Date:	July 1, 2008
	Subject:	Edward Weston: A million-dollar photo/Editor’s note: A high-resolution jpg version of the image is available upon request.
	Contact:	Eugene A. Jenneman, Director, (231) 995-1572, ejenneman@nmc.edu Christopher Mahoney, Senior Vice President, Sotheby's Photographs Department, 212-894-1149, Chris.Mahoney@sothebys.com

A small photo with a big legacy

Dennos has rare print of photograph that recently sold for $1.6 million

Traverse City, MI – When Sotheby’s, the noted auction house in New York City, sold a small black-and-white photograph by Edward Weston for $1.6 million earlier this spring, it was one of only three known prints in existence – until the Dennos Museum Center revealed that a fourth print also resides as part of the museum’s permanent collection.

The Dennos Museum Center is now one of only two museums to hold the Weston image. The other is New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art.

“The Dennos Museum Center is privileged to own a rare early print of a pivotal image in Weston's career,” said Christopher Mahoney, Senior Vice President of Sotheby’s Photographs Department. Mahoney describes Weston as one of the most important photographers of the 20th century and will discuss his photography and the market for his work at a 7 p.m. presentation June 26 in Milliken Auditorium at the Dennos Museum Center.

On April 7, Sotheby’s sold a print of Edward Weston's highly modernist nude study for $1.6 million. Eugene Jenneman, Executive Director of the Dennos Museum Center, contacted Sotheby’s after seeing a news report about the record auction price and realizing that NMC holds a print of the same photo, shown below.

The print was a 1989 gift from retired NMC art instructor Jack Ozegovic, his wife Ann and Judith March Davis, who had given the image to the couple from her father’s estate.

“This is a small photo with a big legacy,” Jenneman said. “I knew, when the print was gifted to the then under-construction Museum, it would be one of the most important works in our collection, and it indeed appears to be much rarer than we might have expected.”

According to Sotheby’s, the Weston nude is one of only five classic photographic images to sell for more than $1 million at auction. Mahoney's presentation will address the factors that account for the increasing value of blue-chip photographers, focusing specifically on the Weston nude as a case study.  Admission is free to Museum members and $25 for non-members.

The Weston nude study will also be exhibited concurrently with the upcoming Dennos installation, “A Growing Legacy: Recent Gifts to the Museum” through Oct. 5. The Dennos collection includes nearly 2,000 works of art.

Jenneman said the museum has no plans to sell the photo. “The presence of this important work in our permanent collection increases our value as a premier destination, source of pride and resource for our community,” he said. In addition, it has incomparable value to NMC photo students. 

“We have amassed a small, but growing collection of photography that is a fine educational resource for our photo students on campus,” Jenneman said. “The presence of the Weston gives our collection a degree of international significance in the art world and an exceptional experience for our students when studying the historically important masters of photography.”

About the Dennos Museum Center: Opened in 1991 on the campus of Northwestern Michigan College, the Dennos is the premier cultural facility for performing and visual arts in northern Michigan. It features three changing exhibit galleries, a sculpture court, a unique hands-on Discovery Gallery, a renowned Inuit art gallery, home to its signature collection of art from the Canadian Arctic, and Milliken Auditorium.

About Edward Weston (1886-1958): Born in the Chicago suburbs, Weston moved to California in 1906. The Dennos Museum Center's nude study was taken there in 1925, and is an early and masterful example of his application of Modernism to photography. Weston would refine this approach through the 1920s and ‘30s as he embarked upon the still-life studies of nudes, shells, peppers and other organic forms for which he would become most celebrated.

The Dennos Museum Center is open daily 10 a.m to 5 p.m. and Sundays 1-5 p.m. Admission is $4 adults, $2 children and free to museum members. For more information visit www.dennosmuseum.org or call 231-995-1055. The Dennos Museum Center is located at 1701 East Front Street, Traverse City, MI 49686, at the entrance to the campus of Northwestern Michigan College.

Nude (Torso) Study, 1925 Photograph by Edward Weston
Collection of the Dennos Museum Center, Northwestern Michigan College
(C) 1981 Center for Creative Photography, Arizona Board of Regents