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Seven Imaginative Photographs Inspired by Art & Film

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Ever since its inception, photography has drawn inspiration from other media. Many of the photographs in From Generation to Generation: Important Photographs from the Ames Collection Online, readily show the influence of painting, sculpture and film. Their creators, including Philip Haas, Matthew Barney and Loretta Lux, also work in and experiment with different media. Click ahead to discover seven of these art-inspired photographs.     

From Generation to Generation: Important Photographs from the Ames Collection Online
5–18 December

Seven Imaginative Photographs Inspired by Art & Film

  • Philip Haas, Boy Drinking (after Carracci). Estimate $5,000–7,000.
    Philip Haas’s photograph is inspired by Annibale Carracci’s 1582–83 painting of the same name, now in the collection of the Cleveland Museum of Art. The photograph is printed directly on a linen canvas – as a physical object in itself, it is a direct nod to classical painting’s most popular support. The soft-focus effect only further accentuates the illusion of brush strokes. Haas began his career as a filmmaker and also works in sculpture. 

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  • Joel Meyerowitz, Spring, Early Morning Mist, Rising, Tuscany, May 2001. Starting bid $50.
    Joel Meyerowitz took his photographic studies of Tuscany during a time when he needed respite from his work in New York City, where he was making a historical survey about the aftermath of September 11, 2001. Tuscany’s peaceful and picturesque landscapes throughout the four seasons gave him the solace he needed from documenting the devastation at Ground Zero. Meyerowitz is known for his artful photographs in both colour and black and white.   

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  • Tom Hunter, Girl Writing Affidavit. Starting bid $50.
    Girl Writing Affidavit is from Tom Hunter’s Persons Unknown series. In their composition, colour and play of light, these images evoke Johannes Vermeer’s paintings of the Dutch middle class.


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  • Michal Rovner, Mutual Interest #2. Starting bid $50.
    Mutual Interest is a three-part video installation – the photograph offered here is a still from a film in which birds fly across multiple screens. It is framed to Rovner’s specifications, which demonstrates the artist’s desire for the viewer to appreciate the two-dimensional image and the object as a whole.   

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  • Matthew Barney, Cremaster 3: Chrysler Imperial. Starting bid $50.
    Barney is a multi-disciplinary artist who works in film, sculpture, photography and performance art. This image and Lot 122 are stills from Barney’s five-part, feature-length film series The Cremaster Cycle. 

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  • Y. Z. Kami, Untitled. Starting bid $50.
    This image is a collage of 36 inkjet prints mounted on a stretched canvas. Kami works in installation, photography and sculpture but is most widely recognised as a painter. As a painter, he sometimes works from photographs instead of directly from the sitter.   

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  • Loretta Lux, Self-Portrait. Starting bid $50.
    Loretta Lux experimented with self-portraits before she began her well-known work in portraits of children. Using digital image software, she delicately distends the heads, eyes and limbs of her sitters, while imbuing their skin with a translucent and pure quality. Trained as a painter, she is an avid admirer of 17th-century Italian Mannerist artists. 

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