On Photography
By Robert de Gast, August 18, 2006


Lights, camera, auction!

The art world sat up last month when word came that Ronald S. Lauder, the cosmetics heir and billionaire tycoon, had paid a record US$135 million at auction for the 1907 Gustav Klimt painting “Portrait of a Lady in Red.” The previous record, US$104 million for Picasso’s “Boy with a Pipe,” had been set in 2004. The photographic art world sat up, too, with the sale of a Steichen photograph for nearly three million dollars, a record. Modern art prices have more than doubled since 1998, as have the prices paid for photographs, mostly at auctions. Outside of auctions, it is difficult to ascertain the prices paid for photographs because many are sold in private transactions, but here is my list of the dozen most expensive photographs bought in the last few years:

1. Edward Steichen “The Pond-Moonlight” (1904) $2,928,000
2. Alfred Stieglitz “Hands” (1919) $1,470,000 
3. Alfred Stieglitz “Nude” (1919) $1,360,000 
4. Richard Prince “Untitled (Cowboy)” (1989) $1,248,000
5. Joseph-Philibert Girault De Prangey “Athénes” (1842) $922,488
6. Gustave Le Gray “The Great Wave, Sete” (1857) $838,000
7. Dorothea Lange “White Angel Bread Line” (1933) $822,400
8. Edward Weston “The Breast” (1921) $822,400
9. Andreas Gursky “Untitled 5” (1997) $559,724
10. Gustave Le Gray “Tree” (1857) $513,150
11. Diane Arbus “Identical Twins (Cathleen and Colleen)” (1967) $478,400 
12. Andre Kertesz “Chez Mondrian” (1926) $464,000 

If the list were to be expanded to two dozen, photographs by Richard Avedon, Robert Mapplethorpe, Irving Penn, Helen Leavitt, Walker Evans, Helmut Newton, Ansel Adams, Cartier-Bresson, and several 19th-century photographers would be added.

Still, just as you begin to think about investing in the photographic art market, think about this: It turns out that art is one of the worst ways for investors to try to make money, according to a Merrill Lynch & Co. study. While stocks or bonds are almost certain to make investors a profit over five years, art has a high chance, 17 percent, of declining in value. “Art, gold and commodities offered the least attractive risk-reward potential, providing inferior returns while generating substantially more risk,” Merrill said.

Art has done worse in some decades than in others. In the 1970s, art had the lowest 12-month return and the highest chance of losses. Gold was the best investment in that decade, but art swapped places with gold in the 1980s, doing better than stocks, bonds and real estate. In the 1990s art again became the loser, with real estate and small US stocks faring best. In this decade, according to Bloomberg News, art, foreign stocks and S&P 500 shares are the worst investment.

So what to do? Here’s my low-risk, high-reward investment strategy: Invest in your own photography. Take more pictures, more often. Honor your work. Get it out of the shoebox under the bed. Extract it from your computer. Print it, frame it, show it, email it, share it. The rewards will amaze you. The risk? Your friends will ask for copies! Treasure your pleasure!


Robert de Gast is a professional photographer and the author of nine books. He offers short photography tutorials and conducts workshops and tours. He can be reached at 152-7396 or at robertdegast@hotmail.com.