Written by: Ilaria Scarinci

Diane Arbus Auction Cancelled Due To Extreme Circumstances

Monday 21 April 2008

Article translated by Amritee Mahabir

Last April 8th, an exceptional auction dedicated entirely to Diane Arbus was meant to have been held. Twenty lots by the famous photographer should have been showcased by Phillips De Pury in New York, during the spring fair dedicated to photography. The belief is that just hours before the start of the auction, news arrived that the collection would be sold privately, and so the auction was cancelled. But let’s retrace the facts in the right order.
On 14th January last month, Phillips had announced the extraordinary sale of Diane Arbus’ vintage photograph collection that the artist made for the Hubert Museum. This almost mythical underworld in those days was dedicated to the so-called “freak show”, scenes in which strangeness and deformities became the attraction: a bearded woman, sword eaters, oriental dancers, and fire eaters were on display every evening. The Hubert Museum was born in the twenties on Times Square, New York. It was a famous meeting spot, a place of attraction where styles remained fashionable. However, during the fourties and fifties it began to show signs of an unstoppable decline until it was closed completely in 1965. Arbus approached the Hubert Museum towards the end of the ‘50s, a turning point in her artistic career. In fact she had recently abandoned her printing job to dedicate her skills to high level art publications. Her work was published by Harper’s Bazaar and Glamour.
She was shocked and at the same time fascinated by such a particular world, and little by little managed to convince her subjects to lend themselves to her photographs. Arbus took different shots for the Hubert Museum, held in high esteem by the same artist that dedicated the script: “Hubert’s Obituary: Or This Was Where We Came In” to her work in 1966. Some of her photos are unique and all are extremely intense.
Phillips de Pury had announced this sale with all the necessary hue and cry of such an interesting event, despite having to then stop the auction on the same morning of April 9th. And the reason for this? A private sale. Simon De Pury and Brooke Hazelton (finance director) had declared that the collection would be sold privately. Art fans from public institutes were exultant maintaining that a museum was definitely nominated to halt the purchase of the collection. Some were led to believe otherwise assuming that the mystery buyer could be the New York Metropolitan Museum who already holds works by the artist, but nothing certain has been revealed to this effect. Suspicions on the grounds of such an explanation have yet to be proved, and there are no clues as to the identity of the buyer. Again according to the directors of Phillips De Pury, the effective sale of the collection would be stopped due to a pending third party facing the sellers. These are the most malicious (or cunning) theories ventured of another kind altogether.
There is little certainty of a sale but it is pretty steadfast. For example, without a doubt it is clear (published in the same Phillips catalogue) that a minimum sales price had been assured to the seller. On the other hand, the auction house managed to break into the international scene precisely thanks to this system; could we have doubted that they would adopt it in this case? The miscommunication of the estimated value of lots seems to be just as certain. The true estimates would be around 1.7 – 2.4 million dollars (a value that was also referred to by the sellers guaranteed offer) while a great deal of media talked about hundreds of millions of dollars. The most plausible explanation according to these insinuations would therefore be that of avoiding a fatal error. The auction house had decided to stop the sale just because they didn’t want to sell the complete lots at an inferior price to their actual worth. For now both theories are no more than simple deductions. Whether a public institution will really sell the entire collection or the collection will be bought at an auction in the future we can only know in time. For now, it remains a huge mystery just as the huge disappointment of those who had for one split second dreamt of being able to buy one of those marvellous photos at a sales price.

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