Written By: Jill Golden
This November, the LIFE Picture Collection—in collaboration with Cornette de Saint-Cyr Auction House, Bring It To Light Agency, and Philippe Labro—will host an exhibition and live online auction of nearly two hundred unique photographs. This will mark the first auction of modern LIFE prints in Europe.
LIFE Auction Paris
This sale of 191 photographs is a unique selection of works by some sixty LIFE photographers from 1930 to the end of the twentieth century, including Margaret Bourke-White, Alfred Eisenstaedt, Andreas Feininger, and Gjon Mili. Each photograph will be a limited edition of one with a special embossed stamp. The black and white prints are all made exclusively using the archival piezography process and printed on Hahnemühle paper.
The French author and filmmaker Philippe Labro, co-sponsor of the event, shared his thoughts on the importance of LIFE in the exhibition catalogue. We were “all ardently determined to reproduce our lives à la LIFE,” he writes. “Was there ever a better title for a publication: four letters in white on a red background, a logo, a brand, an asset, a heritage? I remember when I was a foreign student on an American campus in the mid-fifties; every week we would wait with impatient anticipation for the new issue of LIFE…Reality was interpreted and depicted by true artists who probed contemporary times and were shrewd observers of current events and the famous: photojournalists belong to a truly noble corporation.”
“This outstanding selection, curated by Agnès Vergez amongst several thousands of
shots, are a perfect illustration of what LIFE was, not just a news magazine. Indeed
it was a breeding ground for the greatest photojournalists of the second half of
the twentieth century,” notes Jean-Luc Monterosso, founder of the Maison Européenne de la Photographie.
A catalogue featuring all photographs is now available online, as is registration for the auction. Selected images from the show are available in the gallery below.
Marilyn Monroe
A 24-year-old Marilyn Monroe, wearing a bikini top, relaxes with a script in Griffith Park in Los Angeles, California, 1950. (Ed Clark/LIFE Picture Collection)
Dust Bowl
Abandoned car and farm in Dust Bowl, 1942 (Alfred Eisenstaedt/LIFE Picture Collection)
Albert Camus
French author Albert Camus smoking cigarette outside Theatre des Mathurins where rehearsals of his play “Caligula” are taking place, 1957. (Loomis Dean/LIFE Picture Collection)
Surfer
Surfer racing into water with board in relay race at International Surf Festival, 1965. (Ralph Crane/LIFE Picture Collection)
Post-War Europe
American soldier chatting with a sunbathing German girl in postwar Berlin, 1945. (Margaret Bourke-White/LIFE Picture Collection)
