Man Ray's photograph 'Noire et Blanche' (1926) sold for €2.6mn – a new record for classic photography – at Christie's auction house on Thursday as this year's week-long Paris Photo continued to draw large crowds at the Grand Palais.
A much-vaunted annual photography show, Paris Photo (9-12 November) this year hosted 160 galleries from 30 countries, and was held at the Grand Palais. The event brings together collectors, photographers and admirers of photography and is just as keenly anticipated by the city’s many auction houses that seek to sell their own offerings.
Christie's record sale of Man Ray’s 'Noire et Blanche' recalls Paris's fascination for primitive arts in the early 20th century. The gelatin silver print on mat paper shows Man Ray's muse and lover Kiki de Montparnasse resting her head on a tabletop, eyes closed, and holding a tribal mask.
“This new world record is an important result for the history of photography and a giant step for the photography market,” Elodie Morel, director of the photography department, told FRANCE 24. “It also confirms the special relationship photography has with its country of origin, France.”
The previous record for a classic photograph was Man Ray's hand-painted 'Portrait of a Tearful Woman' (1936), which Christie's sold for $2.2m in May.
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One of the most expensive works on show at the Grand Palais is 'Chez Mondrian' (1926), by André Kertész at Bruce Silverstein from New York. With an asking price of $1.2mn, it was taken a year after Kertész moved from his native Hungary to Paris and was invited by Mondrian, the Dutch abstract painter, to photograph his studio. Kertész gave the image to his brother, Jeno Kertész, and purchased it back from him in the 1970s; it has been in the artist's estate ever since. Kertész gave another print of the image to the Centre Pompidou.
“This vintage exhibition print was made on the occasion of André Kertész's first exhibition in Paris in 1927, at Au Sacré du Printemps gallery and is largely considered his most beloved and iconic image.” said Elizabeth Eichholz Yoches, director at Bruce Silverstein.
