A collection of 200 photographs of women from Frida Kahlo to Valentine Hugo, Dorian Leigh and Claudia Schiffer is going under the hammer in Paris on 27 October. Amassed by the Italian fashion photographer Amedeo Turello over the past 23 years, the images celebrate “strong, independent women”, he says. Several female photographers are represented, including Cindy Sherman, Cara Weston, Regina Relang and Helen Bodian.
The collection, which will be sold at Artcurial auction house at the tail end of the Fiac art fair in Paris, combines fine art with fashion photography; much of it was collected as a result of Turello’s professional collaborations. Prices range from €1,000 to around €20,000 for a vintage print of Muslim women praying, taken by Henri Cartier-Bresson in 1948. The sale is expected to make between €594,700 and €840,000.
Turello bought a number of photographs from the late Dutch patron Bert Hartkamp’s collection, which was auctioned at Sotheby’s in 2002, including an intimate group of images dedicated to women. “Turello bought some of the photographs at auction, but he stayed in touch with Hartkamp’s widow and bought more from her over time,” says Artcurial’s photography specialist Christophe Lunn.
Perhaps the most striking work in the collection is a photograph of an onion by the Czech photographer Josef Sudek from 1950 (est. €6,000-€8,000). “Turello says that women are like onions—complex and with many layers,” Lunn explains, adding: “People also say women make you cry.”
