Auctions: April 7

Curator's Picks: April 7 Photographs Signature® Auction
Our curators picked their favorite items our upcoming April 7 Photographs Signature® Auction.
| Nigel's Picks Nigel Russell | Director, Photographs, New York
Chris Levine Lightness of Being, 2004
In 2004, Chris Levine was commissioned to create an official portrait of Queen Elizabeth II to commemorate the Island of Jersey's 800-year allegiance to the British Crown, a project that resulted in the formal work Equanimity (offered here as lot 73259). While Equanimity presents a composed and regal likeness, it was during the brief pauses between exposures that an unexpected moment occurred: the Queen gently closed her eyes, creating an expression of rare calm and introspection. Levine captured this fleeting instant, which became Lightness of Being, a portrait that departs from traditional royal imagery and instead conveys a sense of transcendence and humanity. The photograph has since been widely celebrated for its quiet power and meditative quality, with photographer Mario Testino notably describing it as the most beautiful portrait ever made of the Queen.
Terry Richardson Batman and Robin, 1999
Every time I see Terry Richardson's Batman and Robin (1999) it makes me smile. It exemplifies his signature blend of provocative humor and deliberately raw, snapshot-style photography. The photograph feels less like a dramatic superhero moment and more like something you'd stumble upon at a very unexpected Halloween party. Instead of brooding over Gotham, Batman and his trusty sidekick are caught mid-kiss, turning their crime-fighting partnership into something a bit more... affectionate. By subverting the traditionally hyper-masculine identities associated with Batman and Robin, Richardson challenges cultural assumptions about heroism, sexuality, and pop iconography. The photograph walks a fine line between parody and critique, using shock value and irony to question how media constructs identity, while also reflecting the irreverent, boundary-pushing ethos of late-1990s contemporary photography.
Stephen Shore Texas Hots, 2693 South Park Avenue, Lackawanna, New York, October 25, 1977
This photograph fits squarely within Stephen Shore's broader practice, particularly his Uncommon Places series of the 1970s, in which he turned his attention to the everyday landscapes and interiors of America with a large-format camera. Like many of those works, it emphasizes seemingly ordinary subject matter-a luncheonette interior, mundane objects, a quiet street outside-presented with precise detail, balanced composition, and rich but naturalistic color. Shore rejected dramatic or romanticized imagery in favor of a detached, observational approach, allowing banal scenes to carry visual and cultural weight. The careful framing, frontal perspective, and even lighting seen here are consistent with his interest in how space is organized and experienced, while the inclusion of signage, commercial fixtures, and traces of human presence reflects his ongoing exploration of American consumer culture. This photograph exemplifies his role in legitimizing color photography and elevating the everyday into a subject worthy of sustained artistic attention.
| Laura's Picks Laura Paterson | Consignment Director, Photographs, New York
Ansel Adams Winter Sunrise, Sierra Nevada from Lone Pine, California, 1944
Ansel Adams photographed Winter Sunrise during the winter of 1944 while he was working on a project to document a Japanese internment camp at nearby Manzanar. He rose early for several days and drove to the pasture, waiting patiently to get the perfect shot. It happened on the fifth morning, as the dawn rays illuminated the Sierra Nevada peaks and bathed a horse in the foreground in sunlight, providing an ideal focal point for the viewer. I find a number of things exciting about this picture. Not simply that its subject matter underscores the beauty of the American west to me, a not-so-recent immigrant to the US, but also the fact that it is a mural print. Adams made enlargements of his most popular images in three sizes (here medium,) long before the digital age--a printing feat that demanded extraordinary technical virtuosity. Indeed, he prized this image so highly that he hung a large-format mural print of the image on the wall of his Carmel darkroom. This particular print also includes the ghostly remains of the original whitewashed initials LP (for Lone Pine) in the background hills which Adams found to be a "hideous and distracting scar" on the landscape and ruthlessly spotted them out until the 1970s. As another LP and Adams superfan, the work has obvious personal appeal beyond the simple fact that is undoubtedly a masterpiece of American landscape photography.
Lillian Bassman Margi Cato, New York, 1950
Now, if ever, seems an appropriate time to celebrate the work of innovative fashion photographer Lillian Bassman, the subject of a small, exquisitely curated retrospective exhibition currently on display at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Bassman possessed an inimitable ability, through experimentation, to distill her elegant subject matter, whether gowns or lingerie, to something more elemental and abstract, her "chance gestures and elegant lines conveying the sensations of garments, as their details dissolve into atmospheric blur." (Metropolitan Museum of Art). This is certainly the case in this atmospheric image of Margi Cato, New York where the model is seated in the shadows with her back to the camera so that we are more conscious of the model and have only a vague sense of her sophisticated party dress. Unlike contemporaries Irving Penn and Bassman's protégé Richard Avedon who concentrated primarily on the arrangement of the formal components of their imagery, Bassman's pictures exude something more intimate, and feminine.
Fan Ho Along the Tracks, Hong Kong, 1955
A native of Shanghai and dubbed the "Cartier-Bresson of the east', as a young man Fan Ho moved to Hong Kong, a territory in flux caused by rapid industrialization, renewed British sovereignty (after Japanese occupation during the Second World War) and its uneasy co-existence alongside the newly formed communist People's Republic of China on the mainland. Armed with his Rolleiflex camera, Fan Ho explored the streets of this new home capturing scenes of everyday life with unparalleled artistry. His images, here Along the Tracks, Hong Kong, often have an ethereal, cinematic quality reflective of his mastery of light manipulation to create atmosphere. Ho's work only occasionally appears at auction, and this is a good example of his best mature work.
| Holly's Pick Holly Sherratt | West Coast Director, Photographs
Joel-Peter Witkin Las Meninas, 1987
Joel-Peter Witkin's Las Meninas (1987) reworks Diego Velázquez's 1656 painting. The central Infanta is replaced by a figure seated in a basket mounted on a wheeled wire cage, echoing the shape of her dress while revealing it as a constructed apparatus. The artist remains at the left but appears masked and ambiguous, and the attendants become fragmented, partially nude, and hybrid bodies. The doorway figure persists, yet the deep, illusionistic space collapses into a compressed, staged environment filled with props and layered imagery. The surrounding walls, with references to other artworks, including glimpses of Picasso's Guernica, turn the scene into a dense montage of visual quotation. These changes parallel a shift in interpretation: Velázquez's painting is often understood as a meditation on power and representation within a structured courtly setting, while Witkin's reworking exposes that system as an artificial construction
| Toshiko's Picks Toshiko Abe | Cataloguer, Photographs
Elliott Erwitt Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1988
Elliott Erwitt was an exceptional photographer who had a remarkable ability to see and capture special moments in everyday life-whether it was a famous movie star, a stranger walking down the street, a child, or even a dog. Through his lens, ordinary life transformed into a witty and charming world. When he was not on assignment for the Magnum agency, he often strolled through museums around the world, observing people as they gazed, glanced, smiled, or reacted to works of art. A picture of two groups next to each other- a woman standing before The Clothed Maja, while a group of men gathered in front of The Naked Maja, a stunned looking back of a boy in front of huge Picasso's Guernica, or a crowd of tourists before the Leaning Tower of Pisa (reminiscent of Martin Parr)-all became subjects of his keen eye. The lot in our sale exemplifies this beautifully: a girl standing upright, aligned with four Egyptian goddesses. It is a superb example of Erwitt's sense of humor that makes us smile.
Sebastiao Salgado Greater Burhan Oil Field, Kuwait, 1991
Sebastião Salgado's series on the Kuwait oil well fires captures a devastating crisis caused by Iraqi forces setting the wells ablaze as they retreated from Kuwait. More than 700 oil wells erupted in flames, sending thick smoke into the sky and turning it pitch black with soot, severely degrading air quality across the region. It took nine months to extinguish the fires. In this haunting image, a firefighter confronts an immense fireball, walking through a chemical spray for protection. His courageous advance into catastrophe reflects resilience and determination in the face of overwhelming danger. Salgado renders the scene as a dramatic spectacle in stark black and white-the blazing flames set against dark smoke, with a lone figure illuminated in the foreground by a white shower. The image serves as a powerful reminder of the destructive consequences of human conflict, affecting the environment, the economy, and humanity itself.
Youssef Nabil Self-Portrait, Vincennes, 2003
Youssef Nabil is known for his hand-painted black-and-white photographs, which evoke a dreamy, nostalgic atmosphere. He began his artistic career in his native Egypt in the early 1990s, before later moving to Western countries. Drawing on the melodramatic tableau style of movie posters from the golden age of Egyptian cinema, his work reflects a deep engagement with film. Nabil has long been fascinated by cinema, and his photographs are often composed to resemble individual scenes from a larger narrative. Self-portraits, an important part of his practice, follow this same approach. They present moments that hover romantically between painting and photography, and explore dualities such as life and death, reality and dreams, and home and exile. The self-portrait in this sale depicts the artist nude, lying face down in the forest of Vincennes, prompting the viewer to wonder whether he appears asleep or dead-and what story might be unfolding. This image intriguingly recalls the world's first photographic self-portrait by Hippolyte Bayard, which was staged as a drowning and carried its own compelling narrative.
| Mya's Picks Mya Adams | Cataloguer, Photographs
André Kertész Studio Cat, Hungary, 1926
Anyone who owns a cat knows they have a talent for inserting themselves exactly where they're not supposed to be. I like to imagine Kertész setting up this still life, only for his feline companion to wander in and take over the scene. Instead of ruining the composition, the cat completely steals it. There's something in its expression-almost like it knows it shouldn't be there but doesn't care in the slightest. As both a Kertész admirer and a cat lover, this photograph really makes me smile. It captures a simple, familiar moment that anyone who's lived with a cat will instantly recognize.
Horst P. Horst Mainbocher Corset, 1939
Horst P. Horst has become one of my favorite photographers for a number of reasons, especially the ethereal atmosphere he's able to create in his work. Mainbocher Corset captures that perfectly-a smoky, almost dreamlike image of a woman attempting to lace her corset herself, while also suggesting the ghostly presence of someone who isn't there to help her. A fun detail about this photograph: the original negative was subtly retouched along the model's waistline to make it appear slightly smaller. It's not immediately noticeable unless pointed out, but it opens up an interesting conversation about beauty standards-ones that, even today, often feel just out of reach.
View all lots in the April 7 Photographs Signature® Auction. Sincerely,
|  | Nigel Russell Director, Photographs, New York NigelR@HA.com (212) 486-3659
|  | Laura Paterson Consignment Director, Photographs, New York LauraP@HA.com (212) 486-3525
|  | Holly Sherratt West Coast Director, Photographs HollyS@HA.com (415) 548-5921
|  | Toshiko Abe Cataloguer, Photographs, New York ToshikoA@HA.com (212) 486-3523
|  | Mya Adams Cataloguer, Photographs, Dallas MyaA@HA.com (214) 409-1139