?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 4,000 - $ 6,000
RAE RUSSEL (1925-2008) A photo essay documenting a social housing development on Henry Street in New York City, with 13 photographs. Circa 1955. Silver prints, the images measuring 9⅝x13 inches (24.4x33 cm.), and slightly smaller, and the reverse, the sheets 11x14 inches (27.9x35.6 cm.), and slightly smaller, 9 are flush mounted, each with Russel's signature in pencil and her New York address stamp with a numeric notation in pencil, on print or mount verso.
Provenance From the Photographer; to a New York Collector, circa 1980s
Encouraged by her mother to pursue photography, Russel worked under Alfred Eisenstadt and Toni Frissell, and became known as both a portrait photographer and a photojournalist. She became a member of the Photo League, whose artists were known for revealing imagery of everyday life in New York. This well-regarded series is no exception, framing the conditions of an African American family in a cold water tenement with both empathy and stark reality.
