AA's "Holy Grail" Sells for $6.4 Million

[tgtaylor]

A link at the end of the article takes you to the images.

https://www.sfgate.com/local/article...n-15803453.php

[Michael R]

Pretty cool.

The article says this guy started collecting Adams in 2006, so he would have already paid a pretty penny for the collection.

I wonder what the Phyllis Donohue collection would go for? And she got them for free!

[David Schaller]

It was interesting to see what happened with individual prints.


http://https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/auction/2020/a-grand-vision-the-david-h-arrington-collection-of-ansel-adams-masterworks?cmp=email_lotrecocore_b_N10542_saletitle_08-Dec-20&utm_campaign=Core_Client_Lot_Reco_2020&utm_content=email_lotrecocore_b&utm_medium=email&utm_source=zaius&zm64_id=amVmZnJ1emljaEBnbWFpbC5jb20%3D

[Peter Collins]

We bought a print of the "Holy Grail" in about 1975/6 for $4K. Sold in 1989 for $14K to build a house. Sold because I came home from work every day and walked right past it.

[ic-racer]

West Texas oilman David Arrington has an extensive collection of Ansel Adams prints in his downtown Midland office,

No matter what one collects, there is likely someone with a better collection. I have him beat. I have a more extensive collection of my own work. Almost all of it is NFS or priceless too.

[Alan9940]

I remember standing in Harry Lunn's gallery in Washington D.C. in the mid-70's holding a 16x20 copy of Moonrise for IIRC $1,600! I told my then new bride, "We should buy this." Yeah, right! No way could I afford to buy anything for that kind of money back then. Probably doesn't really matter because I never would have sold it.

Just think...I believe Mr. Lunn had his first AA show in 1971 and sold a lot of 16x20 prints for $150 each. If only I had bought a few...

[Drew Wiley]

Ho hum. Here we go again. At least some less common images showed up; but all the high prices went to the predicatable commodity images which are ironically the most abundant, or were printed in the highest volumes in anticipation of greater sales. What would someone like me do with any of these, as if I could afford them? - probably just go to yet another pile in a cabinet somewhere. It would be fun to have a comparison print of the Lyell Fork from exactly the same spot I stumbled onto a few years ago - totally different weather and mood. Don't think I'd like his version any better than mine, though I think it's a great image in its own darker mood way, one of his best. It didn't auction in the higher figures.

31 flavors of Baskin Robbins ice cream, and the people in line always seem to ask for the same flavor as the person in front of them. Being cynical, I'd say it's because they can't think for themselves; they want a "collectible', an "investment. That concept can work either for you or against you. When I was hanging around his neighborhood, Moonrise was selling for 16K. Then as the nearing of his death became publicly known, all of a sudden one sold for and astounding 45K at auction. Well, he printed something like 350 of them, so hearing news of that kind of high selling price, a bunch of them suddenly showed up, and nobody got anything more than the previous 16K, minus auction fees or a substantial gallery cut, of course.

Timing is everything. But the same folks would probably be long dead by now if they had waited for the six figure era to sell. What the heck; I remember when a gallon of gasoline sold for 19 cents. Should I have hoarded it? From a supply and demand basis, the scarce hot commodity right now is once again toilet paper. I hope those AA prints aren't being bought for that purpose simply because they might currently be cheaper than what comes in rolls.

[Paul Ron]

the only prints i could afford were in a calender. i mounted several of my favorites, which werent in that catalog of auctioned prints. i guess my wallet has limited taste.

[Willie]

Interesting - but the Photographer or his Estate does not make a dime from the sales. Not in the USA. I understand in some Countries there is a way to get some of these sale prices back to the artist?

[Tin Can]

Really old art gets stolen for ransom

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/18/a...gtype=Homepage