SEAFARING PHOTOGRAPHS AT SWANN GALLERIES ON OCTOBER 18

Wednesday, 18 July 2007 15:02

New York City - Maritime and seafaring images have a timeless quality and their appeal to collectors and yachtsmen alike is undeniable. Long an inspiration to painters, fine-art seascapes also found their way into the medium of photography very early on. A superb collection of nearly 40 nautical photographs by prominent American and European photographers will be featured in Swann Galleries’ auction of Important 19^th & 20^th Century Photographs on Thursday, October 18. The collection was built over the course of 25 years by marine photography enthusiast Charles W. Sahlman of Tampa, Florida, and has been exhibited at the Tampa Museum of Art.

Mr. Sahlman, now 80 years old, said he “shares the philosophy of many other collectors that great art should be made available to the marketplace, not hoarded, when it is time to simplify.”

A strong selection of 19^th-century works in the auction includes a salted paper print from a calotype negative by the inventor of photography, William Henry Fox Talbot. It is a very early (circa 1842-45) image of the Hungerford Suspension Bridge, with several docked boats in the foreground (estimate: $15,000 to $25,000). Gustave LeGray’s stunning Brig on the Water, large-format albumen print, 1856 ($25,000 to $35,000), and Timothy H. O’Sullivan’s Black Canyon, Colorado River from Camp 8, Looking Above, albumen print, 1871, from the Wheeler Geological Survey of the Western U.S. ($9,000 to $12,000), are other early highlights.

Also featured are Civil War photographer George N. Barnard’s Savannah, Georgia No. 2, gold-toned albumen print, 1866, from his photographic documentation of Sherman's Campaign ($2,500 to $3,500); the lyrical English photographer Peter Henry Emerson’s Marshman Going to Cut Schoof-Stuff, platinum print, circa 1885, from his masterwork Life and Landscape on the Norfolk Broads, ($4,000 to $6,000); and the renowned Antarctic photographer Herbert G. Ponting’s majestic view of The Terra Nova Icebound in the Pack, oversize green-toned carbon print, 1914, taken during Admiral Scott’s ill-fated expedition ($15,000 to $25,000).

From the early 20^th century are Karl F. Struss’s Sailboats, New England, platinum print, 1910 ($4,000 to $6,000); Alfred Steiglitz’s classic image The Steerage that appeared in his publication Camera Work, photogravure on Japan tissue, 1911 ($5,000 to $7,500); and Eugene Atget’s La Rochelle-Bateau, arrowroot print, circa 1920 ($7,000 to $10,000).

Modernist examples include master photographer Edward Weston’s abstraction depicting the bow of a Boat in San Francisco Bay, silver print, 1925 ($25,000 to $35,000); German artist Ernst Scheel’s New Objectivity view of Schiffmaste from below, oversize silver print, circa 1930 ($10,000 to $15,000); and Margaret Bourke-White’s powerful scene of a sailor Climbing the Mast, warm-toned silver print, 1934 ($9,000 to $12,000).

Other striking views of boats include Czech photographer Drahomir Josef Ruzicka’s Fishing Boats in Harbor in Winter, blue-toned bromoil print, circa 1930 ($2,000 to $3,000); Brassaï’s Regatte sur la Seine, ferrotyped silver print, 1933, printed 1940 ($5,000 to $7,500); Aldolf Fassbender’s Just Drifting, silver bromoil print, 1939 ($3,000 to $4,500); and A. Aubrey Bodine’s Chesapeake Bay Skipjack, gold-toned bromide print, 1947 ($3,000 to $4,500).

The auction also features Edward S. Curtis's magnums opus, The North American Indian, with 16 complete portfolios containing his large-format magisterial photogravures and 16 fully illustrated text volumes in handsome morocco bindings.

The Swann auction will begin at 2:30 p.m. on Thursday, October 18. The photographs will be on public exhibition at Swann Galleries on Saturday, October 13 from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.; Monday, October 15 to Wednesday, October 17, from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.; and Thursday, October 18 from 10 a.m. to noon. Illustrated catalogues are available for $35 from Swann Galleries, 104 East 25^th Street, New York, NY 10010, and may be viewed online at www.swanngalleries.com .

For further information, and to make advance arrangements to bid by telephone during the auction, please contact Daile Kaplan at (212) 254-4710, extension 21, or via email at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it