Ltd.
The top price on the LiveAuctioneers platform for the photographer is a grouping of 44 vintage gelatin silver prints collected in a 1993 Pace/MacGill Gallery portfolio titled Letters, Numbers, Punctuations. It attained €22,000 ($24,485) plus the buyer’s premium in June 2015 at Leitz Photographica Auction.
Art is, of course, subjective, and viewers are best left to make their own interpretations of the subtleties lurking in Wegman’s images. Possibly a commentary on art imitating life, however, is a portrait of one of his Weimaraners holding a landscape picture in its mouth. The image took $6,000 plus the buyer’s premium in March 2020 at Rago Arts and Auction Center.
There is no mistaking the gentle jokes in Wegman’s works such as Ray Cat, a 1987 image he marked up in a way that gives the dog feline features. The color lithograph went for $3,300 plus the buyer’s premium in June 2021 at Circle Auction.
“I think one would be hard-pressed not to like his work,” Wright said. “The work really does come from a place of intellectual rigor. It is conceptual, and it’s also just humorous and humane. It’s the rare work of art that balances those two qualities — to have some rigor, and then also have mass appeal because of the universality of the images.”
