Laura Gilpin - The Odyssey of Collecting: Photographs from Joy of Giving Something Foundation, Part 1 New York Monday, April 3, 2017 | Phillips

The Odyssey of Collecting: Photographs from Joy...

New York 3 April 2017

  • Provenance

    Sotheby's, New York, 23 April 1994, lot 170

  • Catalogue Essay

    Laura Gilpin was an alumna of the Clarence White School of Photography, an important training ground for a number of the 20th century’s most influential photographers. This catalogue includes the work of several other White School graduates, among them Margaret Bourke-White (Lots 33 and 45), Doris Ulmann (see Lot 67), Karl Struss (see Lots 71 and 72), and Dorothea Lange (see Lot 143). While each of these photographers would go on to create bodies of work that were distinctly individual, the one trait that united them all was a mastery of photographic craft. Gilpin was a not only a fine photographer but a gifted printer of her own work, which she realized in both silver and platinum.

    Gilpin’s central subject was the American southwest, and she photographed both the landscape and its people. The photograph offered here, taken at Great Sand Dunes National Park in Gilpin’s home state of Colorado, is striking for its clarity. While the contours of the dunes provide a foundation for Gilpin’s minimal composition, the subtle textures that she so beautifully presents in the image—in the sand and in the clouds—give this photograph its complexity and depth.

28

Laura Gilpin

Sand Dunes

1930s
Gelatin silver print, likely printed 1941.
7 5/8 x 9 1/8 in. (19.4 x 23.2 cm)
Signed and dated in pencil on the verso; signed and dated in pencil on the overmat.

Estimate
$20,000 - 30,000 

Sold for $25,000

Contact Specialist
Caroline Deck
Senior Specialist, Head of Sale

Vanessa Hallett
Worldwide Head of Photographs and Deputy Chairman, Americas

General Enquiries:
+1 212 940 1245

The Odyssey of Collecting: Photographs from Joy of Giving Something Foundation, Part 1

New York 3 April 2017