Sold for €5,000
Estimate: € 5.500–7.000
Gelatin silver print, printed in the 1990s
29,8 x 44,5 cm
Signed by the photographer in ink in the margin, signed, titled and dated by the photographer in pencil on the reverse
LITERATURE Elliott Erwitt, Snaps, London 2011, p. 502; William Manchester (ed.), Elliott Erwitt, Personal Best, New York 2006, p. 434; Elliott Erwitt, Fotografien 1946-1988, Lausanne 1988, p. 77.
Elliott Erwitt’s iconic photograph California, 1955 like almost no other image it captures a moment of pure happiness with a composition that evokes an accidental discovery. It speaks to Erwitt’s talent at being in the right place at the right time. »Sometimes you know you have a good shot, but usually you don’t,« Erwitt later recalls. »I never knew that I had that picture until 25 years after I took it.«, when he discovered it on a negative contact strip.
Start price: €2.800