FEATURES ARCHIVE

German collector Gert Elfering has long been a committed champion of the great post-war photography of fashion, glamour and high style. His collecting activities – widely acknowledged through the three dedicated auctions that Christie’s has staged since 2005 – would involve his focusing in depth on particular artists whose perspectives resonated with him. 

Jeanloup Sieff (1933-2000) was one of those special talents whose work he chose to collect in depth, and whose mastery and vision we celebrate in our forthcoming sale. Sieff  left an indelible stamp on the history of photography and has assumed a rightful place in the international Pantheon of great talents of the last half century, with a special place of honour in his native France. 

The present collection pays tribute to Sieff’s artistry; and in the range of imagery included – embracing fashion, erotic subjects, portraits and landscape – illustrates the various genres within which he so tenaciously and effectively pursued his highly personal vision. 

The work that Sieff created through a career that lasted over forty years is so consistently infused with the potent traces of his personality and imagination that his pictures are always immediately recognisable.  There are certain consistent physical characteristics – the ingredients one might say of a signature style.  He loved the discipline of black and white, only rarely working in colour; his prints are invariably beautifully crafted with a subtle exploitation of tone and with a fondness for the evocative potential of shadow; and he frequently used to great advantage the spatial distortion of wide-angle lenses.  But beyond these technicalities, and of greater ultimate significance, was his ability to capture the elusive and the poetic, and particularly to evoke a mood at once romantic and melancholic. 

Enquiries:
Philippe Garner
pgarner@christies.com
+44 (0)20 7389 2366