SPOTLIGHT: A PRIVATE LONDON COLLECTION

SPOTLIGHT: A Private London Collection turns our attention to icons of fashion, film, and art that have inscribed themselves on wider contemporary culture. Focusing on modern masters from Irving Penn to Richard Avedon and Patrick Demarchelier, this collection illustrates the strength of the medium to produce images of power and expression extending beyond their initial appearance in magazines and advertisements. Each photograph offers an intimate view of its subject that transcends documentation to deliver an encounter that only photography can deliver.

A FOCUSED LIFE

A Focused Life brings together a selection of works curated by Peter Fetterman of Peter Fetterman Gallery in Santa Monica, California. Highlights include Sally Mann's The New Mothers and Sebastião Salgado's Other Americas portfolio, alongside remarkable works by Ansel Adams, Ormond Gigli, Elliott Erwitt, and more. The works on offer represent the vibrancy of photography that animated Fetterman’s gallery program and collector’s spirit. “When I look at many of these images,” he notes, “there are the memories of the time I first discovered a special image and the profound effect it had on me: overcome by a compulsion to find a way to acquire it regardless of whether or not I had enough money to do so.” Reflecting his commitment to the medium, the photographs span generations, geographies, and styles, united by a shared belief in the form’s capacity to reveal the beauty, humanity, and the poetry of everyday life.

“I have always just believed that collecting is a journey of self-discovery; these images reflect different stages of joy or sadness in my own life. I feel so fortunate to have been a temporary custodian of these images and now is the time to let them fly away and bestow their power on their future guardians.”

—Peter Fetterman

PROPERTY FROM THE COLLECTION OF ANDREW SZEGEDY-MASZAK AND ELIZABETH BOBRICK

Both esteemed professors with distinguished careers in addition to being longtime devotees of photography, Andrew Szegedy-Maszak and Elizabeth Bobrick have created a collection that is extraordinary for its visual and expressive breadth. In the poetry of Eugène Atget and the streetwise brilliance of Robert Frank, we witness the great urban documentary of the 20th century; in Josef Koudelka’s trenchant Roma photography and Richard Misrach’s ecological imagery, natural environments converge with human interventions.

Andy began collecting in the 1970s, and his interest in photography dovetailed with his academic concentration in Classical Studies. He was the first guest scholar in photographs at The Getty after the museum acquired its founding collection in the 1980s. Elizabeth was recruited into Andy’s collecting world early in their relationship, creating a remarkable dual curation that reflects their shared vision. In 1996, The Davison Art Center at Wesleyan University mounted Looking In, an exhibition from their holdings. In the catalogue, Elizabeth wrote perceptively: “Learning about photos with Andy gave me a new way of seeing, and of thinking about seeing. I now think about photography in the way I think about writing: as a process of presentation, framing what you see so that others may see what they will — but through your frame, and as if the frame had always been there.”

ULTIMATE

Whether it’s the first or last in a series, a one-off work, or an auction debut, each photograph in our ULTIMATE collection is on offer exclusively at Phillips. This latest iteration features an impressive variety across subjects, styles, and makers: Cindy Sherman’s freewheeling character portraiture casts a foil to Ilona Langbroek’s solemn quietude. Ellen von Unwerth returns with a second series of glamorous Polaroids, following her dedicated ULTIMATE collection in 2024. Her celebrity subjects cavort alongside Maria Svarbova’s synchronized swimmers and Sangbin Im’s Met Museum multitudes. Scenes of daily life, ritual, and the flow between ordinary and fantastic experiences make up a collection that expands the ULTIMATE catalogue to new heights, Eiji Ohashi’s view of Mt. Yotei included.

PROPERTY FROM AN IMPORTANT MIDDLE EASTERN COLLECTION

Property from an Important Middle Eastern Collection showcases works of vision and technical skill. While best known for collecting exceptional watches, the consignor also assembled a carefully curated group of photographs that reflects the same appreciation for craftsmanship, rarity, provenance, and lasting cultural significance. Here we see how Irving Penn captures timeless beauty in Black and White Fashion (with Handbag) (Jean Patchet), New York. William Klein arrests a plume of smoke lingering tranquilly about the lips of a model, while Ansel Adams freezes the eruptive display of Old Faithful as it uncorks skyward. This verticality continues with Newton’s classic image of Elsa Peretti against the backdrop of New York’s skyscrapers and comes back down to earth in the naturalistic works of Edward Burtynsky and Hiroshi Sugimoto. Together these works illustrate how diverse images can converse with each other and inspire a new understanding of photography’s creative breadth.