For much of the past year, in my rounds through gallery shows and art fairs, I have anecdotally heard rumbles about slowing demand for photography, about much of photography being “out” at the moment, and other muted tales of woe, but without looking at the private sales books of gallery owners, it’s difficult to get a feel for just how much of a slowdown was actually occurring, and whether it was driven by broad economic malaise or something more intrinsic to the medium. And as the year passed, in tracking the auction data from sale to sale, I had an ... Read more at Collector Daily.

Aside from the withdrawal of the top photo lot Richard Prince work, the photography included in the last tranche of the Emily Fisher Landau Collection sale at Sotheby’s last week in New York generally met expectations. In an online sale where most of the lots had no reserve, the overall Buy-In rate came in at a tidy 0.00%, leading to Total Sale Proceeds for photography (of roughly $355K) that fell near the top end of the aggregate pre-sale estimate range.... Read more at Collector Daily.

The photography included in the 21st Century Evening and Post-War & Contemporary Art Day sales at Christie’s in New York last week muddled along without much in the way of notable news. Two significant photo lots were withdrawn prior to the sale (works by Barbara Kruger and Richard Prince), and while one of the two top lot Cindy Sherman prints did sell, the rest of the sale plugged along without incident. When the dust settled, with no positive surprises to help the numbers a bit, the Total Sale Proceeds for photography came in above $1.7M, just below the low end ... Read more at Collector Daily.

It was an uneven outing for thephotographs included in the Contemporary Curated sale at Sotheby’s in New York last week. The top photography lot Cindy Sherman film still found a buyer within its estimate range, but with an overall Buy-In rate for photography above 55%, many other photo lots didn’t fare as well. With no positive surprises to buoy the numbers, the Total Sale Proceeds for photography (of roughly $660K) came in well below the low end of the aggregate pre-sale estimate range.... Read more at Collector Daily.

The buzz surrounding the sale of a late Gustav Klimt painting drowned out what was an otherwise respectable outing for the photography included in Sotheby’s recent modern and contemporary art sales in London. The top photo lot Cindy Sherman film still found a buyer within its estimate range, and only one photograph failed to sell, leading to Total Sale Proceeds for photography (of roughly £1.25M) that fell squarely in the middle of the aggregate pre-sale estimate range.... Read more at Collector Daily.

The photographs included in the Contemporary Curated sale at Sotheby’s in New York last week didn’t deliver much in the way of excitement. After one Cindy Sherman print was withdrawn, another Sherman print (the top photography lot in the sale) found a buyer underneath its pre-sale estimate range. The rest of the photo results were forgettable, with a Buy-In rate over 50% and no positive surprises. In the end, the Total Sale Proceeds for photography (of roughly $75K) came in well below the low end of the aggregate pre-sale estimate range.... Read more at Collector Daily.

An invisible psychological ceiling was boldly smashed this past year in the auction market for photography. For the first time, a photograph sold at auction cleared the $10M mark in May, and then the same threshold was breached again by another photograph later in November. The previous auction record for a photograph was well under $5M, so these two outcomes felt altogether unexpected and frame-breaking. And while the two vintage prints in question, the first a 1924 print of Man Ray’s Le Violin d’Ingres and the second a 1905 print of Edward Steichen’s The Flatiron, were undeniably iconic photographic rarities, ... Read more at Collector Daily.

The late season online photographs sale at Bonhams last week didn’t generate much in the way of heat. Softness in the middle priced lots didn’t help the situation, and with just one positive surprise to balance a Buy-In rate over 43%, the Total Sale Proceeds (of roughly $170K) fell well below the low end of the aggregate pre-sale estimate range.... Read more at Collector Daily.

Led by an early 1980s work by Barbara Kruger that found a buyer above $1.5M, the photography included in Sotheby’s Contemporary Art sales in New York sale last week delivered admirably. The overall Buy-In rate for photography was a respectable 27%, and buoyed by a couple of positive surprises, the Total Sale Proceeds for photography (of roughly $3.8M) came in above the high end of the aggregate pre-sale estimate range.... Read more at Collector Daily.