Texas oilman’s Ansel Adams photo gets $988,000 at auction
This 1942 Ansel Adams photo provided by Sotheby’s and The Ansel Adams Publishing Rights Trust shows, a West Texas oilman’s mural-sized print of Ansel Adams’ photo, “The Grand Tetons and the Snake River, Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming.” Sotheby’s New York, the auction house, said Tuesday, Dec. 15, 2020, that the print sold for $988,000, a record price for Adams at auction. (Ansel Adams/The Ansel Adams Publishing Rights Trust/Sotheby’s via AP)
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DALLAS (AP) — A West Texas oilman’s mural-sized print of an Ansel Adams photo has sold for nearly $1 million at an auction.
Sotheby’s New York, the auction house, said Tuesday that “The Grand Tetons and the Snake River, Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming” sold for $988,000, a record price for Adams at auction.
The photograph, taken on commission for the Department of Interior in 1942, shows a view of the mountains over Jackson Hole. Sotheby’s said it’s believed to be one of less than 10 mural-sized prints of the image in existence and was acquired from the photographer’s descendants.
The photo was among 115 works by Adams, including single prints and portfolios, that sold at auction Monday for $6.4 million, Sotheby’s said. They were all part of David Arrington’s collection.
Sotheby’s said Arrington, 60, has been interested in photography since he was a teen. Arrington said in a video posted on the auction house’s website that he’s collected 650 of Adams’ photographs, and that it was time to let go of some.
“I’ve been asked numerous times: How come you collected so many of one artist? And the only thing I could come up with was: I’m a Texan, and we overdo everything,” Arrington said in the video.
