Auction

Henri Cartier-Bresson Foundation

Henri Cartier-Bresson "Derrière la gare Saint Lazare" 1932 © Christie's Images Limited 2011

Click to see full screen

The auction house Christie’s has just announced the sale of 100 prints from the Henri Cartier-Bresson Foundation that will take place on November 11th in Paris. A real event, as since his death in 2004 aged 95, no new copies have been printed.

We can ask ourselves where do all these prints come from? It’s all quite clear, says Agnès Sire, director of the Henri Cartier-Bresson Foundation. The foundation has been recognized as a public interest institution, which means that it is and always has been under draconian obligations. Even if all of the negatives belong to the photographer’s beneficiaries, the Foundation received 30,000 duly registered prints from the Prefecture as an inalienable archive. However, the institution also has access to a collection that can be sold, made mainly of copies, “vintage” press prints or not recognized as “good” and signed by the photographer in his lifetime. The pictures to be sold come from these collections with, of course, justified reserve prizes. The authorization to be sold has been decided during a meeting held the month of May with the presence of all representatives from the ministries involved and in particular the Ministry of Internal Affairs, ex-officio members.

As stated in its bylaws, one such sale can only be authorized if the object is to improve the Foundation through the acquisition of prints or documents that are not present in the collection, or in case the object is to improve its functioning. In this particular case, the mayor of the 14th arrondissement proved itself too small to properly show the archives, and moreover not well adapted to present exhibitions integrating large format prints.

Furthermore, according to Martine Franck (President of the board of directors) and Agnès Sire, the director, the Foundation is located outside the areas devoted to photography. Hence, they are looking for 600 to 700 m2 in the third district in Paris, near the Centre Pompidou and the galleries specialized in photography.

The sale of the site and the earnings from this auction (calculated at 1,7 M€) would allow the support of moving to a new location. The only obstacle is the absence of an available venue. There is apparently one, but it might be devoted to the building of council houses. Certainly, financial conditions will be balanced in the present conditions, but an increase in the number of visitors would help to see more clearly and to contemplate more expansions.

In 2010 the Richard Avedon Foundation had chosen Christie’s and Paris to settle a similar operation consisting in the selling of double prints, with an enormous success and a sum of over 5.4 M€.

The auction of November 11th should also be successful, as the catalogue contains some unique objects almost impossible to find on the market and that, “vintage” or not, we can be for once reassured on the origins of the prints. They involve the entire career of the photographer, from a store window in Rouen (estimated at 10,000-15,000€) to one of his last works, a portrait of Helmut Newton in the Parc Monceau taken in 2000 (estimated 5,000-7,000€).

Among the unique prints, a copy of Derrière la gare Saint Lazare shot in 1932 and printed in 1946 will be revealed. One (out of two) of the reframed prints by the photographer and printed by himself for an exhibition. The oldest known version and estimated with precision, 120,000 – 180,000 €, should be the summit of the auction. It might even dethrone another photograph, that of the cyclist with a slight blurred motion, taken in Hyères the same year and whose almost contemporary print holds the sales record for a Henri Cartier-Bresson photograph, during an auction at Christie’s in New York in 2008.

The other prints vary according to the period. If the market determines that the oldest copies will be the highest rated, then the most recent prints could see their prices soar in regards to their rarity in the market. These are 24×30cm prints with a black border and printed in the mid 1970s in a 30×40 format. A standard that the photographer has never abandoned, save for some prints for the exhibitions during the last years of his life.

The hundred prints in the catalog cover almost all of his work:
Travels (Ubab, Bali, Indonesia, 1949, estimated around 30,000 – 50,000 €, or Asilah, Spanish Morocco, 1933, estimated 8,000-12,000€).

Portraits of artists and intellectuals (Albert Camus 1944, estimated at 5,000-7,000€ or Henri Matisse’s palette, Vence 1944, estimated at 30,000 – 50,000€).

The following day, November 12th, Christie’s will offer another auction divided in two parts: 53 lots on photographer Irving Penn, belonging to a private collector, and 100 lots from various photographers.

Bernard Perrine
Bernard.Perrine1@orange.fr

Auction
100 photographs from the HCB Foundation
November 11, 6pm.

Christie’s Paris
9 avenue Matignon
75008 Paris
+33 (0)1 40 76 85 94

Exhibition
7-10 November, 10am-6pm

Information
Matthieu Humery
+33 (0)1 40 76 85 92

Links

http://www.christies.com
http://www.henricartierbresson.org

Contributors