We have polaroids on the brain here at the Art Center as Mary-Kay Lombino and her Ford scholar, Emily Kloppenburg, work on an upcoming polaroid exhibition. So we have been paying attention to the recent forced sale at Sotheby’s of the Polaroid’s corporate collection. The sale included works by Ansel Adams, Andy Warhol, and William Wegman.
There was controversy surrounding the auction because some artists, including Chuck Close, thought they had only loaned the work to the company and were upset to see their work for sale. Close, speaking to the New York Times, said that the sale was “criminal”. Almost right before the contested photographs hit the auction block, an agreement was reached and nine works were removed from the sale.
The first day of the auction set a record for the highest price ever paid for an Ansel Adams photograph. Commentators have accounted for the $722,500 price tag by pointing out that Adams’ photographs rarely come up for sale. Speaking with NPR, Denise Bethel, the director of the photography department at Sotheby’s, said, “”We are lucky if we see one great mural by Adams every four or five years. We have, in this collection, 30.”
I’d personally really like to retire in San Raphael, France on the Mediterranean Sea. It is so stunning! I’d also get the job done on learning French since really few men and women there speak English.