12th Oct, 2019 16:00

OstLicht Photo Auction Autumn 2019

 
  Lot 80
 

ELLIOTT ERWITT (* 1928)
California, USA 1955

Sold for €5,000


Lot details

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