MoMA Sells 400+ Photographs at Christie's Auction

Christie's will auction over 400 photographs from the Museum of Modern Art's Photography Department starting October 2017. The sale, titled "Photographs from The Museum of Modern Art," includes works by Alfred Stieglitz, Edward Steichen, Man Ray, Edward Weston, Henri Cartier-Bresson, and Walker Evans. Estimates range from $1,000 to $300,000. The first live auction is on October 10 at Christie's New York, followed by online sales organized by genre, technique, and theme, including "Pictorialism into Modernism" and "Women in Photography," as well as monographic auctions. Proceeds will fund the MoMA Photography Department's acquisition fund, expected to exceed $3.5 million. A preview tour will visit New York, San Francisco, and Los Angeles starting September. This marks Christie's first collaboration with MoMA's photography division, though they have worked with other museum departments. Darius Himes, Christie's International Head of Photography, noted MoMA established the first photography department in the U.S. in 1940. The auction follows the Denver Art Museum's controversial sale of a Roman statue via Sotheby's.