Gold Magazine September - October 2013, Issue 30 | 页面 83

investing in photographs

Animal Locomotion
Studys by Eadweard
Muybridge

1853:

The Photographic Society
of London (now named
the Royal Photographic Society) is established and, at a meeting of its syndicates,
one member despondently bemoans the
fact that photography is too literal, unable
to elevate the imagination, and therefore
cannot compete with works of fine art.
An Andreas Gursky
photograph of an anaemic
river Rhine and colourless sky juxtaposed
with sallow green grass is sold at a Christie’s auction in New York for a world
record price of $4.3 million.
A discrepancy in perception between
fine art works and fine art photography
has caged the latter’s evolution over the
last century. Art is famously elite, difficult,
requiring acute skill and, as a consequence,
incredibly valuable. Photography, on the
other hand, has been deemed – many
experts protest, wrongly – as an easy
venture, devoid of skill, amateur even.
Perhaps this explains why, as late as the
1960s and ‘70s, art photography was still
being relegated (as photographer Jeff Walls
described it) to so-called photo ghettos:
niche galleries, aficionados and publications; the fringe of culture.
Now, the tides are changing and photography is ready for its close-up.
The revelation that the production of
a photograph may be just as laborious as
the creation of a canvas (think of Eadweard Muybridge, a 19th century pioneer
in the photographic study of motion,
carrying weighty cameras, boxes of glass
negatives, as well as tents and chemicals
for a makeshift darkroom through forests
and mountains to capture images of the

2011:

PHOTOGRAPHY IS A
LANGUAGE THAT EVERYONE
CAN UNDERSTAND
Yosemite wilderness), and the desire for a
fidelity of features that is unique to photography, have intensified the appreciation of,
and fascination with, this art form.
So much so, in fact, that a number of
London’s most prominent art galleries and
museums – namely, the Tate, the Victoria & Albert Museum, and the National
Media Museum – have invested some £2.1
million in expanding their photography
collections over the past three years, paying
it due respect as an artistic medium of
historical and cultural significance.
Private collectors, meanwhile, are spying an opportunity to enter an otherwise
deeply dear art market for a fraction of
the price. In a largely uncontested market
space, with a new wave of demand, it seems
like a sound strategy.
In April 2013, the art market analysis
firm ArtTactic produced a survey suggesting that confidence in the modern and
contemporary (pre-1960 and post-1960
respectively) photography markets has risen
by 10.6% in the twelve months preceding
its publication. Moreover, some 92% of
experts questioned anticipate that prices for
modern photography are likely to rise by
the end of the year.
The positive sentiment continued in
ArtTactic’s auction analysis report released
in June 2013, documenting recent season
sales at Sotheby’s, Christie’s and Phillips in

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