On January 27, 2011 I received news of the outcome of the January 24-25 sale of the remainder of the Polaroid Collection. By the deadline, 5 p.m. CST on January 24, Minnesota Bankruptcy Court Trustee John R. Stoebner had received no competing bids on the two segments of the collection for which he had offers in hand. So, the next day, the Court approved their sale to those buyers.
20 Exchange Place - architectural rendering and logo
• The so-called “Acquired Assets” ― the bulk of what’s left, all the 10,000 or so photographs (inexplicably called the “Artex Photographs”) remaining in the Somerville, MA storage facility, plus some miscellaneous furniture that I assume has functioned as storage equipment for the collection ― were sold to Perle Holdings Inc., for $1,275,000. As indicated in a previous post, the agent for the mysterious entity called Perle Holding was one Nathan Bruckner, somehow connected to a Luxembourg-based entity named Eastbridge N.V. (or Eastbridge B.V.). Perle Holdings indicated, in the document accompanying its bid, that it plans to create a “museum quality space . . . provid[ing] display and study opportunities with respect to the Acquired Assets for both general interest and scholarly audience, as well as a continued resource in photography, motion pictures, technology and books” inside 20 Exchange Place, a high-end residential/commercial structure that Eastbridge has partnered in renovating in the Wall Street district of New York. Sounds like a perfect match, eh? (See the court order finalizing this deal here.)
• The approximately 4,476 photographs now in the Musée de L’Elysée in Lausanne, Switzerland (called the “Swiss Photographs” by the court) were sold to WestLicht-Peter Coeln GmbH for $755,000. The notice of hearing for the sale of the Swiss photos states that this purchaser is an entity formed by former advertising photographer Peter Coeln, director of the the WestLicht Schauplatz Museum in Vienna, Austria. So these works will leave the Musée de L’Elysée and enter the WestLicht museum’s collection ― they weren’t bidding (as I speculated incorrectly in that earlier post) on behalf of the Lausanne repository.
The purchaser has stated that the “Swiss Photographs” will be a centerpiece of the WestLicht Schauplatz Museum’s tenth anniversary in summer of 2011. The purchaser intends to offer traveling exhibitions of the collection, and to publish a book in partnership with The Impossible Project. (See the court order finalizing this sale here.)
While I consider it a plus that this chunk of the collection has ended up in the hands of a museum committed to drawing exhibitions and publications from it and otherwise making it accessible, its loss constitutes a blow to the Musée de L’Elysée. That institution accepted this section of the Polaroid Collection in good faith, given assurances that it would become a permanent part of the Musée’s holdings. On that basis, and with no further subsidy from Polaroid, the Musée stored, insured, conserved, and catalogued those roughly 4500 works for almost two decades. That in itself represents a substantial financial, sweat-equity, and in-kind investment in the collection.
The Musée also sought and found funding and other forms of sponsorship for exhibitions and publications drawn therefrom that enhanced considerably the market value of this part of the collection, and the Polaroid Collection as a whole. That too represents a significant investment. Ripping that material out of the Musée’s holdings summarily, without compensation, constitutes an act of bad faith ― even if the Minnesota Bankruptcy Court’s handling of it is obligatory, and done by the books. It also serves as a cautionary tale; with this as an example, I’d warn other institutions to be extremely wary of long-term loans with promises of eventual donation that don’t include ironclad contractual commitments.
• There were no bids made on the photographs still at Sotheby’s. This cluster, named the “Sotheby’s Assets” by the court, had a minimum bid figure of $556,750 during the earlier bidding period. It’s my understanding that this lot includes some 685 works, among them the ones withdrawn just prior to the auction due to the campaign to stop the auction, those that went unsold at the auction, and presumably some others brought down from storage in Somerville to Sotheby’s in anticipation of the auction but for various reasons not included therein.
I’ve gone through the PDF of the Sotheby’s catalogue for the sale, extracting therefrom the unsold lots. This includes 108 photographs plus 4 negatives. (Click here for a PDF file of these unsold lots with full description thereof, and click here for a PDF with thumbnails and Sotheby’s original estimates. And click here for the final list of lots sold, with sale prices.)
The following lots were withdrawn from the auction by the Trustee as a result of objections to the auction by the photographers and others. (For this blog’s reportage and advocacy in this situation, click here.) The 38 withdrawn works:
- Lot 26, Chuck Close, “5 C (Self Portrait)” ($50/70,000)
- Lot 145, Mary Ellen Mark, “Selected New York Portraits” ($8/12,000)
- Lot 154, Andy Warhol, “Martha Graham” ($2/3,000)
- Lot 170, Laurie Simmons, “Selected Photographs from The Education Project” ($4/6,000)
- Lot 218, Joel Meyerowitz, “Selected Images” ($1,500/2,500)
- Lot 223, Aaron Siskind, “Selected Mexican Portraits” ($1,500/2,500)
- Lot 234, William Wegman, “Selected Figure Studies” ($5/7,000)
- Lot 445, Various Photographers, “Selected Self-Portraits” ($2/3,000)
- Lot 462, Danny Lyon, “Selected Images” ($5/7,000)
(For a PDF showing these lots, click here.)
John R. Stoebner, Esq.
These don’t add up to anywhere near 685 images ― just 146, by my count. The Trustee has elected not to make publicly available any checklist of the items contained in the “Sotheby’s Assets,” making it difficult to discuss this group of works as an aggregate and in its separate parts. (I assume that Sotheby’s, having logged in and processed all these items, could produce such a checklist easily, but I’ve neither seen nor heard of one.)
However, even if limited to the withdrawn and unsold images, this set clearly contains a number of items by notable names, dominated in sheer quantity by Ansel Adams. Their selection for the auction (or at least for consideration therein) by Sotheby’s experts gives them a certain level of certification in regard to value and marketable condition. Be that as it may, these works ― excepting those withdrawn to mollify the protesters ― failed to make the cut in various ways. Sotheby’s presumably considered those that the house opted not to include in the auction as less marketable than those it did put on the block. The ones that failed to sell were offered but clearly rejected by the market on a lot-by-lot basis.
Now the entire batch, offered as an aggregate by the Trustee, has been rejected by the market yet again at the Trustee’s asking price. From what I gather, the Trustee has authorization from the Minnesota Bankruptcy Court to entertain further bids on this lot. Seems logical to project that the Trustee (a) wants to conclude his dispersal of the Polaroid Collection by unloading this last batch expeditiously, (b) is prepared to negotiate downward from an asking price for which he has no takers, and (c) understands that no one is likely to give him hundreds of thousands of dollars for a pig in a poke, and is prepared to provide an inventory of the lot to prospective bidders.
So the Trustee continues to look for a purchaser for this last small cluster of works. Identifying a buyer will conclude the dispersal of the Polaroid Collection.
•
For an index of links to all previous posts related to this story, click here.
•
Bad Whether
Lowering the Basketball Hoops Dept.: We’re in deep-freeze mode here in New York, and although our local groundhog, Staten Island Chuck, has predicted an early spring, we don’t plan to put our long johns into mothballs anytime soon.
On January 27, 2011 we awoke to the deposit left by a heavy snow the day and night before. That set a record: 19 inches of snow fell overnight in Manhattan’s Central Park Thursday, beating a single day record set in 1925. Just as deep, maybe more so, out here on Staten Island. We had guests from mainland China flying in, and weren’t sure when or if they’d get here ― many flights were delayed or cancelled. (They did arrive, just a bit late.) While checking the situation at LaGuardia Airport, I also found the following email announcement from my undergraduate alma mater’s alumni association:
That’s what makes us old grads proud. Having survived patches of bad whether (or not) myself, I know the feeling and get the (snow)drift.
SPJ Research Award 2014
Polaroid Collection: Done Deals
On January 27, 2011 I received news of the outcome of the January 24-25 sale of the remainder of the Polaroid Collection. By the deadline, 5 p.m. CST on January 24, Minnesota Bankruptcy Court Trustee John R. Stoebner had received no competing bids on the two segments of the collection for which he had offers in hand. So, the next day, the Court approved their sale to those buyers.
20 Exchange Place - architectural rendering and logo
• The so-called “Acquired Assets” ― the bulk of what’s left, all the 10,000 or so photographs (inexplicably called the “Artex Photographs”) remaining in the Somerville, MA storage facility, plus some miscellaneous furniture that I assume has functioned as storage equipment for the collection ― were sold to Perle Holdings Inc., for $1,275,000. As indicated in a previous post, the agent for the mysterious entity called Perle Holding was one Nathan Bruckner, somehow connected to a Luxembourg-based entity named Eastbridge N.V. (or Eastbridge B.V.). Perle Holdings indicated, in the document accompanying its bid, that it plans to create a “museum quality space . . . provid[ing] display and study opportunities with respect to the Acquired Assets for both general interest and scholarly audience, as well as a continued resource in photography, motion pictures, technology and books” inside 20 Exchange Place, a high-end residential/commercial structure that Eastbridge has partnered in renovating in the Wall Street district of New York. Sounds like a perfect match, eh? (See the court order finalizing this deal here.)
The purchaser has stated that the “Swiss Photographs” will be a centerpiece of the WestLicht Schauplatz Museum’s tenth anniversary in summer of 2011. The purchaser intends to offer traveling exhibitions of the collection, and to publish a book in partnership with The Impossible Project. (See the court order finalizing this sale here.)
While I consider it a plus that this chunk of the collection has ended up in the hands of a museum committed to drawing exhibitions and publications from it and otherwise making it accessible, its loss constitutes a blow to the Musée de L’Elysée. That institution accepted this section of the Polaroid Collection in good faith, given assurances that it would become a permanent part of the Musée’s holdings. On that basis, and with no further subsidy from Polaroid, the Musée stored, insured, conserved, and catalogued those roughly 4500 works for almost two decades. That in itself represents a substantial financial, sweat-equity, and in-kind investment in the collection.
The Musée also sought and found funding and other forms of sponsorship for exhibitions and publications drawn therefrom that enhanced considerably the market value of this part of the collection, and the Polaroid Collection as a whole. That too represents a significant investment. Ripping that material out of the Musée’s holdings summarily, without compensation, constitutes an act of bad faith ― even if the Minnesota Bankruptcy Court’s handling of it is obligatory, and done by the books. It also serves as a cautionary tale; with this as an example, I’d warn other institutions to be extremely wary of long-term loans with promises of eventual donation that don’t include ironclad contractual commitments.
I’ve gone through the PDF of the Sotheby’s catalogue for the sale, extracting therefrom the unsold lots. This includes 108 photographs plus 4 negatives. (Click here for a PDF file of these unsold lots with full description thereof, and click here for a PDF with thumbnails and Sotheby’s original estimates. And click here for the final list of lots sold, with sale prices.)
The following lots were withdrawn from the auction by the Trustee as a result of objections to the auction by the photographers and others. (For this blog’s reportage and advocacy in this situation, click here.) The 38 withdrawn works:
(For a PDF showing these lots, click here.)
John R. Stoebner, Esq.
These don’t add up to anywhere near 685 images ― just 146, by my count. The Trustee has elected not to make publicly available any checklist of the items contained in the “Sotheby’s Assets,” making it difficult to discuss this group of works as an aggregate and in its separate parts. (I assume that Sotheby’s, having logged in and processed all these items, could produce such a checklist easily, but I’ve neither seen nor heard of one.)
However, even if limited to the withdrawn and unsold images, this set clearly contains a number of items by notable names, dominated in sheer quantity by Ansel Adams. Their selection for the auction (or at least for consideration therein) by Sotheby’s experts gives them a certain level of certification in regard to value and marketable condition. Be that as it may, these works ― excepting those withdrawn to mollify the protesters ― failed to make the cut in various ways. Sotheby’s presumably considered those that the house opted not to include in the auction as less marketable than those it did put on the block. The ones that failed to sell were offered but clearly rejected by the market on a lot-by-lot basis.
So the Trustee continues to look for a purchaser for this last small cluster of works. Identifying a buyer will conclude the dispersal of the Polaroid Collection.
•
For an index of links to all previous posts related to this story, click here.
•
Bad Whether
Lowering the Basketball Hoops Dept.: We’re in deep-freeze mode here in New York, and although our local groundhog, Staten Island Chuck, has predicted an early spring, we don’t plan to put our long johns into mothballs anytime soon.
On January 27, 2011 we awoke to the deposit left by a heavy snow the day and night before. That set a record: 19 inches of snow fell overnight in Manhattan’s Central Park Thursday, beating a single day record set in 1925. Just as deep, maybe more so, out here on Staten Island. We had guests from mainland China flying in, and weren’t sure when or if they’d get here ― many flights were delayed or cancelled. (They did arrive, just a bit late.) While checking the situation at LaGuardia Airport, I also found the following email announcement from my undergraduate alma mater’s alumni association:
That’s what makes us old grads proud. Having survived patches of bad whether (or not) myself, I know the feeling and get the (snow)drift.