Fine art photography is a strange and volatile market that can change very quickly. While most photos sell for reasonable prices, some inflate to prices that most photographers can only dream of.
For example, in February 2018, a group of 10 investors paid $1 million for a cryptographic photograph called The Forever Rose, taken by Kevin Abosch. The Forever Rose is not a physical photograph, but the most expensive virtual image in the world. And each investor received a “token” that they could hold or sell.
However, even $1 million is small change compared to the amounts paid for the most expensive photographs in history.
10. "The Lake in the Moonlight" by Edward Steichen
The photo is valued at $2.9 million.
The list of the most expensive photographs in history opens with a picture taken back in 1904 and sold in 2006.
Steichen was one of the first photographers (if not the first) to use autochrome. To colorize the photo, he applied potato starch granules filled with different colors of paint to the film. And there are two copies of this photo: one sold at Sotheby's, and the other is in the permanent collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
9. "Chicago Stock Exchange III" by Andreas Gursky
The photograph was sold for $3.3 million.
Gursky's first, but not last, work in the selection of the most expensive photographs in the world. The picture shows the trading floor of the Chicago Stock Exchange. To convey the feeling of movement, the author exposed several parts of the image twice.
As with his other photographs on this list, Gursky also altered the colors to make them more vibrant.
8. "99 Cents. Diptych" by Andreas Gursky
The photograph was sold at auction for $3.3 million.
It is a chromogenic color print, stylized as a diptych and consisting of two photographs. It is very large - 2.07 x 3.37 meters. The action takes place in a store in Los Angeles, where goods are sold for 99 cents.
Gursky uses semi-symmetrical lines and colorful packaging on the shelves to create a high-contrast image that is sure to attract attention.
7. "Untitled (Cowboy)" by Richard Prince
Sold at Christie's for $3.4 million.
Richard Prince began his foray into artistry at Time-Life, Inc., where his job involved clipping magazine articles for staff writers. As an aspiring photographer, Prince studied what was left of magazines after the articles were clipped—the advertising pages.
"Cowboy" represents the height of Prince's fascination with American archetypes, and the image is actually a Time magazine ad featuring a Marlboro Man. The work is "in its broadest sense, a meditation on the culture's persistent attraction to spectacle over experience."
It's funny that the photographer who took the first advertising photo didn't appreciate high art and sued Prince for using a copyrighted image. But the court ruled in Prince's favor.
6. "Conversation of Dead Soldiers" by Jeff Wall
Price: $3.6 million.
This photograph was taken by Canadian photographer Jeff Wall in 1992 and depicts a fictional resurrection scene of a Red Army patrol ambushed near Moqor, Afghanistan, in the winter of 1986. The reanimated soldiers talk to each other, despite their severe wounds and severed limbs.
Wall had never been to Afghanistan, and the actors portraying the soldiers were filmed in a studio.
"I didn't make dead soldiers talk to comment on the Afghan war. I did it because I wanted to photograph dead people talking. It was a theme or an image or both that came spontaneously, I don't know why. So the picture had a personal or internal starting point," the photographer told Photoworks.
5. "For Her Majesty" by Gilbert Proche and George Passmore
The photo costs $3.7 million.
Gilbert and George are partners in life and work in performance photography, but the couple are adamant that they are "two people, one artist," George told Reuters.
And as one artist, they have created a whole collage of black and white photographs that commemorates the duo's alcoholic drinking days in the early 1970s. In this way, Gilbert and George are both subjects and objects, art and the creators of their paintings, as they prefer to call them.
4. "Untitled No. 96" by Cindy Sherman
The photograph was purchased for $3.9 million.
Known for her provocative self-portraits, Sherman's work is extremely popular with collectors. She once fetched $13.7 million at a single auction, according to Bloomberg.
Sherman was responsible for all aspects of her photographs, including makeup, hair, lighting, staging, and the actual photography.
In creating Untitled #96, the photographer was inspired by the spreads of men's erotic magazines. However, in the picture, she looks like the complete opposite of the models who usually pose for such publications. Many people say that Sherman's facial expression and body language show vulnerability and fear.
3. "Spiritual America" by Richard Prince
The photo was valued at $3.9 million at Christie's auction.
In one of the most controversial photographs in history, 10-year-old Brooke Shields posed for the photographer. Her naked childish body contrasts sharply with her seductive, mature expression, covered in heavy makeup.
The title "Spiritual America" is taken from another work: a photograph of a gelded workhorse taken by Alfred Stieglitz in 1923. The image and the title contrast each other, comparing hard, honest work with the easy way people these days achieve fame and glory.
2. "Rhine II", Andreas Gursky
Price: $4.3 million.
The most expensive work by German photographer Andreas Gursky is "Rhine II", which was sold at Christie's in November 2011. It depicts the Rhine River flowing between green grass fields and under an overcast sky. This photo is the first in a series of six images and depicts a section of the Rhine River near Dusseldorf.
Gursky had not digitally altered his images until the 1990s, but Rhine II was an exception. Wanting to create a deserted landscape, Gursky removed distracting elements, including a factory building, pedestrians, and cyclists.
1. “Phantom”, Peter Lik
The photo is worth $6.5 million.
On December 9, 2014, a black and white image of Antelope Canyon in Arizona, USA, taken by renowned Australian landscape artist Peter Lik, allegedly broke all existing price records. We say “allegedly” because the deal was private, and only Peter himself and the lawyers who accompanied the deal know about it. Therefore, the place of “Phantom” as the most expensive photograph in the world is still hotly debated.
“The goal of all my photographs is to capture the power of nature and convey it in a way that inspires someone to feel excited and connected to the image,” Peter said of his work.
A private collector acquired not only the monochrome Phantom, but also two other works by Lik – Illusion for $2.4 million and Eternal Moods for $1.1 million. The total transaction amounted to $10 million.
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