Artist | icon | Inspiration: Women in Photography is the title of Phillips' photography auction together with gallerist and collector Peter Fetterman who will explore the role of women as artists, subjects and innovators. The photographs featured in the sale, whose title encompasses three major intersecting and overlapping concepts of the auction, will highlight and celebrate every aspect of women's historic and ongoing involvement in photography.
Vanessa Hallett, vice president of the Americas and Phillips' worldwide head of photography, said: "Women have played a central role in photography throughout the history of the medium. They have shaped the trajectory and development of this art form through their participation as creators and sources of inspiration. This auction will celebrate the various roles they played by offering artwork created through the lenses of women such as Dorothea Lange, Imogen Cunningham and Lillian Bassman alongside portraits of women who continue to inspire us today, such as Rosa Parks, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Jackie Kennedy ".
Peter Fetterman said: “Many of the works in this auction address issues that are as relevant today as the day they were created. The female perspective experienced in these powerful images adds to the dialogue about the pressing issues we all face in these times."
Leading the auction is Dorothea Lange's Migrant Mother, Nipomo, California. As well as being one of the most iconic images of the 20th century, this print has a particularly interesting provenance, coming at auction from photographer William Heick's family. Heick was a West Coast photographer whose work has become part of permanent collections at institutions across the United States. After World War II, Heick studied at the California School of Fine Arts (CSFA), becoming close to Dorothea Lange and Imogen Cunningham, who took the young artist under their wing. The migrant mother offered in this sale was given to Heick by Lange when they were trading art. She offered her a print of her photograph Clam Digger, 1950, and in return gave him the print on offer, an image that would come to define his career. The lot is accompanied by a letter and a postcard from Lange to Heick.
Artist: The auction features women photographers from all eras, demonstrating their crucial role in the technical and aesthetic development of photography. Phillips has been photographing emerging women for a long time, introducing artists such as Alex Prager and Lalla Essaydi to the secondary market. Prager's Ellen is among the contemporary works to be featured, along with Essaydi's Bullet Revised #3. Other works by female photographers include Imogen Cunningham's The Unmade Bed, 1957, Julia Margaret Cameron's My Ewen's Bride, 1869, Alma Lavenson's Self-Portrait, 1932, and Martine Franck's Les Petites Dalles, Normandy, 1973.
Icon: Included are photographs of women who, through their accomplishments in many spheres of human endeavor, have become icons. Among the portraiture works in the auction are Michael O'Neill's Ruth Bader Ginsburg, 1998, Bob Adelman's Rosa Parks, March on Washington, August 1963, and Horst P. Horst's Coco Chanel, II, Paris, 1937.
Inspiration: Women – both behind the camera and in front of it – have inspired great photography throughout the history of the medium. The photographs in the auction, of women and men, highlight these figures and celebrate every aspect of the role of women in photography.
Cover image: ALEX PRAGER Ellen, 2007
