Phillips de Pury & Company kicked off the fall auction season with two sales on October 4: a various-owners sale and a single-owner sale called The Arc of Photography: A Private East Coast Collection. The single-owner sale fetched $2,345,375, and the general photographs sale made a total of $4,583,875. Together, the sales presented works ranging from the historical—Pierrot with Fruit, a salt print by Nadar and Adrien Tournachon, 1854-55, which brought $542,500, well above the $200,000 high estimate – to the contemporary—Candida Hofer’s Handelingenkamer Tweede Kamer der Staten-Generaal Den Haag III, 2004, from her “Libraries” series, which brought $104,500. The top lot in the general sale (and that sale’s cover lot) was The Beatles Portfolio: John Lennon, Ringo Starr, George Harrison and Paul McCartney, musicians, London, psychedelic dye-transfer prints by Richard Avedon, from 1967, which sold for $722,500.

Sotheby’s photography sale in New York on October 5 totaled $4,754,376 and was 71.5 percent sold by lot. The top lot was a set of Camera Work, which sold for $398,500, an auction record for a complete set of Camera Work journals. Pierre Dubreuil’s The First Round, 1932, a close up of a very young, fresh-faced boxer holding up his gloves, brought $314,500, a record for that artist at auction. Ansel Adams’s Moonrise, Hernandez, New Mexico, perhaps his most famous image, brought $362,500. And Alexander Gardner’s Photographic Sketchbook of the War sold for $158,500.

The first Christie’s photography sale at which Deborah Bell was at the helm was 73 percent sold by lot and brought $4,811,625. Works by two of the medium’s masters, Ansel Adams and Robert Frank, peppered the top ten list, but ten prints from Vik Muniz’s series The Best of Life, 1989-1995, brought the second highest price, $170,500. The photographs are of drawings Muniz made from memory based on famous Life magazine covers. Adams’s Clearing Storm, Sonoma County Hills, five gelatin silver print enlargements from 1951, was the top lot, bringing $242,500. Robert Frank’s London, of a child running down the street, away from the open door of a hearse, 1951 (printed in the 1970s), sold for $116,500. On October 7, Christie’s held the fifth sale of photographs from the Bruce and Nancy Berman Collection, this one focused on black-and-white images of the American landscape. The sale totaled $1,001,938, with 80 percent sold by lot. The top lot was Dorothea Lange’s The Human Face, 1933, of a young boy, his hair falling into his face, which sold for $40,000, well above the $7,000 high estimate.

Swann Galleries auction on October 18 brought a total of $1,323,507, with a 35 percent buy-in rate. Fifty large-format prints from Berenice Abbott’s Retrospective Portfolio, from 1930-60, printed in 1982, was the top lot, selling for $90,000. Swann’s sales tend to skew toward historical work, but contemporary photographs sold well, too: Sally Mann’s famous Candy Cigarette, 1989, brought $38,400. And Cindy Sherman’s As Marilyn Monroe, 1982, sold for $16,800. Another highlight: Edward Curtis’s orotone, Canyon del Muerto, 1906, brought $66,000.

On October 21, the photography sale held by Freeman’s totaled $246,630. The top lot consisted of two prints by Harry Callahan—Weed Against Sky, Detroit, and Eleanor, Chicago, which sold together for $15,000. In addition, Robert Mapplethorpe’s color Polaroid of Ken Moody sold for $8,750.

The auctions continued in November with Bonham’s sale in New York, simulcast in San Francisco and Los Angeles, on November 1, totaling $581,875. The highlights consisted largely of historical work or work by the medium’s masters: the top lot was Ansel Adams’s Clearing Winter Storm, Yosemite National Park, California, which sold for $20,000. One of Irving Penn’s ethnographic portraits, Five Okapa Warriors, New Guinea, brought $15,000. Henri Cartier-Bresson’s Srinagar, Kashmir sold for $16,500, while Cartier-Bresson’s Rue Mouffetard brought $12,000. Select plates from Eadweard Muybridge’s Animal Locomotion brought $15,500.

A week later, Doyle New York’s auction on November 7 made a total of $92,719, with a solid 82 percent of the 561 lots sold. A platinum-toned gelatin silver print of the N.Y. Public Library, 1914, by Karl Struss sold for $6,250. Many works by Alfred Eisenstadt were on offer, including Drum Major and Children, University of Michigan, and Four Dancers in Window, which each sold for $6,250. A number of Japanese photobooks also sold, including a second edition of Eikoh Hosoe and Yukio Mishima’s Ordeal by Roses, 1971, which brought $3,438.