The Photo Boom

Collecting great art has always been a rich man's hobby, the province of the Medicis, the Morgans and the Mellons. For others, the only time the price is right, or at least affordable, is that fleeting moment between discovery and celebrity. The early part of the century, when a now famous Picasso etching could be had for $20, was one such time. The late '50s, when a Rauschenberg painting cost less than $1,000, was another. For photography that golden moment was, almost literally, just yesterday.

Consider the market history of the late Paul Strand's work. Fifteen years ago, his platinum prints sold for $125. In 1972 they were still a bargain at $1,500. Today a good Strand can go up to $12,000.

Similar stories of steep appreciation can be told about the work of almost every other major 20th century photographer: Alfred Stieglitz, Edward Steichen, Edward Weston, Walker Evans, W. Eugene Smith, Diane Arbus and Imogen Cunningham, among the dead; Harry Callahan, Frederick Sommer, Paul Caponigro, and Fashion Photographers Richard Avedon and Irving Penn, among the living. The great pictures of the 19th century are more expensive still. Last May two albums containing 100 early California and Oregon scenes by Carleton E. Watkins were sold for $198,000. "A print is amusing at $100," quips one art dealer. "At $1,000 it's art."

Many people, of course, have known that from the minute Louis Jacques Mande Daguerre found a way to fix images on silver-coated plates in 1839. "Photography was art from the moment the first shutter clicked," insists Graham Nash, 37, a San Francisco musician (formerly of Crosby, Stills and Nash), who owns one of the largest private collections on the West Coast. But only in the past decade has the general public placed photography alongside the other major arts. The first commercially successful New York City gallery devoted solely to photographs was opened in 1969 by Lee Witkin, who is credited with helping start the boom. Only in the past two or three years have collectors been willing to lay out the large sums they have traditionally devoted to paintings, drawings or lithographs.

"When I started selling photos in 1976, I'd first have to prove to my customers that photography was an art," says San Francisco Dealer Stephen Wirtz. "Then I'd have to convince them it was an art worth spending money on. Now they say, 'Oh, dear. This is obviously art. Why didn't I do something about it earlier?' " Five years ago there were perhaps a dozen galleries in the U.S. selling photography; now there are at least 125.

One of the major reasons photo collecting has flowered only recently was the realization that a photograph, unlike a painting or a drawing, can be reproduced forever, as long as the negative exists. Ansel Adams has stopped printing Moonrise, Hernandez, New Mexico, for example; but in theory 10,000 more could be printed tomorrow, thereby flooding the market. Today's collectors no longer find that possibility a real drawback. To allay such fears, many photographers put their negatives into archives or museums when a print run is finished. All art photographers, like Adams, now sign their prints, and a few number them as artists do with lithographs. Yet the possibility of someone's going back into the darkroom with the negative does always exist, and collectors must resign themselves to that knowledge.

Still, sophisticated buyers can distinguish between a vintage print, usually made by the photographer himself within a few years after the photo was taken, and one made either much later or by someone else. Edward Weston's Shell (1927), printed by the photographer in his own darkroom, was sold this year for $9,500. A print made from the same negative by his son Cole, 60, goes for only $300--even though Cole's prints are considered better in quality than his father's. "But Cole's don't have that mystique, that quality of soul that you get from something by the original artist," explains Witkin. "You hold it in your hand, and it is your tie with the artist."

One of the chief reasons behind the explosion of photo collecting was the previous boom in other forms of art. By the early '70s, even the rich could scarcely afford a Jasper Johns or a De Kooning, much less a Matisse or a Rembrandt. Most of the great private photo collections, those of Arnold Crane in Chicago and Sam Wagstaff in New York, for instance, have been built up only in the past couple of decades. "I'm in no position to collect great art," says Wagstaff, 57, a former Detroit museum curator, who bought his first photo print only six years ago. "But I am in a position to collect great art photography."

Another major force propelling photo prices is inflation. Disenchanted with the stock market, many people are putting their money into prints for the same reasons they are buying diamonds or rare stamps. So far, most of the speculators have been happy with the results, though in this, as in every other area of collecting, there is always the danger of getting stung. "Every dealer will talk about the print he bought for $300 and sold for $3,000," says David Margolis of Manhattan's Swann auction house. "But every dealer also has trunks filled with stuff he can't move because he paid too high a price."

Probably the main reason people buy photographic prints, however, is a genuine love of the art. Dealers report that many photo collectors are in their 20s and 30s and can afford to buy only a couple of prints a year. But they grew up on photographic images, in magazines, in movies and on television, and they love photos the way their parents treasure paintings or antiques. "We have been actively selling art for 150 years, but we have been selling photography for only about ten years," says Charles Traub, director of Manhattan's Light Gallery. "But I think that in 100 years people will see that photography was the pervasive expressive art form of this era."

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