?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 2,500 - $ 3,500
VOLKMAR WENTZEL (1915-2006) A set of 11 photographs depicting Washington D.C. by night. Silver prints, the images measuring 14 7/8x10 3/4 inches (37.8x27.3 cm.), and smaller, and the reverse, the mounts 20x16 inches (50.8x40.6 cm.), each with Wentzel's signature in pencil on print recto, his signature, title, and date in pencil on mount recto, and his typed credit or a label with his credit name and title on mount verso; one with several exhibition labels on mount verso. 1936; printed 1936-39
Volkmar Wentzel was inspired by Brassaï, the Hungarian-French artist, to photograph "Washington by Night" in 1935. In 1933 Brassaï wrote that he had attempted "to capture the beauty of streets and gardens in the rain and fog, and to capture Paris by night," a body of revolutionary work published as Paris de Nuit in 1933. Volkmar Wentzel, working as a darkroom technician in Washington D.C. in 1935, was given a copy of Brassaï's book and thereby inspired to haunt the deserted nighttime streets of Washington with a tripod and 4x5" film camera, capturing classical architecture and monumental sculpture with dramatic light and shadow. First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt liked his pictures enough that she bought photographs from the aspiring young man. Volkmar's salon prints were exhibited at the World's Fair and he was soon hired by National Geographic, who published his first story, West Virginia, in 1938. His distinguished career as a photographer, filmmaker, author, and photo-preservationist continued into the 21st century.
