Lost New York at Phillips

Don Hunstein Bob Dylan & Suze, NYC, 1960 Estimate $2,000-2,500

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WHAT DO TIFFANY CUFFLINKS, furniture by Vladimir Kagan, and a print of the iconic cover image from Bob Dylan’s early Freewheelin’ album have in common?

Nothing really, except they’re all part of the upcoming “New York New York” sale at Phillips dePury & Co., the 200+-year-old auction house which in recent years has been making an aggressive bid to be the hippest in town.

JOSEF BREITENBACH New York Daytime, 1948 Estimate $3,000-5,000

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The latest in a series of theme auctions, following Music and Latin America, the 358-lot sale will take place December 12.

There’s art by Warhol, Alex Katz, Basquiat, Lichtenstein, Kenny Scharf, and many others; painted subway cars and a bent trash can; photos of people, some shocking, by Diane Arbus and Nan Goldin; and architectural photography, including a double-exposed avant garde view of the Empire State Building by Edward Steichen, expected to fetch $50,000-70,000.

JESSIE TARBOX BEALS MacDougal Alley, Greenwich Village, NYC, ca. 1906-1910 Estimate $2,000-2,500

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Some of the photographic images in the sale, by the likes of Berenice Abbott and Andreas Feininger, are familiar. Others are less often seen and therefore more intriguing. All capture lost moments in time, bringing on a rush of nostalgia for the city that once was.

 

FRANK PAULIN Playland, Times Square, 1955 Estimate $1,500-2,000

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For the entire online catalogue of the sale, go here.

Happy Thanksgiving!

I’M GRATEFUL for your readership and support.

Richard Sparrow House, Plymouth, Mass. 1640

Photo: Mike Hume

Little Boxes

AFTER HALF A CENTURY, LITTLE BOXES made of ticky-tacky do not look all the same.

I remember noting how the Long Island development I grew up in evolved over the years, as homeowners made changes that gave their once-identical split levels individual personalities. Some people added second garages, others built up, Tessie Feldman notably added a scrolled cast iron portico, and what was once a cookie-cutter development became considerably more varied and interesting.

Julia Baum, a young Brooklyn-based photographer, documented a group of 1950s suburban tract houses in Santa Clara, California, in all their unique glory. The project demonstrates, she writes, that “human individuality cannot be contained. Inevitably it shines through even the most average facade.”

The landscaping is as much fun as the houses.

Go here to see the whole set.