"Tis the season" Fun shot yesterday in the Tea Garden gift shop of Christmas ornaments that are glass orbs, each with an origami folded paper crane inside in various colors and patterns. They're quite nicely done, though the lighting is not the best due to reflections from the glass globes.
By Aidin Vaziri, Staff Writer Oct 21, 2024 - San Francisco Chronicle
A Sotheby’s auction showcasing Ansel Adams photographs, gifted to the San Francisco Friends of Photography decades ago, surpassed expectations, bringing in $4.6 million — twice the anticipated estimate — and setting dozens of records.
The “Ansel Adams: A Legacy: Photographs from the Meredith Collection” auction, held Wednesday, Oct. 16, in New York, featured a comprehensive selection of the photographer’s most iconic images that had been estimated to bring in $1,775,000 to $2,801,000, according to the auction house.
But the final tally was $4,567,680, with 41 records established for individual photographs, 15 additional records for 1970s standard-size prints, and 77% of lots exceeding their presale high estimates, said the New York auction house. This landmark event attracted bidders from 17 countries.
Among the most coveted items on the block were “Aspens, Northern New Mexico (Vertical),” which sold for $720,000, more than double its estimate, setting a record for the image. “Surf Sequence” sold for $576,000, vastly surpassing the $300,000 estimate for the series of five images. “Rose and Driftwood, San Francisco, California,” meanwhile, reached $132,000, shattering previous records.
Compiled in the 1960s and 1970s by Adams for the San Francisco Friends of Photography, the Meredith Collection serves as a retrospective of the photographer’s illustrious career, from his early 1920s works to his celebrated masterpieces. When the organization dissolved in 2002, Tom and Lynn Meredith of Austin, Texas, acquired the collection. Originally seeking four prints, the conservation-minded couple decided to preserve the collection’s entirety.
Ansel Adams photo collection shatters auction records at Sotheby’s
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