?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 2,000 - $ 3,000
MONETA SLEET, JR. (1926 - 1996) Billie Holiday.
Silver print, 1958. 327x197 mm; 12 7/8x7 3/4 inches, full margins. With the artist's Ebony-Jet ink stamp, "Staff Photo By Moneta Sleet, Jr. Ebony-Jet--Ebony, Jr.," on verso.
Provenance: the family of Moneta Sleet, Jr.
Sleet worked for Ebony and Jet magazines, where the photojournalist published his photographs of politicians and musicans. He recalls this harrowing image of Billie Holiday--one of his most reproduced photographs--in the last year of her life, her arms scarred from needles: "A very tragic figure. During the photo session, she seemed as if she was just going through the motions. There was despair in her eyes."
