AFTER DARK/AUGUST Highlights: Photography
AFTER DARK/AUGUST Highlights: Photography
Presenting a Series of Highlights from the Catalog
Lot 1: Steven Arnold (American, 1943-1994). Confidante of the King, 1984. Gelatin silver print, mounted on board. Edition of 12. Estimated at $800 - $1,200.
The first of our photo highlights from the AFTER DARK/SUMMER catalog is an exceptional work by the photographer, filmmaker, painter, and Salvador Dalí protégé, Steven Arnold. Much like his mentor, he was known for his striking, surreal imagery, which was expressed through his elaborately assembled tableau photographs. Arnold would design intricate costumes and sets for the subjects of his photos and films, which often took inspiration from ancient and classical religions, Jungian archetypes, art historical touchstones, and his own dreams.
Lot 3: Jeannette Montgomery Barron (American, b. 1956). Rainer Fetting and Desmond Cadogan, 1984. Gelatin silver print. 10/25. Estimated at $800 - $1,200.
Lot 3 is an intimate portrait from the New York studio of the acclaimed German artist Rainer Fetting. The portrait features Fetting looking amorously at his muse and partner Desmond Cadogan, posed in front of one of Fetting’s iconic Neue Wilde paintings. The photographer, Jeanette Montgomery Barron, is well known for her portraits of the 1980s New York art scene, documenting artists such as Andy Warhol, Keith Haring, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Robert Mapplethorpe, and William Burroughs. This particular photograph was taken for a German art magazine in 1984.
Lot 4: Arthur Tress (American, b. 1940). Lumberjack Fantasy, 1978. Gelatin silver print. 9/50. Estimated at $1,000 - $1,500.
Lot 4 features a fantastical male nude portrait by the acclaimed photographer Arthur Tress. Tress is considered one of the preeminent American photographers of the postwar era, with his oeuvre shifting from street photography in the 1960s-1970s into the surrealist portraiture he is now known for. Tress' work is now held in many permanent collections across the world, including the Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Centre Georges Pompidou, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Metropolitan Musuem of Art, the Getty Museum, and the Whitney Museum of Art.
Lot 109: Tom Bianchi (American, b. 1945). Nude Study (Jump and Palm Tree), 1992. Gelatin silver print. 7/50. Estimated at $600 - $900.
Our latest AFTER DARK catalog features several works by the Chicago-born photographer Tom Bianchi. Bianchi is perhaps best known for his photo publications, including his 2013 book, Fire Island Pines: Polaroids 1975-1983, which documented his experience of the Fire Island Pines gay community. Bianchi’s photography captures the beauty of the male form from all angles, often featuring athletic men swimming, diving, embracing, and in a variety of other dynamic compositions. The work shown in Lot 109 features one such nude diving scene, shot at his home and studio in Palm Springs.
Lot 5: Alair Gomes (Brazilian, 1921-1992). Sonatinas, Four Feet, No. 27. A Complete Suite of Seventeen (17) Photos, c. 1977. Gelatin silver prints. Estimated at $10,000 - $15,000.
We're very excited to present a complete suite of Alair Gomes’ Sonatinas No.27 in our upcoming auction. The academic, art critic, and photographer Alair Gomes was best known for his extensive body of work devoted to the male form. His Sonatinas series of images feature photos taken from the window of his apartment, charting the life and times of the beach-bodied men of Rio. Only one other edition of suite No.27 is held in the National Library of Brazil in Rio de Janeiro. This suite was first featured in the exhibition: Exposição As artes no Shopping. Shopping Cassino Atlântico, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. 1980, during which his work came under severe scrutiny and prejudice from the then-active military dictatorship.
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