Christie’s New York Presents: The Vicente Wolf Photography Collection

NEW YORK – Christie’s is delighted to supply The Vicente Wolf Photography Collection—the non-public assortment of famend inside designer Vicente Wolf this October in New York in a two-part single-owner sale—one live and one online. The choices embody practically 200 distinctive pictures, lovingly assembled by the famed designer over the course of practically half a century. Vicente Wolf, internationally celebrated determine on the earth of inside design, is finest recognized for his spectacular eye and vary as a artistic visionary throughout residential, hospitality and industrial areas. While constructing a profitable enterprise and title for himself within the design world, he concurrently refined his eye as a prolific and passionate collector of images, originating with recommendation given to him by Richard Avedon. The assortment holdings signify an enormous vary of topic issues and genres, with works by among the many most esteemed names in twentieth century European and American images—together with Alexander Rodchenko, Constantin Brâncusi, Man Ray, Lee Miller, Diane Arbus, André Kertész, Edward Weston, Francesca Woodman and Richard Avedon. Various canonical pictures from American Modernist pictures from similar period, relationship to the Nineteen Twenties-30s, spotlight the gathering, together with Wind Fire, an outstanding print of Thérèse Duncan by Edward Steichen and an early print of Migrant Mother by Dorothea Lange—arguably probably the most well-known American {photograph} from the 20th century.

Vicente Wolf remarks, “I hunted for a long time for the right Dorothea Lange photograph and when I saw Migrant Mother come up in an auction catalogue, I had to see it. I was really surprised knowing the image pretty well, that I had never seen mother’s thumb in the photograph and in going through and doing some research, I found out that Lange had edited out the thumb after the first few images were printed. I thought this was the perfect image to own of Dorothea Lange because A, of its uniqueness and B, because it made it just a little different than every other image that you see of Migrant Mother. I think details like that bring an image back to the days when the original photograph was taken. There’s a relevance to the time and not just something that has traveled far away from when it originated.”

Rebecca Jones, Head of Photographs Department, Christie’s, remarks, “Vicente Wolf’s collection is a unique labor of love, thoughtfully assembled over the course of decades. His brilliance and passion shine through in this best-in-class selection of photographs that span geographies, movements, and eras. This sale will reflect Mr. Wolf’s incredible taste and his unmatched eye for greatness—with offerings that represent American Modernism at its finest and iconic examples from Europe’s fertile interwar period. We look forward to seeing how the market responds to this truly one-of-its-kind collection.”

The jewels of the gathering are fresh-to-market works hailing from avant-garde actions throughout Europe within the early 1900s, notably Italian Futurism, Surrealism, and Constructivism. This grouping consists of uncommon works by Rodchenko, together with a singular and iconic photomontage, collaboratively created by the artist and Varvara Stepanova in addition to portraits by Man Ray and Lee Miller; and uncommon works by Tato, Umbo, Raoul Ubac and extra. The European modernist pictures vary in estimate from $1,000 to over $200,000.

The public sale is rounded out by necessary artists whose contributions to images are monumental but are exceedingly uncommon to see at public sale. Counted amongst this group is figure by Bauhaus educated Japanese photographer and architect Iwao Yamawaki and a shocking portrait by German photographer Else Neulander. Even extra persona, texture and dimension comes by way of within the nameless press print that includes Marilyn Monroe which was hand-masked as a mock-up for the very first cowl of Playboy in 1953.