W. Eugene Smith - The Eye That Shapes: Further Selections from the Peter C. Bunnell Collection New York Wednesday, January 25, 2023 | Phillips

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  • The remarkable selection of photographs offered in this online auction comes from the collection of Peter C. Bunnell (1937-2021), the pioneering curator, teacher, and photographic historian. All lots are sold with No Reserve and the proceeds will be distributed to six institutions with whom Bunnell was associated — Rochester Institute of Technology, Ohio University, Yale University, The George Eastman Museum, The Museum of Modern Art, and Princeton University Art Museum — to establish endowments to support the study of photographic history. 

     

    Bunnell began his long career in photography as a student of Minor White’s at the Rochester Institute of Technology in the 1950s and was recruited by White to work on the seminal periodical of artistic photography, Aperture. He joined the staff of The Museum of Modern Art in 1966 as a collection cataloguer, becoming Associate Curator and then Curator of Photography. At MoMA he curated the noteworthy exhibitions Photography as Printmaking (1968), Photography into Sculpture (1970), and the first retrospective of the work of Clarence H. White (1971). In 1972, he was hired as the inaugural David Hunter McAlpin Professor of the History of Photography and Modern Art at Princeton University.  

     

    Bunnell served as Director of the Princeton University Art Museum from 1973 to 1978, and as Acting Director from 1998 to 2000, while also being the Museum’s Curator of Photography throughout the entirety of his tenure. Bunnell built a broad-ranging collection of photographs at the Museum, the firsthand examination of which became a central element of the student experience in his classes and seminars. Bunnell also assembled a personal collection of photography over the course of his long career that reflects his vast and deep understanding of the medium. Begun in the 1950s, before photography galleries and dealers were commonplace, Bunnell’s collection is a deeply personal one, put together with a sense of joy and curiosity that includes both icons and lesser-known gems spanning the history of photography. 

    • Provenance

      Collection of Peter C. Bunnell, Princeton, New Jersey

    • Literature

      Smith, W. Eugene Smith: Master of the Photographic Essay, p. 169
      Mora, Gilles, W. Eugene Smith: Photographs 1934-1975, p. 221
      Carnegie Museum of Art, Dream Street: W. Eugene Smith's Pittsburgh Project, p. 133

The Eye That Shapes: Further Selections from the Peter C. Bunnell Collection

14

Lot offered with No Reserve

Man Walking in the Street, Southside, Pittsburgh

1955
Gelatin silver print.
13 x 4 7/8 in. (33 x 12.4 cm)
'134 Old Post Road North, Croton-on-Hudson, N. Y., Croton 1-4890' credit, copyright and 'Personal Exhibition Print Returnable on Demand' stamps on the reverse.

Full Cataloguing

Estimate
$3,000 - 5,000 

Sold for $4,032

Contact Specialist

Christopher Mahoney

Senior International Specialist

cmahoney@phillips.com

 

Vanessa Hallett

Worldwide Head of Photographs and Deputy Chairwoman

vhallett@phillips.com

The Eye That Shapes: Further Selections from the Peter C. Bunnell Collection

Online Auction 25 January - 1 February 2023