Hiroshi Sugimoto - Photographs New York Tuesday, April 4, 2023 | Phillips

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  • “I think a good dealer is also a collector.”
    —Rosa Esman

    Lots 283 through 303 in the present auction come from the collection of Rosa and Aaron Esman. The Esmans assembled an outstanding collection of Modern, Post-War, and Contemporary art and photography over the course of their seventy-year marriage. The collection’s highlights mirror that of Rosa’s career as a gallerist and art book publisher (which Aaron, a psychoanalyst, strongly supported), with interests in Modernism, Dada, Russian Constructivism, and American Pop Art taking center stage. Rosa got her start publishing artists’ books of prints in the 1960s, including the New York Ten Portfolio, 1965, and Ten for Leo Castelli, 1967, which featured works by rising contemporary artists such as Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, and Robert Rauschenberg, and helped pioneer the field of artist’s editions and multiples. Her eponymous gallery exhibited in Manhattan for over twenty years, and she was a founding partner of Ubu Gallery, which is still in operation today.

     

    When asked about her wide artistic tastes in 2009, Rosa emphasized her love of drawing, ‘the quintessential bit of the art,’ which can be seen across her and Aaron’s collection, regardless of genre. The importance of her and Aaron’s relationship to Rosa’s development as a consummate supporter of the arts, too, was paramount. The pair bonded over gallery visits when dating in the late 1940s, and bought their first artwork, a drawing by Miró, together; these early experiences with Aaron, more than anything else, established Rosa’s love for art. In her gallery days, Aaron’s passion for art helped decide which works stayed with the couple, too. Rosa recalled: ‘sometimes we look at something, and I say, “Oh, isn’t that marvelous?”’ and Aaron would respond, ‘It’s for us.’ Founded on lifelong love, the Collection of Rosa and Aaron Esman gives a unique vision of the art movements of the 20th century that shaped New York’s art scene.

     

    Rosa and Aaron Esman, Madrid, 1963

     

    • Provenance

      Sonnabend Gallery, New York, 2000

    • Artist Biography

      Hiroshi Sugimoto

      Japanese • 1948

      Hiroshi Sugimoto's work examines the concepts of time, space and the metaphysics of human existence through breathtakingly perfect images of theaters, mathematical forms, wax figures and seascapes. His 8 x 10 inch, large-format camera and long exposures give an almost eerie serenity to his images, treating the photograph as an ethereal time capsule and challenging its associations of the 'instant.' 

      In his famed Seascapes, Sugimoto sublimely captures the nature of water and air, sharpening and blurring the elements together into a seamless, formless entity.  This reflection of the human condition and its relationship with time follows through his exploration of historical topics and timeless beauty as he uniquely replicates the world around us.

      View More Works

Property from the Collection of Rosa and Aaron Esman

296

Hi-Way 39 Drive-in Orange

1993
Gelatin silver print, printed later.
16 7/8 x 21 3/8 in. (42.9 x 54.3 cm)
Signed in pencil on the mount; blindstamp title, date, and number 6/25 in the margin.

Full Cataloguing

Estimate
$12,000 - 18,000 

Sold for $17,780

Contact Specialist

Sarah Krueger
Head of Department, Photographs
skrueger@phillips.com


Vanessa Hallett
Worldwide Head of Photographs and Chairwoman, Americas
vhallett@phillips.com

Photographs

New York Auction 4 April 2023