The 10 Most Expensive Photographs in the World

From Gizmodo we get this, I think the most expensive may have been surpassed but it doesn’t matter

Sometimes photographers amaze us with their ability to uniquely reflect the world around us and get a look at it from a different angle. Other times, they depict images so disgusting or banal that it’s impossible to understand why so many consider their photographs masterpieces. The art market is inscrutable, especially when it comes to photography. The following ten photos, ranked by worth, sold for millions of dollars at auctions over the past few years.

The Rhine II 1999 Andreas Gursky born 1955 Presented by the Friends of the Tate Gallery 2000 http://www.tate.org.uk/art/work/P78372 

1) Rhein II, by Andreas Gursky (1999). Sold for $4.3 million.

2) Untitled #96, by Cindy Sherman (1981). Sold for $3.9 million.

3) For Her Majesty, by Gilbert & George (1973). Sold for $3.7 million.

Ok there is the top three for you, go here to see the rest

News Flash

Peter Lik’s ‘Phantom’ was sold for an unprecedented $6.5 million and is the most expensive photograph in history. (PRNewsFoto/LIK USA)

Photographer Peter Lik has sold a print for a cool $6.5 million

Australian landscaper photographer Peter Lik has set a new world record after a private unnamed collector purchased one of his photos for an unprecedented $6.5 million.

The black-and-white image, called “Phantom,” was taken in Arizona’s Antelope Canyon, the Guardian reports.

 

The best photography exhibitions on now

I so love the way  some newspapers, magazines and blogs gather together a list of the exhibitions worth seeing and so thanks to The Telegraph for this, I have also added some other exhibitions that you might find interesting

In no particular order here is a selection of what is on show now:

Audrey Hepburn: Portraits of an Icon, National Portrait Gallery

‘Audrey Hepburn: Portraits of an Icon’, National Portrait Gallery, London WC2, July 2 – Oct 18. Tickets: 020 7766 7344; npg.org.uk. ‘Charade’ will be the featured film on MUBI on July 5. For details, go to telegraph.co.uk/film/mubi

AUDREY HEPBURN: PORTRAITS OF AN ICON
2 July – 18 October 2015, National Portrait Gallery, London
*IMAGE TO PROMOTE EXHIBITION ONLY* … Audrey Hepburn dressed in Givenchy with
sunglasses by Oliver Goldsmith by Douglas Kirkland,
1966 © Iconic Images/Douglas Kirkland

Captain Linnaeus Tripe: Photographer of India and Burma, 1852-1860

24 June – 11 October 2015 V & A Photography, Room 38a Admission free

 

 

Linnaeus Tripe, Pugahm Myo: Thapinyu Pagoda, August 20-24, 1855. Lent by The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Purchase, The Buddy Taub Foundation, Dennis A. Roach and Jill Roach, Directors, and Alfred Stieglitz Society Gifts, 2012. Image © The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Soldiers and Suffragettes: The Photography of Christina Broom

An enterprising housewife taught herself to use a camera and won the admiration of Queen Mary

Where: Museum of London Docklands
Address: No.1 Warehouse, W India Dock Rd, London E14 4AL
Until: Nov 1

London Dust

London Dust is a small photography and film exhibition, responding to the redevelopment of the City of London and the fallout from the 2008 financial crisis. As property prices rise, and the pressure to maximise space increases, London’s financial district has seen ever more fanciful towers appear in the skyline.

Blees Luxemburg’s images contrast the idealised, architectural computer-generated visions of London that clad City building sites, with the gritty, unpolished reality.

Detail from ‘Aplomb (St. Paul’s)’ by Rut Blees Luxemburg –

See more on offer at The Telegraph

Dusseldorf Photography: Bernd And Hilla Becher & beyond

4 September – 3 October 2015 This autumn Ben Brown Fine Arts is pleased to present a major survey of photography originating from the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf after 1976. The exhibition offers an opportunity to see varying interpretations of the German ‘New Objectivity’ style championed by Bernd and Hilla Becher side by side, including meditations on architecture and landscape by their former pupils Candida Höfer, Andreas Gursky, Axel Hütte, Thomas Ruff, Elger Esser and Thomas Struth, also known today as the Düsseldorf School of Photography.

Ben Brown Fine Arts 12 Brook’s Mews, London W1K 4DG T. +44 (0)20 7734 8888 E. info@benbrownfinearts.com http://www.benbrownfinearts.com Monday to Friday: 11am – 6pm Saturdays: 10.30am – 2.30pm

Bernd And Hilla Becher Gas Tanks

Julia Margaret Cameron: Influence and Intimacy at Science Museum

Catch a glimpse of some truly pioneering photography as the Science Museum presents Julia Margaret Cameron: Influence and Intimacy.

The exhibition marks the 200th anniversary of Cameron’s birth and features images drawn from the world’s most extensive collection of Cameron photographs, found in the Science Museum Group’s remarkable National Photography Collection.

The innovative artist became famous for her shots of her artistic and literary friends, acquaintances and family members. Her illustrious acquaintances included the likes of Alfred Tennyson, Julia Jackson(mother of Virginia Woolf), Thomas Carlyle and William Holman Hunt.

Cameron deliberately used unconventional methods when taking her shots, avoiding sharp focus and including technical faults to create more expressive images, much to the disdain of the photographic press of the day. The exhibition also features rare objects relating to Cameron’s life, including a daguerreotype portrait of herself, her only surviving camera lens, hand written notes from her autobiography and rare shots taken in Sri Lanka towards the end of her life.

Free  From 24/09/2015  To 28/03/2016

Exhibition Road in South Kensington, London, SW7 2DD

Lee Miller: A Woman’s War at Imperial War Museum

Discover the incredible story behind one of the last century’s most important female war photographers with Lee Miller: A Woman’s War at the Imperial War Museum.

The exhibition looks at the impact that the Second World War had on women’s lives, using the remarkable images taken by Miller throughout the conflict in her perilous role as photographer.

The major exhibition is the first to examine the contrasting ways in which Lee viewed gender, using many of her personal items to tell the compelling story of her career and the important part she played in the war.

Anna Leska, Polish pilot 1942 by Lee Miller

Coming soon: 15 October 2015 – 24 April 2016

IWM London
Lambeth Road
London
SE1 6HZ

Insight Astronomy Photographer of the Year at Royal Observatory Greenwich

See the night sky as you have never seen it before as Astronomy Photographer of the Year returns to the Royal Observatory Greenwich. The Insight Astronomy Photographer of the Year competition is an annual celebration of the most beautiful and spectacular visions of the cosmos by astrophotographers worldwide. In 2015 the competition launched for its seventh year with new categories and more prizes up for grabs. The winning images are showcased at the Royal Observatory Greenwich in an exhibition opening 18 September.

Aurora over a Glacier Lagoon by James Woodend, UK

Royal Observatory
Blackheath Avenue
Greenwich, SE10 8XJ

See the shortlist here

BP Spotlight: Karen Knorr at Tate Britain

Exhibition bringing together two series of work which combine image and text exploring patriarchal values in the upper middle classes and the aspirations and lifestyle of a privileged minority living in one of the most affluent parts of London.

13 October 2014 – 4 October 2015 Tate Britain

Belgravia 1979-81 Karen Knorr born 1954 Presented by Tate Members 2013 and forming part of Eric and Louise Franck London Collection

 

 

 

 

 

 

The 10 Best German Photographers You Should Know

Large-format prints, technical perfection and impersonal vision: these are the characteristics of the German photographers commonly known as the Düsseldorf School of Photography, a group of artists that studied with two masters of 20th century photography, Bernd and Hilla Becher – several of them went on to become some of the most successful contemporary artists in the world. Find out more in our curated list of ten German photographers you should know. See the full article here

The Rhine II’, Andreas Gursky | Tate

Esther Teichmann, from the series ‘Fractal Scars, Salt Water and Tears’ | Courtesy the artist

Axel Hütte, Raucheck, Austria from the series New Mountains, 2011 © Axel Hütte | Courtesy Fondazione Fotografia

Here for more

Grayson Perry: ‘There’s an awful lot of guff talked about art’

Artist Grayson Perry was commissioned to draw a series of pictures to illustrate his Reith Lectures on BBC Radio 4. Here he explains what they mean. If you missed his first Reith lecture you should take some time to listen, it is brilliant, interesting, funny and inciteful. As a prelude to his lecture series he produced this short video explaining that a lot of guff is talked about art

If you don’t know Grayson I would have to ask under which stone have you been living, he is now Britain’s most visible artist and an extraordinary person who doesn’t talk the usual art bs.

Earlier in the week I heard him on BBC Radio 4 Start the week, he said of art photography something like… art photography can be defined as needing to be at least 2m wide, priced in hundreds of thousands and in a limited edition of 5. I give you another look at Rhine2 the most expensive photograph ever sold, it is by Andreas Gursky

Owning The Scream does not make you an art collector

A question wandering around my head is, “Why is this painting, (not actually a painting but a pastel drawing), worth so much money?” Yesterday The Scream by Munch fetched up $120m in an auction. It can’t be the rarity as there are a number of versions by the artist, much as there could be from a limited edition of prints from a negative. It may reach into the human condition but there are so many photographs that do this, one name amongst many, Steve McCurry.

In Britain there seems to be a view that photography is a lesser art, there is a malaise that encourages people to think a photograph has little value because anyone with a camera (and a little skill) standing in the same place could have taken that picture. This of course is the main reason for the decline in professional photography, “Sheila in accounts has a good camera and she takes nice pictures of flowers so she can take the pictures”. That may be a bit of an exaggeration but I have heard similar. Once I was photographing at a college here in Oxford and noticed a woman who kept appearing behind me with a compact camera in hand. I asked why and she said the college had asked her to take some pictures and she thought following me would get her the best pictures! She explained that she had been asked to take on a role as the ‘in house photographer’ –  she quickly added that they recognised my pictures would be better (I hope so) but that as hers were for the web site or college publications that didn’t matter so much.

I have found that elsewhere in the world photography is considered much more seriously. France, USA, Australia all recognise that to make great photographs it has nothing to do with owning a camera (although this is necessary). As the saying goes “Owning a Nikon does not make you a photographer, it makes you a Nikon owner”.  Paris is full of small galleries exhibiting photography with realistic prices, by realistic I mean they reflect the artistic merit and journey the photographer has gone on to get to that point. Much the same as is taken into consideration when looking at the work of artists from other disciplines. To be a photographer you have to own equipment but it is your personal journey, your vision and your intent to say something that matters which defines the quality of the work.

So with all the fuss about The Scream it is this image, a photograph that caught my eye. I really like the domesticity of the scene, the everydayness, two men who show little reverence for what is in their hands juxtaposed with the obscenity of its price tag of $120m say it again and gasp $120m.This one image sums up for me the ludicrousness of it all and again forces the question, “why not for a photograph too?”

I can’t even tell you the name of the photographer but click on the picture to be taken to the article in The Guardian.

As if by contrast I would like to share the most expensive photograph ever with you. It is by Andreas Gursky and is called Rhine II and sold for $4.3m, a snip, I hear you say; I’ll have two and still have change for a lesser Scream. I think it is possible that one of the reasons photography is the poor cousin of the art world is because of the photographs that are held up as the best that we can do. What do you think?

“At $4.3 million — more than $1 million more than the midpoint of the Christie’s estimate — Andres Gursky’s Rhine II is the most expensive photograph ever sold. Here’s the argument that it’s worth it. But I count myself with Dan Amira: I just don’t get art sometimes. “ From the Washington Post

Seems like I may not be alone.