Phillips Photographs - London 2017

Phillips Photographs featured a wide-ranging roster of talent, with highlights including work by Bruce Weber, John Baldessari, and Seiji Kurata, whose candid image of a Japanese yakuza drew particular attention from specialists. Among the standout lots was William Eggleston's Untitled (1976), a pigment print from his Election Eve series, praised for its luminescent, almost Rothko-esque quality and its role in cementing Eggleston's legacy as a pioneer of colour photography, , alongside contemporary works by Ruud van Empel, Alex Prager, and John Baldessari. The exhibition also featured a substantial group of works by Helmut Newton, drawn from his celebrated Suites. Highlights included Two Pairs of Legs in Black Stockings, taken from a floor-level, tilted angle that implies the hidden control exercised by its female protagonists, and Hotel Room, Place de la République, in which a model tied to a bed reflects Newton's longstanding fascination with fetishism. Beyond these blue-chip names, the sale also shone a spotlight on Seiji Kurata's celebrated image of a Japanese yakuza and works by Bruce Weber, demonstrating Phillips' characteristic mix of canonical masters and carefully chosen contemporary voices across the auction's broad scope.