Lot 168
  • 168

Lee Friedlander b. 1934

bidding is closed

Description

  • Lee Friedlander
  • 'cincinnati, ohio' (bed in window)
mounted, the photographer's '44 South Mountain Road, New City, New York' studio and reproduction rights stamp on the reverse, matted, 1963 (MoMA, pl. 67; American Photography 1890-1965, p. 241; The Photographer's Eye, p. 141; Cleveland Museum of Art, p. 173)

Provenance

Gift of the photographer to Jim Dine

By descent to the present owner

Catalogue Note

The forty-plus-year friendship of artist Jim Dine and Lee Friedlander began in 1963 after Harper’s Bazaar published an article titled ‘The Little Screens: A Photographic Essay by Lee Friedlander with a Comment by Walker Evans.’  Just after the article appeared, Friedlander received a laudatory letter from Dine, whom he had never met, asking to purchase one of the images. While the photographer had earned his living making photographs for publication, he had never actually sold one as art.  The two settled on a price of $25, and Friedlander insisted on a personal exchange.

A native of Cincinnati, Dine had an established market for his own work by the late 1960s. It was he who proposed that he and Friedlander create a joint portfolio, which was published in 1969. (For more information, cf. Peter Galassi, Friedlander, pp. 39-40)