Auction Time: May 13 at 1 PM CT.

Curator's Picks: May 13 Depth of Field: Photographs Showcase Auction
Our curators picked their favorite items from our upcoming May 13 Depth of Field: Photographs Showcase Auction.
| Nigel's Picks Nigel Russell | Director, Photographs, New York
Hollis Frampton and Marion Faller Apple Advancing, from Sixteen Studies of Vegetable Locomotion, 1975
Apple Advancing feels like a quirky little joke, making it look like the apple is somehow scooting along by itself. Frampton and Faller take something super ordinary and turn it into a fun experiment about how motion can be faked through a series of images. It also works as a funny, slightly sarcastic nod to Eadweard Muybridge's Animal Locomotion, swapping his serious studies of moving bodies for the ridiculous sight of an apple on the move.
Andrew Moore Rule the Planet, Times Square, 2002
The whole scene feels loud even without sound-like the city is flexing how big and bright it can be. It's kind of a wry statement, with the "Rule the Planet" billboard towering over this messy jumble of glowing food logos, like capitalism turned into a neon skyline. It's overwhelming but weirdly hypnotic, like you're caught between laughing at it and totally buying into it.
| Laura's Pick Laura Paterson | Consignment Director, Photographs, New York
Tom Caravaglia Philip Glass, 1985
I've been an ardent fan of Philip Glass's music for a long time. He is of course widely regarded as among the most influential composers of the 20th century and a pioneer of minimalism whose musical scores consist of repeated musical phrases and subtly shifting tonal layers that define and guide his soundscapes. Caravaglia's portrait perfectly captures Glass's artistic sensibility -- he crouches, arms crossed against a graphic black and white backdrop and stares intently at the camera, his face in half shadow. Also signed by Glass, the image would have made a superb album cover!
| Holly's Picks Holly Sherratt | West Coast Director, Photographs
Les Krims Please (complete with 11 works), 1978
Les Krims' PLEASE! (1978) is a portfolio of 11 photographs that uses constructed scenes, deadpan humor, and deliberate awkwardness to challenge the conventions of documentary photography. Rather than presenting reality, Krims arranges his subjects-often friends or non-professional models-in absurd or uncomfortable situations that parody social norms and expectations of taste. The series reflects his broader concept of "fictions," emphasizing that photographs can be invented rather than truthful records. Its importance lies in its early contribution to conceptual photography, helping shift the medium toward staged imagery and a more self-aware, critical approach that influenced later artists.
Aaron Siskind Chicago 53, 1952
Aaron Siskind's Chicago 53 (1952) is a gelatin silver print depicting a tightly cropped view of a weathered wall, where torn layers, cracks, and advertising fragments form an abstract composition. By eliminating context and focusing on surface detail, Siskind transforms an ordinary wall into an image defined by line, texture, and contrast. Made in the early 1950s, the photograph marks a break from documentary tradition and aligns with Abstract Expressionism, echoing its emphasis on gesture and surface while demonstrating photography's potential as an expressive, non-representational medium.
Nicholas Nixon The Brown Sisters, 1975
Nicholas Nixon's The Brown Sisters began in 1975 as a portrait of his wife, Bebe Brown Nixon, and her three sisters-Heather, Mimi, and Laurie-standing in a fixed order that he would repeat annually for decades. While the composition remains constant, each image captures subtle shifts in expression, relationship, and the visible effects of aging. Seen together, the photographs compress time, making change unmistakable. The 1975 photograph marks the beginning of this long-running project. What gives the work its emotional force, to me, is its direct depiction of women aging over time, where beauty is not fixed in youth but continues to evolve across the series.
| Toshiko's Picks Toshiko Abe | Cataloguer, Photographs
Hiroshi Sugimoto Paramount Theater, Newark (from the Lost Human Genetic Archive), 2015
Hiroshi Sugimoto History of History, 2003
Hiroshi Sugimoto, a renowned Japanese photographer, is known for exploring the passage of time in his work. In his early series Theaters, begun in 1978, he photographed movie screens inside historic theaters from the 1920s and 1930s. Using very long exposures, he captured entire films in a single image, leaving the screen glowing white and surrounded by detailed architecture. Although conceptual, these quiet black-and-white images often evoke nostalgia and imagination, recalling the golden age of cinema. Sugimoto shows that while photography captures a moment, it can also suggest a sense of timelessness. Another work in this sale, History of History (started in 2003), features photographs of Sugimoto's own collection of antiquities and architectural fragments. Each object acts as a time capsule, preserved to connect the past with the present. Through this series, Sugimoto invites viewers to reflect on what history means and how it is remembered.
| Mya's Picks Mya Adams | Cataloguer, Photographs
John Albok Backyard Musician, 1933
John Albok's Backyard Musician is a beautiful, atmospheric tribute to a love of music. There's something universal about a moment like this, music as a language anyone can sit with and understand, even in silence, in a back alley, with or without an audience I've always been especially drawn to images of musicians playing alone, just them and their instrument. In photographs like this, the instrument begins to feel like an extension of the person, and you can sense the quiet, symbiotic relationship between the two.
View all lots in the May 13 Depth of Field: Photographs Showcase 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