.jpg?w=1)
Lot Essay
8. Eugene Smith Prints
On the morning of October 16, 1978, I sat in the office of John Schaefer, President of the University of Arizona, discussing the estate of W. Eugene Smith with the University's attorney. Gene had died in the University's hospital the day before. He had appointed me his Executor.
"How much is the estate worth?" the attorney asked. Knowing that Gene had $18 in the bank and thousands of dollars in debts, I replied, "about a million dollars."
Gene had returned from Japan with his wife Aileen in 1975, impoverished and in broken health. On the recommendation of Ansel Adams, a "rescue committee" of his friends had persuaded the University of Arizona to give him a professorship and to house his archives in the University's new Center for Creative Photography.
Except for 2,000 arbitrarily chosen "master prints," which went into his estate to pay debts and taxes and to benefit his heirs. All his negatives and papers and thousands of prints went to CCP.
Unfortunately, Gene fell gravely ill almost immediately after arriving in Tucson and was not able to take up his professorship, or even begin to organize his voluminous files, negatives, prints, or his famous recordings of jazz until several months later. He died the following year.
Until that time, his excellence at printing was scarcely known to collectors, even though Gene, unlike many great photographers who only shot the negative, made his own prints. Each of Gene's prints was a work of art, made in tortuous hours in his darkroom.
In the summer of 1983, I turned to my young photojournalist friend Kit Luce. I thought he might be able to help me out as I knew how much he loved Smith's prints. I offered Kit a deal. He could sort through all the prints remaining in Tucson, searching for the best of the many that Gene had made of each classic image.
The result was a fabulous collection of Smith prints, from which selections are offered here for the first time.
John G. Morris, Paris
We are pleased to present this outstanding group of W. Eugene Smith photographs with exceptional provenance. Many of the best and most popular of Smith's images are represented here in carefully chosen examples of superb print quality and condition. Many are signed or oversized. Some, as you will discover, were deemed by Smith himself to be his best prints. Two-thirds of the pictures here were included in the only retrospective monograph Smith published during his life, W. Eugene Smith: His Photographs and Notes, 1969. These photographs continue to captivate generations of viewers by their universal themes, by Smith's mastery of the medium and by the intensity of his vision. Let's allow him the last word: 'To have his photographs live on in history, past their important but short lifespan in a publication, is the final desire of nearly every photographer-artist who works in journalism. He can reach this plane only by combining a profound penetration into the character of the subject with a perfection of composition and technique -- a consolidation necessary for any photographic masterpiece.' (Album, no. 2, 1970, p. 29)
There must be a realization that photography is the best liar among us, abetted by the belief that photography shows it as it is. My people have always been those people trapped in a corner. They are my passion. This is why two kids walking into the light can be my signature photograph. ... I can come to them with a voice they do not possess.
,W. EUGENE SMITH
On the morning of October 16, 1978, I sat in the office of John Schaefer, President of the University of Arizona, discussing the estate of W. Eugene Smith with the University's attorney. Gene had died in the University's hospital the day before. He had appointed me his Executor.
"How much is the estate worth?" the attorney asked. Knowing that Gene had $18 in the bank and thousands of dollars in debts, I replied, "about a million dollars."
Gene had returned from Japan with his wife Aileen in 1975, impoverished and in broken health. On the recommendation of Ansel Adams, a "rescue committee" of his friends had persuaded the University of Arizona to give him a professorship and to house his archives in the University's new Center for Creative Photography.
Except for 2,000 arbitrarily chosen "master prints," which went into his estate to pay debts and taxes and to benefit his heirs. All his negatives and papers and thousands of prints went to CCP.
Unfortunately, Gene fell gravely ill almost immediately after arriving in Tucson and was not able to take up his professorship, or even begin to organize his voluminous files, negatives, prints, or his famous recordings of jazz until several months later. He died the following year.
Until that time, his excellence at printing was scarcely known to collectors, even though Gene, unlike many great photographers who only shot the negative, made his own prints. Each of Gene's prints was a work of art, made in tortuous hours in his darkroom.
In the summer of 1983, I turned to my young photojournalist friend Kit Luce. I thought he might be able to help me out as I knew how much he loved Smith's prints. I offered Kit a deal. He could sort through all the prints remaining in Tucson, searching for the best of the many that Gene had made of each classic image.
The result was a fabulous collection of Smith prints, from which selections are offered here for the first time.
John G. Morris, Paris
We are pleased to present this outstanding group of W. Eugene Smith photographs with exceptional provenance. Many of the best and most popular of Smith's images are represented here in carefully chosen examples of superb print quality and condition. Many are signed or oversized. Some, as you will discover, were deemed by Smith himself to be his best prints. Two-thirds of the pictures here were included in the only retrospective monograph Smith published during his life, W. Eugene Smith: His Photographs and Notes, 1969. These photographs continue to captivate generations of viewers by their universal themes, by Smith's mastery of the medium and by the intensity of his vision. Let's allow him the last word: 'To have his photographs live on in history, past their important but short lifespan in a publication, is the final desire of nearly every photographer-artist who works in journalism. He can reach this plane only by combining a profound penetration into the character of the subject with a perfection of composition and technique -- a consolidation necessary for any photographic masterpiece.' (Album, no. 2, 1970, p. 29)
There must be a realization that photography is the best liar among us, abetted by the belief that photography shows it as it is. My people have always been those people trapped in a corner. They are my passion. This is why two kids walking into the light can be my signature photograph. ... I can come to them with a voice they do not possess.
,W. EUGENE SMITH