A Treasure Trove of Photography is Coming Up at OstLicht Photo Auction

Pictures speak; wide children's eyes, a master painter lost in thought, posing models, disturbed feminists, people from a long lost China or dancing priests - a photo usually tells more with its visual language than any word could. 

The upcoming, OstLicht Photo Auction catalog, live on October 2, at 11am EDT, displays an impressive roster of photographers from Helmut Newton and Henri-Cartier Bresson to Josef Sudek, William Eggleston, Moriz Nähr, and many others.

Lot 4, Moriz Nähr, Gustav Klimt, Vienna 1909, Vintage silver print in OstLicht Photo Auction

Moriz Nähr knew exactly how to portray the Art Nouveau master Gustav Klimt in profile, conveying dignity and spirituality. The important piece of Austrian photo history was made on 8 July 1909 at the International Art Exhibition in Vienna. This early large-format print, offered at the auction, is extremely rare, especially as it‘s signed and preserved in such perfect condition (estimate: € 20,000–25,000).

Nine recently discovered daguerreotypes – the earliest known photographic view of Shanghai – are an almost sensational rarity (estimate: € 350,000–400,000). The photos were probably taken by the French historian and economist Natalis Rondot, during his diplomatic mission in China between 1844 and 1845. These daguerreotypes shed a completely new light on the beginnings of photography in China.

Lot 119, Jan Saudek, The Bonds of Love, Prague 1968, Vintage silver print

Helmut Newton’s core disciplines fashion and nudes are ideally combined in - Naked and Dressed, Fashion Models Sitting, Paris, 1981, two 48 x 48 cm gelatin silver prints. They are estimated at € 50,000–60,000, what makes them another major highlight of the auction.

More images with a message follow The Austrian media artist, VALIE EXPORT, who turned 80 this year, and has dealt with body language as a gender-specific, socially and historically coded concept in her series, Body Configurations. As in the offered print, Einschluss (Inclusion), 1972, 37 x 49 cm (estimate: € 26,000– 30,000), she uses her body to break through patriarchal visual conventions and structures.

Lot 77, Alfred Eisenstaedt, Children at a Puppet Theatre, Paris 1963, Gelatin silver print

Alfred Eisenstaedt, on the other hand, lets children's faces speak in his Children at a Puppet Theater, 1963. The German emigrated to the USA succeeded in taking a snapshot that inimitably shows the fear, horror, excitement and joy of the little spectators of a puppet theatre in the Tuilerie Garden, when St. George slays the dragon (estimate: € 16,000–20,000).

No less fascinating is the childlike joy in Mario Giacomelli's (1925-2000) Io non ho mani che mi accarezzino il volto (I have no hands to caress my face), 1961–1963, when he observed a group of priests dancing together (estimate: € 8,000–10,000).

Browse the full catalog, '22nd OstLicht Photo Auction' coming up on Bidsquare, October 2nd and regsiter to bid live, online. 

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