© 2013 Man Ray Trust / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris. Man Ray’s “Untitled Rayograph, 1922″ set an auction record for a work by the artist of $1.2 million during a Christie’s photographs sale on April 4.

Six photography sales last week at the three major auction houses in New York City brought in more than $30.8 million dollars and included record sales for masters Man Ray and Diane Arbus, among others, as well as contemporary artists including Robert Frank, Richard Misrach, Alex Prager and Viviane Sassen.

Two sales at Christie’s on April 4 and 5 totaled nearly 15 million. “The strength of these results is indicative of the thriving market for photographs, which continues to gain momentum with every sale,” said Philippe Garner, one of the Christie’s directors, in a statement.

The April 4 sale of a private collection of modernist photographs totaled more than $7.5 million, including a $1.2 million, auction record sale of a unique gelatin silver photogram by Man Ray, “Untitled Rayograph,” made in 1922. Nine other world auction records for artists were set during the sale, according to Christie’s. (more…)

A silent auction and cocktail reception will be held Thursday, June 21 in Manhattan  to benefit the grantmaking and fellowship programs of the Chris Hondros Fund. The fund, a non-profit organization, was established to honor the life and work of Chris Hondros, the award-winning Getty Images photographer killed in Libya in April 2011. It supports photojournalists through grants and a fellowship to the Eddie Adams Workshop, and it support organizations that educate the public about photojournalism.

At the reception, the inaugural Getty Images and Chris Hondros Fund Award will be given to the  winners, Andrea Bruce and  Dominic Bracco II.  Among the items being sold through the silent auction are a print by Robert Capa (donated by the International Center of Photography),  Murray Garrett’s signed 1953 portrait of Marilyn Monroe, prints by Todd Heisler, Lynn Johnson, Rick Loomis and other photographers, and the Super Bowl XLVI football, autographed by Eli Manning.

The event will be held at the James Burden Mansion from 6 to 9pm. Tickets are still available for $50.  Tickets can be bought online at www.chrishondrosfund/benefit.  Information on the Chris Hondros Fund can be found on the fund’s web site, www.chrishondrosfund.org.

Related Article
Andrea Bruce Wins Getty Images & Chris Hondros Fund Award

"Dead Troops Talk (A vision after an ambush of a Red Army patrol, near Moqor, Afghanistan, winter 1986," © Jeff Wall.

A 1992 photograph by Jeff Wall sold for $3,666,500 yesterday evening during a Post-War and Contemporary art auction at Christie’s in New York City. The previous record sale for a work by Jeff Wall was $1.1 million.

The work “Dead Troops Talk (A vision after an ambush of a Red Army patrol, near Moqor, Afghanistan, winter 1986″ depicts a grisly scene in which Soviet Red Army soldiers killed by the Afghan mujahideen have come back to life and are conversing with one another.

The photograph, framed in a light box, was the first in an edition of two, with one artist’s print. The photograph has been in the collection of David and Geraldine Pincus, who acquired it from Marian Goodman Gallery in New York. The Pincus’s substantial collection formed a major part of the sale, which set a record for a Post-War and Contemporary art sale at $388.5 million, according to Christie’s.

The high lot in the sale was Mark Rothko’s “Orange, Red, Yellow,” which sold for $86.9 million, another record for a work from the Post-War period.

Three other photographs were included in the sale. A Richard Prince work that appropriated a Marlboro advertisement, “Untitled (Cowboys),” sold for $602,500. Cindy Sherman’s “Untitled #122″ sold for $206,500. And Nan Goldin’s “Ballad Triptych” sold for $218,500.

Related: Eggleston’s First-Ever Large Pigment Prints Earn 5.9 Million at Auction

On May 15, 2012, Christie’s will hold an auction of photojournalism prints to benefit the children of Anton Hammerl. The South African-born photojournalist was killed while covering the conflict in Libya in April last year by forces loyal to Muammar Qaddafi.

Hammerl was survived by his wife and three young children.

Photographers who have donated prints for the auction include Sebastiao Salgado, Alec Soth, Christopher Anderson, Jane Evelyn Atwood, Yuri Kozyrev, Larry Fink, Lynsey Addario, Susan Meiselas, Ron Haviv, David Burnett, Joao Silva, Samuel Aranda, Marcus Bleasdale, David Hume Kennerly, Roger Ballen and Vincent Laforet.
Update: Christiane Amanpour, the ABC News global correspondent, has agreed to host the May 15 benefit. Tickets to the event are now available for a suggested donation is $75. Photographers Danny Clinch, Platon, Giles Duley, Jason Florio, Anastasia Taylor-Lind and the estate of Tim Hetherington have recently given images to the auction.

Those interested in bidding on prints can do so in person or online. More information can be found on the Friends of Anton Hammerl site, which was created by his friends to benefit Hammerl’s children.

http://www.friendsofanton.org/

Related article:

PDN Photo of the Day: Friends of a Friend (7 Photos)

A major collector of William Eggleston’s work filed suit against the photographer yesterday in a U.S. District Court, accusing him of devaluing his vintage dye transfer prints by selling new, large-scale pigment prints of many of his iconic works. The suit by Jonathan Sobel, a collector of 192 of Eggleston’s works, was prompted by a March 12, 2012, auction of Eggleston’s new pigment prints at Christie’s, which brought in more than $5.9 million.

Sobel, who estimates the value of his Eggleston collection at $3 million-$5 million, is suing the photographer, his two sons and the Eggleston Artistic Trust for unspecified damages, and has asked the court to bar Eggleston from making or selling any more prints of the photographs he has printed and sold previously as limited editions. Sobel says in his claim that he has eight dye transfer prints that were devalued by the sale of new digital versions at the March 12 auction.

According to gallerist Robert Mann, who sold Eggleston’s work in the late 1970s while working with one of the photographer’s original dealers, Harry Lunn Jr., Sobel is not the only person upset by Eggleston’s decision to offer a new edition of previously sold, limited edition work.

“I understand there are a lot of people out there who are pissed, and I don’t blame them,” Mann told PDN. “I’ve heard that other people are concerned, upset, wondering how this is possible, and what’s stopping it from happening again. It’s a credibility factor. I would be mortified if I was working with his collection.”

This story is developing. Check PDNOnline later this afternoon for more information on the case and what it means for the Eggleston market.

This Sunday, March 11, is the one-year anniversary of the earthquake and tsunami in Japan. Photographers who have extensively covered the devastation and the environmental and nuclear consequences around the affected region are marking the anniversary in variety of ways. Here are a few of the events:

Black Tsunami
FotoEvidence, the organization that supports photography books on social justice issues, is releasing a new digital book featuring Tokyo-based photographer James Whitlow Delano’s documentation of Year Zero, taken in Miyagi prefecture. His somber black-and-white photos convey the epic scale of the damage in a personal, almost poetic way. Black Tsunami is now available in the Apple iTunes store as an iPad app.  A preview can be seen on Vimeo.

Dispatch from Tohoku: A Group Slide Show
Sunday March 11, from 7:30 to 9:30, photographer Jake Price’s SeenUnseen will be presenting “Dispatch From Tohoku: Documenting the Aftermath,” a slide show of work by several photographers who documented the aftermath of the disaster.  Tickets are $15, and the proceeds will benefit Art in a Box, which brings supplies to children affected by the tsunami. Curated by Elissa Curtis, Dana Kien and Jamie Wellford, and produced by Price and Emmanuelle Chiche, the slide show includes images by James Whitlow Delano, David Guttenfelder, Kyoko Hamada, Dominic Nahr, Kosuke Okahara, Q. Sakamaki, Munemasa Takahashi and Price, and artwork by Midori Curtis.  It will be held at The Bubble Lounge, 228 West Broadway, New York City.

Wa Project Photo Auction
In April 2011, Wa Project held a photo auction in New York City that raised over $16,000 for rebuilding efforts in Japan. Now Wa Project is holding an auction and exhibition in Tokyo at the 72 Gallery of the Tokyo Institute of Photography, featuring photos by Kenro Izu, Venetia Dearden, Jake Price, Gilles Bensimon, Jamel Shabazz and others. The images all exemplify the theme of “wa,” loosely translated to mean “harmony.” All funds raised through print sales will be donated to Archi+Aid, which works with architects, students and communities rebuilding from disaster and preparing for the future. The show ends on March 11. For more information see waphotographyauction.com

French police have opened an investigation into the sale at auction of 153 vintage photographs that are suspected of being forgeries, according to a report in The Art Newspaper.

The sale took place last March at Artcurial Deauville, an auction house in the city of Deauville near Le Havre on the English Channel. The auction house said prior to the sale that the photographs in question were made in 1848, and that they were from a collection alleged to have come from the family of a minor artist, Charles Edouard de Crespy Le Prince, who died in 1850.

The sale totaled €554,200, but some of the collectors who purchased lots have refused to pay or asked for the sales to be canceled and their money refunded after inspecting the works.

The investigation was initiated when Grégory Leroy, the independent expert who presided over the sale and initially verified the authenticity of the photographs, made a complaint to French police in December.

“This seems to have been a carefully prepared swindle,” Leroy told The Art Newspaper. “We were all taken in.”

The consignors, who are said to have bought the works in the 1990s believing they were authentic, sued the auction house unsuccessfully in December for the money owed to them from the sale.

Police have not commented on who, if anyone, they suspect in the forgery of the works.

Andrew Hetherington, Andy Anderson, Chris Buck, Mark Zibert, George Simhoni and Derek Shapton are among the more than 40 photographers who have contributed to the silent print auction to be held February 5 to raise money for Heather Morton, the freelance art buyer and popular blogger. In the fall, Morton began two years of chemotherapy for fibromatosis, an aggressive, non-malignant sarcoma.

The event will take place at the Gladstone Hotel in Toronto, Morton’s home town, on February 5 at 7pm. Photographers Naomi Harris, Daniel Ehrenworth and Brett Gundlock will be showing images from recent projects, and there will also be a raffle for dozens of prizes. Sponsors include Pikto, Agency Access, Westside Studio, Katarina Marinic and others (a full list of sponsors, a look at some of the images for sale and more information can be found on Morton’s blog, where friends and colleagues have been helping with postings).

Tickets are $10, and available via PayPal on Morton’s site to anyone who wants to attend (or just support this effort from afar).

Over on PDNOnline we’ve gathered together the biggest photography news stories of 2011, a year marked infringements on the rights of photographers, by sticky legal cases whose results will be felt long into the future, and by tragedy. The 15 stories we highlighted were the most-read news articles and blog posts on PDNOnline and PDN Pulse this year.

Which of these stories do you think was the most important news story of the year? Leave your thoughts in the comments below.

A print auction held at the annual PDN PhotoPlus Expo Bash on October 28 raised more than $8,000 for the Red Cross’s relief efforts in Japan, PDN PhotoPlus Expo has announced.

Harry Benson, Douglas Kirkland, Susan Meiselas, John Isaac and Art Streiber were among the 50 photographers who donated prints for the benefit silent auction.

Unique Photo, Fuji Film and Modernage sponsored the event, held at Highline Stages in New York City, which featured live music by Tyburn Saints and was attended by more than 1,200 people.

“It was important for us as an organization, and an industry, to organize an event that would give us an opportunity to participate in the worldwide efforts to help the victims in Japan,” Jeff McQuilkin, Group Show Director for The Nielsen Company, said. “Obviously, the photographic industry has strong ties to Japan and its culture and was deeply affected by the disaster. The fundraising event was one way we could show our support.”

“It was amazing how the industry came together to support this event,” added Lauren Wendle, Vice President, Nielsen Photo Group. “Everyone had a great time but never seemed to lose sight of fundraising aspect of the event. The print auction was very active and we want to extend our warmest thanks to the photographers who donated prints, and our guests who bid and bought them.”