Photographs from the Collection of Peter C. Bunnell, to be Offered in a Series of Live and Online-only Auctions
Over 240 Works from the Renowned Historian’s Personal Collection Will be Sold to Establish Endowments to Support the Study of Photographic History at Six Institutions
Edward Weston Dune, Oceano, 1936 Estimate: $70,000 – 90,000
NEW YORK – 13 SEPTEMBER 2022 – It is Phillips’ honor to announce the sale of photographs from the collection of renowned curator, teacher, historian, and author, Peter C. Bunnell (1937-2021) in a series of live and online auctions in 2022 and 2023. In his curatorial roles at The Museum of Modern Art and Princeton University Art Museum, and as a Professor of the History of Photography and Modern Art at Princeton, Bunnell professionalized the study of photographic history, conferring a higher degree of rigor and status to the medium, and inspiring an entire generation of photographers and curators.
Starting with the first group of works to be sold on 12 October, proceeds from the sales will be distributed to six institutions with whom Bunnell was associated—Rochester Institute of Technology, Ohio University, Yale University, The George Eastman Museum, The Museum of Modern Art, and Princeton University Art Museum—to establish endowments to support the study of photographic history.
Each of Phillips’ four sales takes its title from one of Bunnell’s many books on photography. The first offering, A Reverence for Beauty: The Peter C. Bunnell Collection, Part 1, will take place as a single-owner sequence within Phillips’ Photographs auction in New York on 12 October. This sale includes an early print of Walker
Stieglitz’s 1932 study of Poplars, Lake George, and Edward Steichen’s Laughing Boxes, 1922, represent the strongest Modernist voices in photography. Three studies by Minor White of Tom Murphy demonstrate White’s mastery of the male nude, and Grand Tetons, Wyoming, 1959, his command of the landscape genre.
A Reverence for Beauty: The Peter C. Bunnell Collection, Part 2, will be offered in April 2023, and two online auctions, The Eye That Shapes and Inside the Photograph, will be offered at dates to be determined.
Auction: 12 October 2022 Auction viewing: 2 – 12 October Location: 432 Park Avenue, New York, NY 10022 Click here for more information: https://www.phillips.com/auctions/auction/NY040322
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