December 2008
Selling for US$7,721,875, the Constantiner Collection achieved the highest total for a single owner dedicated photographs sale at Christie’s.
Assembled by Leon and Michaela Constantiner, this spectacular collection focused on photography as a key shaping force within the media worlds that have, for over half a century, celebrated fashion, style, celebrity and desire, and features works by some of the most sought-after artists, including Andy Warhol, Helmut Newton, Richard Avedon, Irving Penn, Herb Ritts, and Peter Lindbergh.
Philippe Garner, International Head of Photographs, commented: “The superb results achieved for this collection demonstrate the potential of works bought with true passion and considerable connoisseurship to perform magnificently even in the present uncertain economic climate. The results also confirm the central position that Helmut Newton has rightly been accorded as a master photographer of the 20th century, and, of course, Marilyn Monroe’s magical appeal has proven to be truly timeless.”
The sale was led by Sie Kommen, (Naked and Dressed), Paris, 1981 (estimate: US$400,000-600,000), which shattered the world auction for a work by Helmut Newton when it sold for US$662,500. The Constantiner Collection boasted the best and largest selection of works in private hands by this towering figure in the story of photography of the last fifty years. Newton came to prominence in the 1970s for his distinctive mix of sophistication and style with shrewd and witty social observation and perverse eroticism.
The second highest lot in the sale, Big Nude III: Henrietta, 1980, also by Helmut Newton, achieved US$482,500. The entire selection of photographs contained in the sale by Helmut Newton totaled US$3,946,625.
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