96
exhibitions of the leading photographic societies. These
events provided another opportunity for photographers
to sell examples of their work. In 1859 the organisers of
the sixth annual exhibition of the Photographic Society
of London even allowed the inclusion of prices in the
exhibition catalogue. Signifi cant sales were handled
by early agents, e.g. in 1865, the London art dealers,
Colnaghi, sold eighty photographs by Julia Margaret
Cameron to Henry Cole for the South Kensington
Museum.
In Paris, the other early centre for photography, sales
of the new medium were also handled by painting deal-
ers such as Durand-Ruel or Legrand, print dealers or
booksellers. The gallery or shop-owner usually took a
share of the profi ts from a sale rather than owning the
works outright. Throughout the 19th century, photogra-
phers and publishers such as Goupil, Blanquart-Evrard,
Mansell, Agnew or Frith sold works direct as well as
through more general print dealers and booksellers.
Seminal galleries in America, such as Stieglitz’s
“291” rarely showed historical works, although New
York art dealer, Julien Levy, opened his gallery in
1931 with a retrospective of American Photography,
organised in collaboration with Stieglitz. Levy went
on to exhibit works by contemporary American and
European photographers, but also included shows of
Atget and Nadar. He quickly realised photography could
not support the gallery fi nancially and introduced a
greater proportion of painting and sculpture. Neverthe-
less, many photographers shown by Levy in the early
1930s went on to become recognised and promoted by
the Museum of Modern Art, when Beaumont Newhall
introduced photography there in 1937.
Other galleries in Paris and New York were showing
exhibitions of photographs, but again, the emphasis was
on contemporary material and none could survive on
photography shows alone. In 1954, Helen Gee opened
her Limelight gallery and coffee bar in New York. She
struggled too, surviving only until 1961, even with
the income from the café subsidising the photography
gallery. However, among her few buyers were those
capable of infl uencing many: her last sale, of Julia
Margaret Cameron’s portrait of Julia Duckworth, was
to Beaumont Newhall.
In post World War I Europe, where there were already
a few active collectors of historical photographs, the
sources for old photographs were antiquarian booksell-
ers, general antique shops and markets, especially the
fl ea markets of Paris.
There were no regular auctions of photographs until
the early 1970s, but sporadic bursts of activity dur-
ing earlier periods injected notable caches of material
into the market place. Probably the earliest and most
signifi cant of these were the auctions of works by
Roger Fenton. The commercial failure of his Crimean
photographs prompted the publishers, T. & R. Agnew
& Sons, to dispose of “all remaining copies of Fenton’s
Photo Pictures of the War In The Crimea” through the
auctioneers Southgate & Barrett on November 29, 1856,
“and fi ve following evenings.” The art dealers, Colnaghi,
advertised Fenton’s negatives for sale in January 1857,
possibly having acquired them from this auction and in
1862, when Fenton quit photography, auctioneers J. C.
Stevens sold “instruments, cameras and photo views of
England & Wales by Roger Fenton.”
Occasional dealer catalogues including old photo-
graphs had appeared since an important example com-
piled by E. Weil and published by London bookseller,
E. P. Goldschmidt in 1939. Others followed this practice
in the early 1970s such as the American dealer, George
Rinhart, offering “Americana, Photographic Images
and Rare Books.”
Lee Witkin is considered the fi rst successful modern
dealer in photographs, his New York gallery opening
in 1968 and establishing a precedent that was to be
followed by others. Witkin maintained a stock of 19th
century photographs, but like most other galleries in
America, modern and contemporary photography
predominated. With an occasional exception, such as
the infl uential Galerie Texbraun in Paris, it was left to
a handful of private dealers to nurture a still embryonic
secondary market for historical photographs. Led again
by American interest, a small network of dealers became
established in the late 1960s and early 1970s, mostly
in the USA but including prominent fi gures in England
and France.
The auction houses now took the decision to enter
what could reasonably be perceived as an emerging
market. The specialist book auctioneers, Swann Galler-
ies had been responsible for the fi rst photograph auction
in the United States with the Marshall sale in 1952 and
Sotheby Parke Bernet held two successful sales from the
estates of Will Weissberg and Sidney Strober in 1967
and 1970, but the fi rst of the regular auctions was held
at Sotheby’s Belgravia saleroom in London in 1971.
Christie’s followed with auctions in London, and soon
after both houses introduced sales in New York, as did
Swann Galleries.
From the beginning London auctions were the focus
for 19th-century material while 20th-century works
dominated in New York. London quickly became the
primary source for 19th century photographs fresh
to the market; the publicity generated by early sales
attracting important private consignments of archives
and collections, many of which had long languished in
dusty basements or attics. By the 1980s, when the Getty
Museum made the decision to collect photographs they
were able to acquire several ready-made collections in-
cluding that of Sam Wagstaff, a key fi gure in the London
auctions. Other notable collections including those of