Controversial Auction Sells Warhols From Polaroid’s Collection

By Lindsay Pollock


Feb. 11 (Bloomberg) -- As Polaroid, that once mighty photo giant, withers away in bankruptcy court, a chunk of its remarkable photography collection will be dispersed at a controversial sale set for June 21 and 22 at Sotheby’s in New York.



More than 1,200 works from Polaroid’s corporate collection, chronicling decades of artistic experimentation by Andy Warhol, Chuck Close and others who pushed the aesthetic boundaries of the instant-film process, will be hammered away by order of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Minnesota. Many non- Polaroid photos are also being sold.

The sale is projected to tally $7.5 million to $11.5 million. Funds will go to creditors of PBE Corp., formerly Polaroid, which has filed for bankruptcy twice in the past decade, the second time in 2008 in connection with a $3.5 billion Ponzi scheme at parent company Petters Group Worldwide LLC.

The two-day auction is likely to rank among the biggest sales of corporate photography collections liquidated by a bankrupt company. Futures trader Refco Inc. holds the record of $9.7 million fetched for its photography collection sold at Christie’s in 2006.

The Polaroid sale includes Chuck Close’s “9-Part Self Portrait,” estimated to sell for as much as $60,000, and Andy Warhol’s portrait of a sultry Farrah Fawcett, valued at as much as $7,000. Other artists include William Wegman, Robert Frank, David Hockney and Robert Mapplethorpe.



American Fixtures

The Polaroid name and assets -- not including the photography collection -- were acquired last year by private equity firm Hilco Consumer Capital LLC and Gordon Brothers Group LLC, a retail liquidator for $88 million. They continue to license the Polaroid name.



Polaroid’s instant cameras were fixtures in U.S. households by the 1970s and the company amassed an impressive collection of photographs by acquisition and barter. The company offered artists free cameras, film and studio time on large-format cameras in exchange for prints.



“When the materials were free, the artists could really indulge themselves,” said New York photographer dealer Edwynn Houk. “This is one of the earliest corporate photography collections and one of the best.” Polaroid’s holdings eventually numbered more than 16,000 works.

The collection also holds major vintage prints, including more than 400 by landscape photographer Ansel Adams. A mural- sized gelatin silver print, “Moonrise, Hernandez, New Mexico,” is tagged for as much as $350,000.

Adams befriended Edwin H. Land, a Harvard University dropout who had invented the instant camera and founded the Polaroid company in 1937 with George Wheelwright.



Migrant Mother

Land asked Adams to assemble a collection of non-Polaroid photographs in 1956. Adams bought works by top names such as Imogen Cunningham, Edward Weston, Harry Callahan, Margaret Bourke-White and Dorothea Lange, including her famous Depression era “Migrant Mother, Nipomo, California,” which is valued at as much as $80,000.

Some photo historians and photographers oppose the sale. “The collection is going to be dispersed, which is against promises made to the photographers,” said photography critic and historian A. D. Coleman, who says photographers were told the collection would remain together for public viewing and study.



Coleman said the artists were promised access to the images for copyright enforcement and subsidiary right licensing -- all of which would be difficult if the prints are sold to anonymous buyers. “These were never sales, they were exchanges,” said Coleman. “This was permanent custodianship for Polaroid, with visitation rights for the photographers.”

Photographer Neal Slavin has 76 pieces in the Polaroid collection, including 60 images from his book “Britons.” “It’s really sad that this work will go out into the ether,” said Slavin. “What a disservice to a piece of history.”



To contact the reporter on the story: Lindsay Pollock in New York at lindsaypollock@yahoo.com.