A Short History of Photograph Collecting

This is an excellent article on collecting photography by Penelope Dixon (copyrighted 2001 and used with permission). She has over 30 years experience in the field and since 1981, has headed her own photography appraisal firm, Penelope Dixon & Associates. She resides and works from Miami, Martha's Vinyard and New York, and her website can be viewed at www.peneloped.com.

g of photographs was practically simultaneous with the invention of photography. P & D Colnaghi, a well-established art gallery in London, sold photogr representing both the work of Roger Fenton and Julia Margaret Cameron. People became obsessed with capturing their own likenesses. A popular past-ti ntury was the exchange of carte-de-visites. People collected cartes of their friends and family and put them into albums, much like children exchanging sch like our present fascination with Hollywood personalities, they were also avid collectors of celebrity images. A recent exhibition at the National Portrait G Beautiful and the Damned: The Creation of Identity in Nineteenth Century Photography , [accompanied by a fine catalogue] explores the effects of early p

graphs were another early collectible. The very wealthy would set off on long excursions, the grand tour , and instead of taking their own photographs and complicated equipment precluded this] they would purchase photographs of each place they visited, later putting them into large albums. An English album of the 1860s might include photographs by William Notman of Canada, Charles Clifford of Spain, Carlo Ponti and Fratelli Alinari of Italy and Fel Middle East.

raphs were published in albums in the 19th Century, presumably to be sold to institutions or wealthy private collectors. Examples include Peter Henry Em dscape on the Norfolk Broads or John Thomson s Street Life in London. These early albums were precursors to the photographic portfolios produced tod y photographers. Other parallels between 19th and 20th Century collecting can be seen in government or corporation sponsored photography. The Glasgow Trust hired Thomas Annan to record the Glasgow slums and this work was published in 1874 as Old Closes and Streets of Glasgow. Edouard Baldus wa nts Historiques in France to document the architecture of the country on his 1851 mission heliographique. Many similar projects have been done in this ce th Lewis Hine s work for the National Child Labor Committee.

auctions also had their beginnings in the mid-19th Century. The first auction of photographs took place in London in 1854. The first auction in America w The Marshall Sale, held by Swann Galleries in 1952. The prices from that sale would make you cry.

hotography as art was still being debated, by the early 20th Century photographs had become firmly established as a collectible. Alfred Stieglitz had var ew York from 1905 until his death in 1946. Like many contemporary galleries today, he exhibited photographs alongside the work of modern artists. Alo an Levy s gallery in New York, open between 1931 and 1949, introduced many photographers to the collecting publish, including Weston, Sheeler, Stra us in the 1950s was Helen Gee s Limelight and after a dry period in the 1960s, the early 1970s saw the beginning of the photography market as we kn alleries in New York, London and other major cities, we can now find hundreds worldwide.

ory of the Market

know the story of the rise and fall and rise again of the Ansel Adams market. In some ways it is a good example of the market as a whole. Photographs by elling in 1975 for $400 were selling for between $4,000 and $16,000 by 1979, thanks to the astute marketing of Harry Lunn. By the early 1980s Adams p etween about $2,000 and $10,000. Today, they are back up again, but this time coming close to the $100,000 mark for particularly fine vintage prints of hi Moonrise Over Hernandez. What happened? First, the limitation in 1975 of his prints and subsequent creation of rarity, which coincided with a widesprea phs and investors into the market. Then came a bad economy and supply began to exceed the demand.

nge in the market happened in the early 1990s. Prior to this time, there had been less interest in vintage prints, that is, those prints which were made close pher made his/her original negative. Hence, there were extensive reprintings by Ansel Adams, Andre Kertesz, Henri Cartier-Bresson as these photographe ed on the bandwagon.

on the market have been certain blockbuster museum shows which have contributed to a larger public awareness of the medium as well as providing g and an increase in value for a certain photographer or period of photography. Also, blockbuster auctions, such as the multi-media Man Ray sale at Sothe e mid-1990s where only 1% of the items offered failed to sell, contributed an energy and stability to the market.

es have changed the structure of the contemporary art market and will continue to do so. More people attend auctions than ever before, the houses serving etween buyers and sellers.

hould You Collect Photographs?

otential is an obvious answer but aesthetic considerations are far more important to my mind. You might have to live with a particular photograph for som an sell it, so you had better like it. I used to collect photographs because I loved the images, because of the accessibility of so many pictures on the market reasonable prices. I stopped collecting and have sold most of my collection, not because any of those reasons changed but because I couldn t take good [I live in two humid locations], and any works on paper do need a lot of love and attention. Also, going back to the investment potential, many of my phot lue so it was a good time to sell.

ect: What to Look For

mory of photographs was Edward Steichen s Family of Man exhibition and book. I spent hours as a child pouring over the images. Some 20 years later the bought was an image by Bill Brandt of the girl on Lambeth Walk, parading in her mother s high-heeled shoes. I think I paid about $150 for it and recent not a bad investment, although I certainly didn t buy it with this in mind. So, what should you look for when collecting photographs? There are a number ich are the same ones I use in establishing value in my photographic appraisals. artist particular image dating of the print medium signature or identification condition size edition or known extant prints, i.e. rarity provenance place in the market of the artist and the particular image

ho is he or she, where do they fit into the history of art, the history of photography, what is their place in the present market and how does their work relat r work exhibited regularly, is it critically acclaimed?

do you love it? Can you say, as did the well-known collector Arnold Crane in responding to the question, what do you look for in a photographic work? t looks for me! It hits me first in the gut and then in the eye! How does the subject relate to the particular artist s body of work Adams made landsca traits of important artists and some of these are very good Arnold Newman makes portraits but he has also taken landscape photographs, a few of which in my opinion. Is the artist s identity inherent in the image? How does this particular image relate to the history of art, the history of the medium, is it a m terpiece? Can you predict the future masterpieces in contemporary photography? Why do Edward Weston s Shells range in value from about $15,000 to

he same image?

hen was the print made, is it vintage or contemporary, is it something in-between? Who made the print? Weston s photographs come in four varieties: tr made later by himself, in the 1930s from 1920s negatives, in the 1940s from 1930s negatives; project prints made under his supervision by his son Br Edward developed Parkinson s disease and posthumous prints by his son Cole. Is a vintage print necessarily better than a contemporary print? Both Anse have made beautiful, large contemporary prints from their earlier negatives. Is one better than the other? Is it not a matter of taste, and in some cases, budg

hat kind of print is it, what is the process, is it stable? [Platinum always is, early calotypes can continue to fade]. Is the process what this particular photogr s later platinum prints are probably better than his earlier silver prints, which takes us back to the issue of vintage or contemporary. Printing styles in the s ge, depending on the available papers and the age of the photographer [Bill Brandt s prints became darker after the 1970s, due to deteriorating eyesight o s choice?] What does the photographer himself think of a print? a valid, but not necessarily the ultimate opinion and also, occasionally a dangerous p s are known to have torn up older prints brought to them for authentication.

gain, what is the norm in this particular instance? An unsigned contemporary Adams photograph is a problem, an unsigned Walker Evans is not unusual. once said, Buy a photograph for what s on the front, not the back which is good advice; however, what is on the back or the mount helps us date the p ly a guarantee because photographers are known to have sometimes used older stamps on later prints].

very important consideration, but again, only relevant to what is normal for a particular photographer s work from a particular period. Most contempora with the exception perhaps of the Starn Brothers, are expected to be pristine; photographs by Weegee are expected to be creased or marred [but not in a u y tipped off one dealer to a group of fake prints]. 19th Century prints are often faded, as the richest examples are already in private collections or museum finest example of an image which you can find [and afford].

important when considering what is available, what you like and what you can afford. However, certain smaller editions by photographers, such as Sally M s, will probably never go up in value like her larger, smaller-editoned 20 x 24 prints. Which brings us to the next point

s: The edition or known extant prints, i.e. rarity, is an important factor. For contemporary works this information is often easily available by the edition of 980s, most photographers did not limit their prints from a particular negative there was no need. So when artists such as Ansel Adams, Harry Callahan onded to the rapidly evolving market, they produced a lot of images without numbering their prints, as they already made prints of most of their images an ly numbering these new ones. However, by now the market has absorbed most of these images and they are only found on the secondary markets.

t be aware of how each image is limited, e.g. prior to her new large-format landscapes, Sally Mann used to print each of her images of children in an editio es and again in 8 x 10 inches while reserving the right to produce yet another 25 in 16 x 20 inch format. So you might never know exactly how many print xist without checking with the artist or her dealers. This is also a good example of the market: Mann s 20 x 24 inch prints are the ones which frequently s will be the ones to retain their value. Mann s prints also give us an example of step-pricing: the first five prints sold started at around $1,500, the next five il the final print was sold at around $7,500.

has always been an important factor in the painting and print markets and is fast becoming the same in photography. Besides the possibility of contributin alue because of the reputation of the previous owner, provenance is also important in determining that a photograph is not a forgery.

place in the market of the artist and the particular image has been discussed above, and knowing the sales records for the artist and for the particular imag point to consider before buying a particular photograph.

derations: Eventually, you should decide on the kind of collection you want to pursue should it be an investment grade collection , i.e. well-known ph wn artists, or something more adventurous, such as up and coming artists who can often be found in benefit auctions like those held by Center for Photogra Are you interested in a particular period, or genre of photography; do you want to collect a particular artist in depth? Are you interested in anonymous wo areful of is trends what is fashionable today could be in the trash heap tomorrow. Buy what you like, the worst thing that can happen is that you will enj o come.

ect: Where to Buy

u know what to look for in a photograph, where do you go to fine it?

s tell new collectors to find one or two dealers or galleries which show the kind of work they like and establish a relationship. Don t be afraid to go into

an Francisco, New York or Los Angeles they may look forbidding but they re generally run by nice people who want to sell you something! Most imp hometown dealer. Loyalty to a dealer who has spent time helping you with your collection will pay off with offerings of special prints and good prices.

e the auctions. There is a plethora of photography auctions today from Sotheby s and Christies and Swann in New York City to smaller regional houses a efit auctions in Boston, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Houston, Woodstock, among others, European sales in France, Germany and England. With the exce ons, new collectors should start with the previews, where you can observe the prints close-up, make notes in your catalog, overhear interesting comments b hen go to the auctions to observe how the bidding works, who the players are, how realistic are the estimates. When you have more of a grip on prices and ry well, then you can go and bid, with firm top bids so that you won t be swayed by momentary auction fever.

n to these rules is benefit auctions. Go to as many as you can, buy for fun, and your support of the not-for-profit organization will usually result in your ac ctures at way below their retail values. Almost everything contemporary in my collection is from the annual CPW auction. This year s auction contains w hael Kenna, Joyce Tennyson, William Wegman, Larry Fink, Keith Carter, James Fee, Kenro Izu, Andrea Modica, Ellen Carey and many, many more reno sts.

he dealer s fairs. AIPAD, the largest, is held annually in New York in February. Fotofest is in Houston every other year. Chicago and Los Angeles now h aris and other European cities. These are great places to see lots of work, compare prices, meet dealers from other parts of the country, go to symposiums, s with other collectors.

n Informed Collector

u know what to look for in a print and where to buy it, what else do you need to prepare yourself to become a collector of fine, or fun, photography? Visit the best examples, particularly in 19th Century, of photographic prints. This will give you a point of reference from which to judge. Also, museum shows in the field who often help us see work in new contexts. There is one caveat here: we should be aware that the label of masterpieceaffects our judgm be afraid to criticize of disagree or find our own masterpieces.

publications such as Photography in New York, which lists exhibitions around the country and The Photograph Collector newsletter, which reports on auc market and gives the latest gossip. Subscribe to all the major auction catalogs; even if you don t go to all the sales, you can obtain condition reports and p

ead more. The website www.photoeye.com out of Santa Fe is a great source for all the latest, and older, photography books.

understanding value, that it is not solely inherent in the photograph but rather is a result of many market conditions, that the lowest price for a particular im st buy, that price should reflect quality but does not necessarily do so, that one person s idea of a masterpiece, may not be another s.

RETURN TO CONTENTS PAGE Collecting Antique Photographs

It is often difficult to understand why someone would give away, or sell, their family photographs, and at times, harder yet to understand why someone else would buy old photos of people they never knew. The people who collect nineteenth century photographs are as diverse as the images themselves. One mans junk is another mans treasure is an adage that surfaces in all fields of collectibles, and antique phot ogra phy is not imm une. It is impo rtant to reme mber that old phot ographs are sold both as antiques and art. Rare pictures almost always fits into the latter category, and more common images into the former. Knowing which is which requires some research.

However, many collectors are simply drawn to the subject matter children are especially popular subjects. Others love the connection they experience with people, places and events of the past. Some look at photographs with the eye of an artist, marveling at the effects and quality of the images given the bulky, rudimentary equipment and darkrooms of the past. As in all fields of collecting, some individuals buy with an eye to investing, hoping to cash in on a field that has been gaining in popularity over the last thirty years. In this instance, it is extremely important that the collector understands all they can with regards to technique, equipment, subject matter, and famous photographers. The field is so broad that many serious collectors specialize in one type of photograph. The following is a brief introduction to some of the types of images you can expect to come across: Daguerreotypes: An image named after Louis Daguerre (1789-1851) of France who perfected the technique of producing an image on a silver coated copper plate. You can tell you are seeing a daguerreotype if your own reflection is seen in the mirror like background. Introduced in 1839, these are the earliest photographic images. By 1860, other new photographic techniques had taken its place. These photographs are usually encased in a book -style case made of molded materials or carved wood which protect the image from exposure to air and to tarnishing of the silver surface. Ambrotype: this was a negative image produced on a glass plate, viewed as positive by the addition of black paint that was applied to the back. This type was invented by Frederick Archer of England, and was introduced in 1854. By 1865, it was passe. Tin Types: (also called ferrotype, from the French word for iron: fer). A thin sheet of iron was given an undercoat of black Japan varnish. This allowed the image to be viewed as positive. Tintypes were introduced in 1856, and waned in popularity by 1867. This period identifies the era that tintypes were popular in cased images. In reality, tintypes were seen in many different forms as late as 1930! The

subject matter will often give the viewer a good indication of actual age. The three types above were often displayed in small hinged book- style cases thus are known as cased images. The style, material, and the cut of the mat surrounding the subject all give clues to their age. Some collectors specialize in these types of photographs only. A person may choose to collect only early paper photographs. Cartes de visite translated as visiting cards in French were very popular in their time. Due to the increasing popularity and lower cost of the technology of creating photographs, many people could now afford them. Cartes de visites were the poor mans portrait and they were exchanged freely with friends and relatives . They also account for much of the antique photos available today, and they are extremely affordable. However this is not expected to continue as more and more collectors learn about this fascinating area of collecting. Antique photographs may be collected by photographer. Knowledge of early photographers in general, and in your locality is necessary, and research is in order. Collectors also collect photographic equipment or photo related advertising. Others may collect all accessory forms of photographs such as photos on metal buttons, photo albums and frames. As you can see, the collecting of photographs is anything but limited. A good book for the novice collector is The Collectors Guide to Early Photographs by O. Henry Mace. Thus armed, it is now time for you to seek out photographic treasures of your own. Written by: Johanne Yakula From Times Past 12403 Stony Plain Road Edmonton, AB T5N 3N3

From Ambrotypes to Stereoviews, 150 Years of Photographs

By Maribeth Keane December 12th, 2008 Jack and Beverly Wilgus discuss photograph and camera collecting, from daguerrotypes to contemporary photographs to their very own camera obscura. Based in Baltimore, Maryland, they can be reached through their website, Collection of Collections, which is a member of our Hall of Fame.

1/2 plate Ambrotype We both come from families that had collections and we both had collections as children. Jack lost his when his grandmother threw them out at one point. His grandmother collected china and glass. My parents had collections. When we married, we had both studied photography. In Chicago, we hardly ever saw any photographs. We went to antique shops and we prowled around in flea markets and the malls, but we mostly bought Victorian furniture and decorative things stained glass windows and craftwork and that sort of thing. It wasnt until we came to the East Coast and went to Pennsylvania that we began to see things like daguerreotypes and stereo cards, and we got real interested in them. That was in 68, which was right at the beginning of the surge in photograph collecting. There were some big auctions that year and several catalogs started. We werent pioneers, we didnt get in before the beginning of the modern photography collecting, but we were early in the process. First thing we bought was a daguerreotype in Pennsylvania. We still have it.

Jack: Our collection spans anything dealing with photography, but its primarily from pre -photography through contemporary. Our collection is generalist. We have prints by fine arts photographers today as well as from the past.

Collectors Weekly: Why didnt you find anything until you went to the East Coast?
Jack: We did a lot of looking in Chicago at that time. It just wasnt something that most people were collecting. It just wasnt there. When we came here, because it was a hotbe d of activity historically as far as the development of photography Baltimore and Philadelphia and Washington, D.C. and New York, along that corridor there was a ton of stuff. When we started going to antique shops and flea markets here, especially in Pennsylvania, wed find incredible things. Of course, things have changed. Now you can find it in Chicago all you want, Im sure.

Collectors Weekly: When did people really start collecting photographs?

Beverly: 1967, 68, in that era. We later met and made friends with people whod been collecting since the 30s and 40s. Somebody would get an interest in it and would just collect a lot of things like daguerreotypes or stereo cards, but there wasnt a community. It wasnt something that a lot of people did. Some photographs have historical value and some people collected for that reason Civil War or presidential things, for example but not just general photographic collecting. You dont find much mention of it before the late 60s.

Daguerreotype from Perkins Artist Galleries in Baltimore, MD Neither one of us really studied the history of photography formally before we got here, not as far as taking courses, so we began to look for examples. We would go to the outdoor markets and find things like photographer samplers, rolls of photographs on canvas, carbon photographs on glass and china, that sort of thing. Theyre just really interesting objects that used photography, so we began to collect stereo cards, and now we have something like 10,000 stereo cards of different subjects. We bought them a few at a time over the last 30-something years.

There were some organizations about that sa me time. There was the New York group, and theres one in Rochester thats still going. There was one formed in Baltimore in the 70s. Some of them are still active. There were mail orders. There were several journals put out by the societies. Its not as active anymore because a lot of our contemporaries and people that we knew who were older arent as active now. Theres an organization of people who collect daguerreotypes The Daguerreian Society. Theres one of stereo collectors. There are a couple of people who do sales shows every year. Theres still some community, but not as active as it was in the 70s maybe and 80s.

Collectors Weekly: Why did people start becoming interested in collecting photography all of a sudden?
Beverly: There was a fairly important auction. One of the really early collectors sold these things in auctions, and a daguerreotype camera sold for a several thousand dollars, and that got everybody all excited. In fact, someone at the time said, Thats ridiculous. No camera is worth that much money, and of course now some cameras sell for hundreds of thousands of dollars if theyre really rare or unique. It just was the right time for it. Some people were writing books about it Beaumont Newhall and Helmut Gernsheim. They started quite a bit earlier, writing books about the history of photography, so they certainly had some influence. Wed go to the outdoor markets and find photographer samplers, rolls of photographs on canvas, carbon photographs on glass and china. Jack: I think people got involved for different reasons. A lot of them were photographers involved with photography either professionally or as amateurs, and some people are more into the equipment. Collecting is like being a detective. When you deal with original material, whether it be images or objects, your perspective on it really changes. You see things and you understand things very subtly that most people never do because they only read about it or looked at pictures. We primarily collect images, although we do have some equipment. We have things that are related, like stereo and detective cameras. The Kodak was one of the first really major detective cameras in 1888. Beverly: They just called it that because it didnt look like an ordinary camera on a tripod would look. In other words, you could sneak around with one and it wouldnt be so obvious that you were taking pictures. Theres a whole thing about the cultural aspects of photography, how photography changed and how people related to it, thats another interest of ours. Jack: Ive been teaching the history of photography for a long time and I use our collection. Ive been using it for years, so when we talk about various areas, people can actually see what things look like and how they were. Beverly: Its hard to describe a daguerreotype. If youve seen pictures, you really dont know what its like. You need to see one; turn it in your hand and see the mirror surface to see how it changes when things reflect in it. Its really a wonderful, intimate kind of thing to hold one.

Collectors Weekly: The different categories on your site, like costume and point of view did you come up with those?
Beverly: Yes. We just started collecting photographs that interested us and you begin to see relationships. In a few cases, we collected an area, but it didnt start out to be that. For example, two years ago we bought the spirit photographs by Mumler, who is one of the most important spirit photographers, but then we began to find more and eventually we ended up with a collection. So some of our photos were collected to be part of a subcategory and some of them we just found that we had enough to be a subcategory.

Jack: We have images of photographers. We have a large collection of pictures that deal with people taking pictures. Beverly: And some things we said we werent going to collect, like Civil War. There were a lot of Civil War collectors even back when we started. Photographs of men in uniforms were already pretty pricey when we began to collect. We said, Well, were not going to collect those, but then we did find a few and we looked into some fairly good-sized collections of images and we ended up with more Civil War images than we expected to have. Sometimes it just happens. Jack: Thats what I meant about learning things. The Civil War pictures really gave me a feeling for what the Civil War was like in a way that I never had before. You study it at school, but seeing those images and looking at things more intensely, its made it more real. Beverly: Now with the Internet, the way you can research things is even better. You can find a photograph and say, Thats interesting. I wonder what thats about. You look for the clues and you research it a nd you find out who the person was and what they were doing, and it really is interesting to trace down relationships and historical information. Thats one of my favorite things to do now, not so much to acquire more photographs but to learn more about them once we have them. We have a very large collection, and it could keep you really busy for a long time.

Collectors Weekly: How many photographs do you have in your collection?

Beverly: Many thousands. We have about 200 daguerreotypes, and I think probably not quite that many ambrotypes, and about 10,000 stereo cards. With the prints, definitely thousands because we have cartesde-visites, photographic postcards, etc. We have a large collection of postcards of photographers. Some are photographs and some are drawings, prints, comic animals with cameras, children with cameras. Then we also have a collection of real photo postcards, which are photographs made on postcard stock, and theyre not al l necessarily of photographers. Some of them are just nice photographs, exaggerations like photomontages of people with large animals and large fruits and vegetables. There are photographic prints cutout photographs that are collaged and then re-photographed. Theyre real photographs, but theyre not real. Theyre very much like this thing you do with Photoshop now where you can put things together, cut them together and retouch them so they look like theyre something theyre not. Some people collect by subject. Some people collect by process. Some people collect everything. For example, we have a friend who has a large collection of tintypes, which are generally considered pretty ordinary, inexpensive photographs, but he has some absolutely extraordinary images. We have some extraordinary images with tintypes too photographers and wonderful painted backgrounds. We have salted paper prints, daguerreotypes, ambrotypes, tintypes, hand-colored photographs.

Cabinet card by Lies of Pittsburgh, PA Jack: Collotype negatives, paper negatives, platinum prints, carbro prints, stuff like that.. Because I teach, I have collected things that illustrate the different areas. Also, Ive done many lectures on the history of color photography, which is an area that I specialize in, and we also collect things like autochromes. Beverly: There are all kinds of collectors. There are people who are very specific and there are people who are very general. There are people who just have an accumulation rather than a collection. We know people who only collect cameras and they arent interested in photographs at all. They come into our house and say, Show me your cameras, and they wont even look at photographs. Then there are people who are the opposite. Weve been very lucky that we have studied with and known some of t he great photographers. For example, Aaron Siskind, who both of us studied with. We have seven of his prints, and Im sure we never would have bought seven of his prints or have been given seven of his prints if we hadnt actually studied with him. I think we were lucky we started early, too, because we would never have afforded todays prices back when we started collecting. Jack: Theres been a tremendous change in the value. Some things have not gone up cameras have stayed pretty much the same but the images themselves have escalated.

Beverly: Well, the high-end stuff has. I would say that the more ordinary photographs have not gone up very much. Jack: No, not the ordinary ones. But snapshots and vernacular photography at one point werent valued very much. I think its the quality of the image and whats going on in the photograph that establishes the value there, and I think being able to recognize that is an important part of collecting. Know what youre looking at. Understand the history. Understand the process.

Collectors Weekly: What is the value based on?

Beverly: Definitely the first thing is who made it. Jack: If you can find it, but thats not always important either. There was a big show for the anniversary of photography and they purposely included a lot of pictures that were anonymous. That was a good thing in a way. Its nice to know who made a photograph and when it was made and all those kinds of things, but you should be able to recognize a really exciting image and something thats really important without necessarily knowing. Beverly: I agree, but I would say that you wont pay a hundred thousand dollars for an anonymous photograph, but you would for something by one of the major photographers. There are different tiers of value.

Collectors Weekly: Are there some photographers in particular who are really sought after?

Hand tinted real photo postcard Beverly: People come in and out of fashion and get discovered and rediscovered, and then someone will have a big show for someone. Almost anything by Edward Weston, for example, is going to have some value, but the vintage prints and condition will determine it. There are always young photographers coming up, and I think the thing thats the most different today is the way a young photographer who gets picked by the galleries can suddenly be worth an awful lot of money with very little time. That didnt happen to people like Weston and Wynn Bullock. They didnt make a lot o f money when they were young photographers working. You could buy their prints for $25 or $50 or $100. Now theres something more corporate about some of the contemporary photographic selling that doesnt appeal to me as much, maybe because we dont have that much money to spend. Id rather go out and find the things or even have a gallery owner bring them to me. Jack: In the fine art world, a lot of the major artists working today are working with the medium of photography so you see some wonderful contemporary work being done, and its very expensive. Its a lot different than it used to be.

Beverly: There are also people who buy art and photographs for investment. They buy them and they never even take possession of them. They stay in the gallery safe until theyre ready to sell them. Thats the kind of thing that doesnt appeal to me at all, thinking about photographs and seeing stocks and bonds and investment. Jack: If we buy something, we really care about it. If we do purchase a print, we cant do that casually. We have to love it and want to live with it. Its nice to know if it would go up in value thats great but most of the images we have, we live with and we enjoy it and its something thats part of everyday experience. Actually we put a room in our house just for photographs because we didnt have enough wall space and proper lighting and everything. We put up a lot of things so we can see them every day. Not that we dont have things in boxes, too, but I think its nice to be able to enjoy what you collect. Thats the best reason to buy. Beverly: They can be just like little sculptures. You can have a nice display of cameras, and I think that thats a really good way to start. Just buy things you like and put them together. Some of my favorite things arent the most expensive or the most valuable things we have. Theyre just things I like to enjoy.

The Collectors Weekly: When you get a photograph, how do you go about researching it?
Beverly: I put things on the Internet. I enjoy that. I put a lot of stuff up on Flickr. If theres a photographers name on it, I Google him. I just follow clues. In fact, I have a couple of things on the Internet where I describe how I went about identifying them. Theres a certain amount of our collection on our camera obscura site, and I have one page on a stereoview of a camera obscura in a park that was unidentified; no name on it, no identification. It took me years to run down where it was and I finally discovered it.

Stereo card self portrait by G.S. Irish photographer, in Glens Falls, N.Y. I looked at all kinds of park architecture and I found one that was very similar. I began to look for maps of that park and finally was able to buy a sketch that had an aerial drawing of this park, and I was able to exactly pinpoint where the camera obscura was in relation to the other building. So it took me, what, 10 or 15 years to run that out. Once you make the discovery, its like Eureka! Its really a great feeling.

I used to go to the library and spend hours looking through books. I still occasionally go to the library because everything isnt on the internet, but its just so wonderful to have all the resources. And Google Books now, its just wonderful the old 19th-century books are on Google Books and Google has a site with all the patents now, which is great. If youve got a camera that has a patent number on it, you can plug that in and get drawings and descriptions and information. It has scans of the old drawings and the patents. Its fantastic.

Collectors Weekly: Do you collect Kodak items?

Beverly: Just those that appeal to us. We have everything from the Kodak #1 all the way up to some contemporary metal signs. On our site, theres a life-size Kodak racecar driver standup cardboard, a Kodak flag and all kinds of Kodak banners. When we started with Kodak film, Kodak was just synonymous with photography. The yellow and red color combination, which is striking, just became something connected with photography. Again, were small -time Kodak collectors. We know someone who has a house full of Kodak things. He has pretty close to every Kodak camera available and incredible advertising and memorabilia, all kinds of stuff. Theres always somebody with more than you have, which is fine.

Collectors Weekly: Do you collect other types of photographica?

Beverly: Yes. We have a section on optical toys on our site. We have zoetropes, praxinoscopes, thaumatropes and zograscopes. The zoetrope and praxinoscope will either use mirrors or slits and youll have a little set of drawings. Its like strip animation. Its the same the way cartoons are made today. Its just pre-movie movies. We dont have a big collection of magic lanterns. Again we know people who have hundreds of them, but we have I guess five or six. The magic lanterns have been around since the Renaissance, really, but ours are mostly early 20th century.

Collectors Weekly: Do you use any the things that you collect?
Beverly: We have used some of the cameras. We did an exhibition where we made stereo cards with one of the old view cameras. Weve used the toys for demonstrations because weve done l ectures on optical toys, and Jack takes one of them when he talks about the origins of motion picture, about Muybridge and movements. A lot of our cameras use an obsolete film size, although you probably could make most of them work. There are people who actually spool odd sizes of old film, and then you can do things like cut paper or sheet film. One of our projects has always been to use some of the cameras, and maybe well do it after my husband retires.

Collectors Weekly: Since photography is such a broad area, are there a lot of different age groups that collect it?

Trick Photography booklet by Walter F. Eagleson, 1902 Jack: I have students who became collectors after they studied the history of photography, and theyve found some pretty good things. Beverly: In all of the groups we belong to, theyre always bemoaning the fact that there arent more young collectors, and were hoping that some of them will start. Young people are getting interested in maybe not the top end of the line, but I know on Flickr, I correspond with some people who seem fairly young. They do interesting images, not necessarily the really expensive stuff. eBay has done a lot to change the face of all kinds of collecting, including photography. The high-end stuff still goes really high on eBay, but you can gather an awful lot of interesting things that are not necessarily really expensive. One young woman that I correspond with buys lots of photographs, and shes very thorough going through and picking out photos that are going to have some interesting things in them. Shes gotten some remarkable photographs just by buying a lot of 15, 20, 30 photographs for not a lot of money and then finding in it some real gems. Thats one way to get started flea markets or antique shops or retail shops.

The hunt becomes almost more important than finding things sometimes. It gets you out and around and its entertaining. We go to a lot of antique shows now and buy nothing. Ev ery so often we find a real gem, but usually we look at a lot of stuff and get some exercise.

Collectors Weekly: Where do you collect from?

Beverly: Initially it was photographic shows. Theres one in New York and theres still one in Washington, D.C. There were quite a few mail-order catalogs at one time. Then, of course, with the Internet and eBay, we began to find things there, and we bought an awful lot of things on eBay over the years, more in the old days than we do now. Its getting to be less. All of the clubs used to have shows. There arent so many photo collecting clubs anymore, as I said. We used to have a show here in Baltimore. We actually sold in them for a while. Its more the Internet now and there are still a few shows, but were not buying as much because weve got so much. What we like to do now is get our collection in order and do the research. Were working on a book on the camera obscura, researching that.

Collectors Weekly: What is the Magic Mirror of Life?

Eugen Sandow, 19th Century prototype strongman, real photo postcard

Beverly: The term itself is from a sign. If you look at the site, youll see a picture of a camera obscura at the Fairmount Park in Philadelphia and the sign on the side said The Magic Mirror of Life. It was just the idea; youre seeing real life on the table inside the camera obscura, and its magic, so thats what we call our tent that we built. Jack: It took me a couple of years to do it, but its on the website. Its a portable tent camera obscura which you can set up on location. You can have about 10 people inside of it. The first time we showed it, it was at the George Eastman House for our photo history conference. We were doing the main speech lecture on the history of the camera obscura, so it seemed appro priate. So thats where it debuted. It was interesting. Visiting them over the years and collecting them, and I made smaller ones, but actually taking on building a room-size one, Ive learned a lot, a lot of engineering. I got more than I expected. It was challenging, it was fun, and it was two years of my life. Beverly: If you look at the first page on the Magic Mirror of Life site, youll see a section that has pictures of it where weve set it up at conferences. We just did it at the Magic Lantern Society in Washington, D.C. during the summer. There are some pictures showing it being put up. In the middle of that page, it shows the sign from the Philadelphia Park from the Fairmount Park camera obscura and then there was one we made to go with it. Youll see several pages that show it, even a little animation on the one at the Merrill Institute that shows it being put up.

Collectors Weekly: Do people ever try to sell fake photographs?

Beverly: Yes. Its really hard to fake some things, and easy to fake others. There are a lot of people doing collodion now, which is what you use for ambrotypes and tintypes and modern daguerreotypes. Some of them use modern subjects. Some mark their work; some dont. Every so often, I see something and Im a little suspicious, just because you have a feeling for it. You can dress people in old costumes, but they just dont look the same. This is not to say that we couldnt be fooled, but you develop a feeling for it. You pick something up and it just doesnt feel right. There have definitely been some fairly major scandals. People reprinted famous negatives and sold them to friends. Jack: Photos do age. There are different kinds of materials. When I was a graduate student in the mid 60s, the photographic printing papers that were available were quite different than what people use today for black and white printing. The older prints have a lot more silver in them. Its just a totally different quality, so a vintage print will easily stand out if you compare it to something that was done more recently. Even if they were using the original negative, you could tell the difference.

Collectors Weekly: What are some good resources for people to look at?
Beverly: For cameras, theres a sort of a bible. Jack: Its by McKeown. Weve got every edition of it so far. Its a big, fat book, and they keep changing all the time. A camera collector would enjoy looking at that because you can actually look up all the cameras that youre collecting. Theyll give you all kinds of information about the designer, and not just prices. Theres also a little history. Its fun.

Collectors Weekly: What kind of advice would you have for someone who is new to photography collecting?
Beverly: I would say look at a lot of things. Find out what appeals to you. Jack: And learn something about the history of photography.

Beverly: If you can specialize, youre probably better off, but if you love everything, then just start buying what you like and maybe you can narrow it down or specialize. As Jack said, read about the history of photography. Look at what you can. Jack: A lot of it is knowing what youre looking at. It also makes it more interesting, and you do learn new things from collecting. Its like being in touch with the past. (All images in this article courtesy Jack and Beverly Wilgus of Collection of Collections)

19th-Century Photographs, from Daguerreotypes to Cartes de Visites

By Dave Margulius November 26th, 2008 Wes Cowan talks about collecting 19th Century photographs, including daguerreotypes, CDVs and stereoviews. Cowan, who appears as an appraiser on Antiques Roadshow and is a regular cast member on the PBS show History Detectives, is founder and owner of Cowans Auctions, Inc. in Cincinnati. Ive always been interested in antiques. As a kid, I collected a variety of stuff fossils, rocks, minerals, natural history stuff, Indian artifacts and antiques. I grew up in Louisville, Kentucky, and my mother had a lot of Victorian antiques. We lived in an old Victorian neighborhood, one of Louisvilles old traditional neighborhoods. In the 1910s and 20s it had been very vibrant, but started to go downhill after World War II when people moved to the suburbs. It was a natural place for antique dealers because the rent was cheap, so there was a high concentration of them.

Half-Plate Daguerreotype of 49ers Mining Scene

By the time I got into high school, my interest in antiques was waning. I became interested in archaeology. When I was in graduate school at the University of Michigan writing my doctoral dissertation, I started going back to antique shops, probably as an excuse not to wri te my dissertation. I didnt really have any money, but I became fascinated with early photography and I could buy photographs reasonably because the antique dealers in the early 1970s didnt really know what the stuff was. I could always walk into an antique shop, spend literally a few dollars, and buy 19th- and early 20thcentury photographs. I was drawn to them because of the visual impact, but also because they told a story about a person or some historical event that might not have been a big historical event but was certainly peripheral to some event in American history. It wasnt long before I met other people in the southeast who were photograph collectors and found that these people would actually pay me for the photographs I was buying from antique dealers, or trade. By the time my dissertation was completed, I was well on my way to being a collector and part-time dealer of 19th-century photography. My collecting interest gradually evolved into stereoviews (also known as stereographs). I was very interested in 3D card photographs and collected those very heavily for a number of years, but I dont really collect them anymore. I still have a pretty fine collection of them, small but very nice. I became disillusioned with collecting photography, because, as most collecting categories do, it went through a cycle. First is the rediscovery by some group of people. Then theres a run -up in prices, a Gold Rush mentality, and then the market matures. I became very disenchanted with the idea that what started off for me as a pleasing hobby evolved into money, money, money. There was too much competition, and I just felt like I didnt want to participate in it. But also, as I became exposed to different kinds of antiques, I found lots of other kinds of things that I really liked. When you collect stereoview cards, they sit in a drawer and you can take them out and look at them, but its not like having a nice piece of furniture or a painting or a piece of folk art that you can walk by and touch and have it be a part of your life. So thats what Im collecting now. Im very interested in Midwestern decorative arts and folk art and paintings, things that were done primarily before 1840.

Collectors Weekly: How did you know which photographs to buy, when you first started collecting?
Cowan: I didnt. It was whatever I thought was interesting and appealing. Like all collectors, I went through a period of just buying all kinds of stuff. Then as your interest and knowledge matures, you look back at your early purchases and say, what was I thinking? My interest in what I was buying evolved as I became better educated. Theres a huge world of 19th century photographs, and Id never presume to dic tate to a collector what their individual taxonomy should be. Ive always taken a historical taxonomy to what photographs were available during what particular period of time. Then the social context and historical context of that particular process, and then what the photographs represent within those particular periods. If youre interested in the earliest history of American photography, for example, then youre going to collect daguerreotypes [see image at top], because thats the first commercially viable photograph that was produced in the United States. The daguerreotype is a copper plate that is covered with a thin layer of polished silver. The image, which generally comes in a little leather case, looks like a mirror when you hold it one way, and if you tilt it another way, you can see the image itself. A lot of people at the time called the daguerreotype the mirror with a memory.

Wild Bill Hickok CDV, by Gurney & Son Daguerreotypes were introduced in the United States in 1839 and were the dominant form of photograph taken until the mid-1850s. Their success exploded in the early 1840s. People tend to think that the daguerreotype is a fairly rare type of photograph, but its n ot. The initial daguerreotypes were very expensive and not very many were taken because not many people knew how to do it. But by the mid 1840s prices had been dropped to the point where the average person could have their picture taken, and there were literally hundreds of thousands of daguerreotypes, if not millions, taken in America. And theyre still around. The most common daguerreotype is a studio portrait somebody went to a photographers studio and had their picture taken. So if you collect daguerreotype portraits, you have a lot of options. Do you want to collect daguerreotypes of children with their toys or pets? Daguerreotypes of whole families? Daguerreotypes of female sitters, male sitters, men wearing hats, men smoking cigars? Theres a huge range of avenues to pursue. But if you want to collect daguerreotypes that were taken outdoors and show scenes of buildings or streets, theyre far fewer by a factor of probably a hundred or more. In the mid-1850s, the daguerreotype was replaced by another photographic process called the ambrotype process. The ambrotype process is basically a photograph on glass to negative made positive by putting a

black backing on it. Then the tintype started to become popular in the late 1850s. The Civil War gave a kick in the pants to American photography in a huge way, because every Civil War soldier wanted to have his picture taken. I would guess the average Civil War soldier had his picture taken three or four times during the course of his service. Many Civil War photographs credited to Mathew Brady were taken by people who worked for him. Paper photography was being experimented with on both sides of the Atlantic, but the French were initially more successful than American photographers were with it. By 1859, a new style of photograph had been developed in France was introduced in the United States. That was the carte de visite, or the CDV as youd say. It was based upon a calling card that had been in common usage in the mid-19th century something youd drop in somebodys bowl when you came to visit them that had your name and how to contact you. The photographic carte de visite has its roots in that calling card. Paper photography was introduced to the United States in a big way in the late 1850s, just in time for the Civil War. Photographers were very clever in that they found a way to develop a camera that would take multiple exposures at one time. A Civil War soldier might go into a photographic studio in 1860 and have a dozen photographs made for a couple dollars. These dozen photographs might be taken with a camera that had six or eight lenses, so theyre taking an identical six or eight photographs at the same time. Ther e were literally millions of carte de visite photographs taken between 1860 and probably 1875, including hundreds of thousands taken of Civil War soldiers.

Collectors Weekly: Is the survival rate of paper photographs better than the other types?
Cowan: I dont know, but there were more paper photographs taken because it was a cheap way to make a picture. Condition can be a big issue if the photographer was sloppy. Many photographs that were taken in the 1860s are still around and look just like they looked in the 1860s. But if the photographer didnt take care to wash or to fix his prints, then they deteriorate. In general, its not the process, how they were taken care of by the photographer. People think a sepia toned photograph is an old photograph, but sepia toning is a product of a photographer not using good chemicals and not fixing the prints to keep them from fading. New troves of 19th Century photographs are being discovered every day; important discoveries. There are plenty of photographs still out there. Im not sure that the supply will ever be depleted. There are important things still to be found.

Collectors Weekly: How significant are big-name photographers to 19th-century photograph collectors?

Fine Cabinet Photograph of Calamity Jane Cowan: Big names are often associated with some of the most iconic images of the 19th century. There were many great 19th-century photographers. Mathew Brady was the entrepreneur in the Civil War, but many photographs that are credited to him were taken by people that worked for him. A lot of those guys went on to very important careers. Alexander Gardner and Timothy OSullivan, for example, worked for Brady. They didnt like working for him because he took all the credit and didnt give them any. George Barnard was another great Civil War photographer who began his career in western New York and went on to make a name for himself. He was a photographer for the Army, and then after the war published a monumental book about the Civil War, an iconic photographic book. A.J. Russell was another great Civil War-era photographer who was actually employed by the U.S. military railroad to take photographs. Hes a guy people dont know very much about, but he made unbelievably great photographs. After the war, lots of these guys went on to have careers in the American West. OSullivan moved west and accompanied several government expeditions. Gardner was hired to work for some of the railroad companies that were building the Transcontinental Railroad. They were looking for routes, so they hired

Gardner to go out and take pictures of the scenes along the way. Russell went along the northern route of the Transcontinental Railroad and took photographs, primarily stereoviews. He marketed those stereoviews to make a living, but he also took larger format pictures and some important early photographs.

Collectors Weekly: Why were stereoviews so popular?

Cowan: They were a great form of parlor entertainment. There was no television, no radio, and newspapers didnt have any photographs, so this was a way for people to look at the world. Youd pass a stereoview around, and you were immediately thrust into the scene. Stereoviews started being made in the late 1850s, but their heyday was in the 1870s, when any medium size town had a photographer taking them. They were sold locally; if there was a stationery store in the town, you could go down there and buy stereoviews that were being marketed by other photographers from other parts of the country. Starting in the late 1880s, a number of companies decided that they were going to mass market stereoviews and opened offices regionally in various parts of the United States. They had salesmen going out and trying to sell them to homes and schools. They would basically put together a set of stereoviews of China or Greece or Germany or some foreign country and put them in a box. There were half a dozen companies by the mid-1890s doing this. The Keystone View Company of Meadville, Pennsylvania ultimately bought out all their competitors. Keystones motto was a stereoscope in every home, and they had regional offices all over the United States that marketed very aggressively to schools and libraries. The sets they sold often came in a box that looked like a book, so youd open the box and thered be 50 or 100 stereoviews inside you could look at. Keystone sold stereoscopic libraries to schools which would have a tour of the world, for example. They came in 100-card, 200-card, 300-card, 600-card and 1,200-card sets that would take you literally on a tour of the world through the stereoscope. By the 1920s, that market started to fade. Newspapers started to have more photographs. There was radio. People were getting news in different ways. The Keystone View Company finally closed its doors in the mid-1960s, and all their negatives now are at the California Museum of Photography in Riverside.

Collectors Weekly: Have you noticed any recent trends in collecting 19th-century photographs?

Important Long-Lost Quarter Plate Daguerreotype of John Brown, the Abolitionist, by the African American Daguerreotype Artist, August Washington Cowan: eBay has been a great leveler of the marketplace for 19th-century photography as well as American antiques in general. Thats not true at the top of the market, but certainly for the vast majority of collectible 19th-century and early 20th-century photography, eBay has depressed the market, just like its depressed the market for R. S. Prussia and Fiesta ware and carnival glass. You name it, if it was produced in a factory, the value of this stuff has gone down. Some images that are incredibly rare and important have still held value, but if you were a person who was collecting Keystone View Company stereographs in the 1970s and paying $10 or $15 for a Spanish American war stereoview, today that stereoview is worth $3 or $4 because there were so many produced. So its been great for collectors. If youre a daguerreotype collector, you want to collect large daguerreotypes of unusual subject matter. We sold a daguerreotype of John Brown last year, one of six known to exist, for $96,000. A few years ago, we sold a daguerreotype taken during the vigilance period in San Francisco in 1852 that sold for $129,000. If youre a daguerreotype collector, those are the ones youre looking for, not a mundane portrait thats a snapshot of somebody in the 1850s. Scarcity and condition are the driving factors. I wish I could tell you I know of a lot of photograph collectors in their 20s and 30s, but I dont. I think this is a reflection of the antiques business in general, not just photography. Most people that are collecting seriously are in their 40s and up. Thats when you hit your stride in terms of disposable income.

Collectors Weekly: Is the market for 19th century photographs primarily American collectors, or is there a global interest?
Cowan: Primarily. There are European collectors that would collect an iconic 19th-century American image, but primarily its an American market, and not necessarily people that are just interested in

photography. Somebody may be interested in the history of the American West, and they recognize a great photograph of Dodge City, Kansas in 1870 that will go well with their Kansas collection. There are many people collecting the story behind the image and the history behind the image, too.

Collectors Weekly: What about markings or signatures on photographs is that a major issue?

Scarce CDV of Lincoln's Dog Fido Cowan: It can be very frustrating at first if you see a great image, and want to know where it is, but theres no indication. A lot of 19th-century photographs were mounted on card stock or a board that the photographer imprinted his logo or address on. But there are many, many anonymous images that you find and say, gosh, I wish I knew where that was or who this is or what this scene is. There are some people who have cataloged photographers imprints, and theyre great sources. If youre a daguerreotype collector and you find a signed daguerreotype, you definitely must go to www.daguerreotype.com, the online database of a guy named John Craig from Connecticut. John has been a photographic dealer for 40 or 50 years. He published two massive volumes on daguerreotypes, and then once the Internet came around, he put them online at his own expense. Its absolutely free. Theres no advertising on there. Hes received awards from the Daguerreian Society.

Carl Mautz, a book publisher who lives in Nevada, publishes Western photo history books. He published a book called Biographies of Western Photographers, and its mainly 19th-century photographers. Its a wonderful reference; I use it all the time. Its a 600 -page labor of love. If youre a stereoview collector, theres one great book you want to have in your library: The World of Stereographs by William C. Darrah. Its out of print, but easy to find, and it gives you a great history of stereo photography. There are great overviews of the history of American photography. One is by Robert Taft, Photography and the American Scene. It was published in the 1940s, but its a classic book on the history of American photography and I recommend it for anybody. Photography and the American Scene: A Social History, 1839 to 1889, is also a great book. William Henry Jackson was a great photographer who began his career in the east and ended up in Colorado. He was one of the first photographers to publish photographs of the Yellowstone Country. His photographs were distributed to Congress and directly led to the creation of Yellowstone National Park.

Collectors Weekly: It seems like a lot of these photographs are ripe to put on the Web. Is anybody doing that?
Cowan: I dont think anybody is yet. It doesnt mean it wont be done. We are going to open our photographic archive up beginning in 2009. We probably have 15,000 or 20,000 photographs on our website right now that people can look at from our prior auction catalogs. Arguably, weve probably sold more 19th-century photographs than any other auction house in the country, outside of eBay, in the last 13 years.

Collectors Weekly: Any other advice for people thinking about collecting 19th-century photography?
Cowan: The same advice that I give to everybody, and its the same for any kind of antiques: collect what you like. Learn everything you can possibly learn. Buy the very best that you can possibly afford and be a collector, not an accumulator. With photography in particular, you can collect a photograph for the historical value of it, and collecting it for historical value, you might not care as much about its artistic merits. If youre collecting for artistic merits, you need to learn to be a connoisseur, but if youre collecting for historic merit, who cares? (All images in this article courtesy Cowans Auctions, Inc.)

Daile Kaplan of Swann Auction Galleries on Collecting 20th Century Photographs

By Maribeth Keane, Collectors Weekly Staff January 14th, 2009 Daile Kaplan talks about collecting 19th and 20th century photographs and photobooks. Daile is Vice President and Director of Photographs at Swann Auction Galleries in New York. She appears regularly as a photograph appraiser on the Antiques Roadshow, and is also featured in a series of short videos on fine photographs for Swann Galleries. Daile can be contacted at dkaplan@swanngalleries.com or via her website, www.popphotographica.com, which features items from her personal collection of pop photographica.

William Eggleston William Egglestons Guide. First edition. New York: The Museum of Modern Art, (1976) Swann, which is New York Citys oldest specialty auction house, was founded in the late 1940s as an antiquarian book house. In the mid-1970s, as popular interest in photography became more widespread, the specialist at that time realized that Swann should have sales that featured documentary and fine art photography as well as albums and photobooks. Until that time, auctions dedicated to photography and photo literature were unheard of. Therefore, Swann is considered a pioneer of the photographic literature market. Today, books illustrated with photographs are garnering a lot of attention. In the past few years, there have been a number of excellent coffee table books about the genre by Martin Parr, Gerry Badger, and Andrew Roth. In addition, there are some very serious celebrity photobook collectors who have brought attention to the field. An underappreciated area of collecting for many years, its now firmly on the map. In addition to photographic literature, Swann focuses on vintage and modern 19th- and 20th-century photographic prints. As artists transition to new digital technologies and examples of those prints appear in galleries, they are offered at auction. However, we are not yet selling many digital prints. We specialize in what are referred to as wet darkroom prints. Even though photography is incredibly popular today, in the 19th century and even into the 1960s it was ridiculed as an art form. Needless to say, this didnt stop artists from exploring photography as a form of self-expression. In the 1950s, important photographers like Robert Frank and William Klein were very

focused on working with the book as a creative art form. After all, there were no commercial galleries or museums with regular photography programs, so were looking at a field where creative figures interested in making photographs were using the book or album to promote their work. Photobooks are a great way for someone whos interested in photography to begin collecting. Books are more affordable than vintage or modern prints, and theyre often designed with artistic integrity, making them very beautiful objects. If a photographer is successful and has a strong gallery representation, a trade monograph, which is published in thousands of copies, can sell out very quickly. Books may also be produced in a deluxe edition (that is, issued with an original signed photograph). Such examples tend to be more expensive and the edition size is smaller, say 50 to 75 copies. At Swann, we conduct four sales a year, and two of those feature photographic books.

Collectors Weekly: Are there certain photobooks and artists that collectors look for?
Kaplan: Photobooks by master photographers are always very desirable, including Robert Frank, Lee Friedlander, Man Ray, and Walker Evans, for example. All the masters of 20th-century photography are associated with particular monographs and books, and those books are considered works of art in their own right. Photographers like William Klein and Robert Frank were very actively engaged in not only making the pictures for their books but sequencing the pictures and designing the final object.

Robert Frank The Americans. Introduction by Jack Kerouac. Illustrated with reproductions of Franks stunning photographs. First American edition. New York: Grove Press, Inc., (1959) Swanns catalogues, which are accessible on our website just before each auction, offer an international roster of photographers. For example, Japanese photographers in the 1960s and 1970s Hosoe, Moriyama, and Ishimoto, who were influenced by Robert Frank recognized the importance of the photobook and made remarkable contributions to the form.

Interestingly, the market for photobooks is distinct from that of fine art photographs. There are many photography collectors who are looking to purchase beautiful photographic prints to hang on their wall but who may not have any interest in illustrated books. Regardless of the area of interest, there are always different levels of collectors. A collector first starting generally buys what they like. Theyre usually not yet familiar with the literature in the field and they acquire whats familiar to them, what they may have seen in a gallery or a museum. As they become more sophisticated, their tastes become more discerning. Maybe they start buying older material, such as salted paper prints, daguerrotypes or ambrotypes, or maybe they move from painting to photography. Today, the collector community is global and, for the most part, fairly sophisticated. The Internet has changed the auction business completely. Today, instead of attending the auctions, many of our buyers are bidding via the Internet. They contact us for condition reports to obtain information about lots in a sale.

Collectors Weekly: Do you notice any trends among the collectors of 20th-century photography?
Kaplan: Today the marketplace reflects a representation of more diverse styles and idioms. An artist like Paul Graham, a British photographer who is noted for his pioneering color documentary-style photography in the early 80s, is accepted as a fine art photographer. A noted fashion photographer like Richard Avedon, whose pictures regularly appeared in glamour magazines, sees his work is offered in fine art galleries and at auction. Categories that used to segregate the different areas of photography fashion, art, documentary, press photography, scientific documentation, social record are falling away. Were seeing less and less separation between what were once thought of as commercial photography, documentary photography, photojournalism, and fine art photography. Today theyre all considered equally important, and we sell works that would fall into any of those categories. If wed look at our October 2008 sale, for example, one of the top lots in that sale was an album of Brazilian photographs from the 1880s. Our sale also featured an Edward Weston photograph from the 1920s that sold for about $45,000 and a Danny Lyon civil rights portfolio that sold for $30,000.

Collectors Weekly: Who were some of the major photographers who dealt with social issues and civil rights?

Kaplan: Ive written two books about Lewis Hine, a pioneer of social documentary photography in the early 20th century who photographed child labor, immigrants, and the First World War. Photographers associated with the Farm Security Administration (FSA) in the 1930s Ben Shahn, Dorothea Lange, Walker Evans are other major talents. They worked for the federal government, photographing conditions during the Depression so that all Americans could be aware of the devastation in the heartland. In the 1960s, Danny Lyon, James Kerales, Charles Moore, Bob Adelman, and Ernest Withers were active in the Civil Rights movement. In terms of other 20th Century subjects, you have photographers like W. Eugene Smith, who went to Haiti to photograph asylum patients and traveled to Japan to photograph environmental conditions in Minamata. Collectors are interested in celebrity photographs, male nudes, female nudes, architecture, and the Western landscape. Photographers like Ansel Adams, who was an early environmentalist, really made people aware of the fragility and beauty of Americas parks.

Collectors Weekly: How do 20th-century photographs differ from 19th-century photographs?

Kaplan: Technique. Most 19th-century photographers worked with cumbersome large-format cameras that utilized glass negatives and produced albumen, or salted paper prints, which have a very distinctive patina to them. The first photographs are daguerreotypes, which are unique or one-of-a-kind photographs and are often referred to as hand or cased images. Other examples of cased images are ambrotypes and tintypes. I collect pop photographica, which are three-dimensional decorative and functional objects highlighted with photographs. 20th-century photographs were for the most part monochromatic, utilizing the gelatin silver, or black and white, print. In the 1960s and 70s, a new generation of photographers, including William Eggleston, Joel Sternfeld, and Stephen Shore, began to explore color as a medium for their photographs. Works by Paul Outerbridge, Jr., a major fashion and glamour photographer in the 1930s, have also been widely collected. He employed the color carbro technique, a very stable color format.

In terms of appearance, those are very obvious clues, and in terms of content, I dont think anyone could mistake a 20th-century street photograph for a 19th-century street photograph. I think most people start with 20th-century because they start with whats familiar to them.

Collectors Weekly: Where do you typically acquire photographs from?

Bill Brandt (1904-1983) Pablo Picasso. Silver print 1957; printed 1960s-1970s Kaplan: Swann doesnt acquire photographs or photobooks but acts an as an agent for consignors who may be private or institutional clients. We select and catalog the works, estimate the property, and promote each of the auctions. Today the provenance of history of ownership as well as the condition of the photograph are extremely important. Collectors are very discerning about how the photograph has been handled over time. On the other hand, photographs by Weegee, the great New York photojournalist, were used in newspapers and magazines and frequently manhandled by editors and engravers. In the 1930s and 40s, there was no awareness of the economic value or importance of these prints. Therefore, when a Weegee print comes to market, if its torn or creased, that may not be perceived as a condition issue. However, there are very few photographers for which that would apply. Normally, condition is paramount.

Collectors Weekly: What about signatures or markings on the photographs?

Kaplan: As a collector, you need to do your homework. Talk with auction house specialists, gallerists, and curators about what to look for with regard to a photographers body of work. Som e photographers never signed their photographs, but we know the sorts of paper as well as the style and format of their pictures. For example, its very uncommon to see a signed Alfred Stieglitz photograph, but Edward Weston almost always signed his pictures. Andr Kertesz would sign the back of his pictures, not the front, and he would note the negative date, not the date that the photographic print was actually made. So there are a lot of considerations, and it can be complex. Obviously, if a photographer was known to have signed his or her prints, you want to find those examples. Since there wasnt an international marketplace for photography until the 1970s, vintage prints were gifted by artists to friends and family members. In the 1970s, market conditions dictated that photographers be less casual.

Collectors Weekly: Can you talk more about 20th century photo processes?

Kaplan: The most popular is what was called the gelatin silver print, your black and white photograph. This was a very stable process, believed to last at least 100 years, that doesnt have the fragility associated with some of the color techniques. If a gelatin silver print is well maintained that is, not displayed by a window where artificial light is going to damage it or in an att ic or bathroom where theres too much moisture or changes in temperature it will have a good, long lifespan. Paul Outerbridge is probably the most famous photographer from the 1930s who worked in color, and then of course in the 1960s and 70s you see photographers like Richard Avedon and Irving Penn exploring color as an idiom. Of course, family members enjoyed taking snapshots (vernacular photographs) of their daily lives. Artists Stephen Shore, William Eggleston, and Joel Sternfeld photographed modern American life in transition. By the 1980s and 90s, you begin to see photographers from the German school, like Andreas Gursky and Thomas Ruff, using color. Its certainly expanded.

Collectors Weekly: Do collectors tend to display the images in their collections?

Kaplan: Sure. The important point is to frame your photographs archivally. Work with a professional framer who will use the appropriate materials. Its best to use Plexiglass and make sure the f rame is taped on the back to ensure that no dirt or pollutants migrate into the picture frame. Nielsen Bainbridge is a company that has developed state-of-the-art mounts, mattes, and wooden frames.

Collectors Weekly: Do you collect photographs personally?

Kaplan: I collect what I call pop photographica, an area Ive pioneered consisting of three -dimensional decorative and functional objects highlighted with photographs. Its material that relates to popular culture, folk art, African American art, and decorative arts. It casts a very wide net. I just fell in love with these wonderful objects a long time ago. Ive curated shows about it and have been collecting for about 20 years. I have a very large collection over a thousand objects and I have an educational website devoted to this material.

Example of Pop Photographica: Presidential clock from the mid-1960s Many of the works are on display in my studio, and I have collector groups, college students, and graduate students come to see this material, which represents a different history of photography. Instead of emphasizing the framed photograph on the wall, pop photographica focuses on freestanding threedimensional objects that you live with a tintype photograph on a chair or a family portrait on your bracelet or earrings. It demonstrates how photography converges with popular culture. Its been interesting to see how many contemporary photographers are working in this mode, making scarves, furniture, and decorative objects from an artisanal perspective. Theyre using their own pictures and working with craftspeople to make elegant jewelry and beautiful apparel highlighted with photographic images. Artists like Robert Mapplethorpe, Cindy Sherman, Vik Muniz, and Damien Hirst have all made multiples featuring photographic images.

Collectors Weekly: Youve done some appraisals on Antiques Roadshow, as well.

Kaplan: Yes. My colleagues in the poster and works on papers departments and I appear on Antiques Roadshow. Im the photograph specialist. Like many individuals in the field, my background is as a photographer. I became a curator and wrote about photography, and I have published two books about Lewis W. Hine the first with Abbeville Press and the second with the Smithsonian. My third book, entitled Premiere Nudes, Albert Arthur Allen, was published by Twin Palms. My most recent book is about pop photographica and was published by the Art Gallery of Ontario.

Collectors Weekly: When someone brings you a photograph to appraise, whats the first thing you look at?

Kaplan: I look at the condition of a photograph to see how well its been cared for, then content, signature, and paper stock. What is the image like? Is it in the right format? Is it the right paper stock for the period? Photography was invented in 1839 and took the Western world by storm, but due to technological and cultural constraints, it didnt appear in Asia and Africa until the 1860s to 1880s. We appraise photos from around the world America, Europe, and Asia. Swann sells albums of Egyptian and North African photographs, but theyre largely from the 1870s through the 1890s. Theres a sophisticated market for hand-tinted Japanese photographs from the 1880s and 1890s. Pictures of Australia and New Zealand are also desirable, as well as those from subcontinental India. Russian and Chinese material is very rare. Daguerreotypes are a very specialized area of collecting in which buyers are looking for occupational images, portraits of notable figures, or outdoor scenes. With regard to 20th-century images, interest in a particular photograph may be based on the beauty of the photographic prints in addition to its history: Was the photograph published in a book? Did it appear in a museum show? Was it previously in a prominent collection?

Collectors Weekly: What advice would you have for somebody who is new to collecting photographs?
Kaplan: Its important to see as many exhibitions as you possibly can. Go to museu ms and galleries. Find an original photograph and then look at it in magazines and books. Educate your eye to the nuances of photography. Be sensitive to what youre drawn to emotionally, that way you can begin to understand what you like. If you like flowers, buy pictures of flowers. Its always a good idea to start collecting as an experiment in learning. Its very important to educate yourself. Very few collectors today are focused on a particular theme, though there are collectors who love nudes or the American landscape or fashion. Usually, people tend to be more diverse in subject matter. While there is a private collector with an impressive collection of Edward Westons vintage prints, he also collects other imagery. Lately, there are serious collectors of photojournalism. These collectors usually focus on the iconic hardhitting images, such as Nick Uts heart-wrenching image of the child running from a Napalm attack in the Vietnam War, or Robert Jacksons photograph of Jack Ruby assassinating Lee Har vey Oswald.

Collectors Weekly: Tell us about some popular landscapes.

Kaplan: Moonrise Over Hernandez by Ansel Adams is one of the most popular photographs that we see at auction. This print is available in different formats or sizes that were printed during different periods in Adams career. In fact, a census indicates Adams made almost 2,000 copies of this photograph. However, whenever the image appears at auction, theres competiti ve bidding on the lot. With regard to buyers of 19th century American landscape photographs, William Henry Jackson photographed Yellowstone and Carleton Watkins photographed Yosemite. We have collectors that just really love this material. There have been numerous records for important 19th-century photographs at auction. The French photographer Gustav Le Gray, who created gorgeous marine landscapes in the south of France, have sold for more than $700,000. Photographs by Carleton Watkins have realized $500,000. Daguerrotypes have

sold for $975,000. Most collectors dont start by buying 19th -century photography, but ultimately they do recognize the beauty of it.

Collectors Weekly: Where do you see photography collecting going in the future with the introduction of digital images?
Kaplan: I think with the digital age there will be more of an appreciation of analog techniques and an understanding of the creative imagination and effort involved in making a photograph. After all, it wasnt a point-and-shoot kind of thing. Until the digital age, photography was a hands-on medium. Working in the dark room is different from working on your computer. Today, just about any contemporary artist is using digital technologies to make prints, but there arent any galleries that specialize in digital work. Commercial galleries sell both traditional and digital work. (All images in this article courtesy Daile Kaplan and Swann Auction Galleries)

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