Episode 24: A Conversation with Denise Bethel, Part 1
Denise Bethel joined Swann Galleries in 1980, soon after photographs auctions were inaugurated in New York. After a decade at Swann, she moved to Sotheby's in 1990, where she rose from senior specialist to Chairman of the Department in her 25 years there. At Sotheby's, she set records in a host of categories, among them the record for any photographs auction worldwide, at $21.3 million, in December 2014. She orchestrated the sales of no less than eight of the eleven classic photographs that have sold at auction to date for over $1 million or more, and she wielded the gavel for all of them. One of these, Edward Steichen's "The Pond, Moonlight," at $2.93 million in 2006, is still the world record for any classic photograph at auction.
In this episode, Denise and I discuss the first half of her auction career at Swann Galleries, here in New York City. She transformed what was then known as Photographica sales into Photographs auctions, impacting the way people think about buying and collecting photographs.
Subject Guide:
0:00:00 – 0:10:00
Hollins College, Richmond Virginia, Courtauld Institute of Art, Virginia Museum of Fine Art, Poe Foundation, Edgar Allen Poe, National Endowment for the Humanities, The Virginia Commission for the Arts, David Kiehl, Whitney Museum of American Art, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Richard Keresey, Sotheby’s
0:10:00-0:20:00
Sotheby’s, Christie’s, Phillips, Swann Galleries, George Lowry, Albert E. Marshall, Edwin V. Halbmaier, David Margolis, Jean Moss, Margolis & Moss
0:20:00-0:30:00
George Lowry, Gillian Kyles, Claudette Donlan, Edwin V. Halbmaier, Ann Edelstein, the Sidney Strober sale, Will Weissberg sale, Peter Hastings Falk, The Photograph Collector, Robert Persky, Stephen Perloff, American Book Prices Current (ABPC), Beth Gates Warren
0:30:00-0:40:00
David Margolis, Daile Kaplan, Camera Work, Christa Rosenburg
0:40:00-0:50:00
Estate of Lee Witkin, Frederick Evans, Mathew Brady, Edward Weston Nautilus, Edward Steichen Pond, William L. Schaeffer, Maria Umali, Pierre Aproxine Beth Gates Warren, Anne Horton
0:50:00-0:60:00
Penta Hotel, Rodger Kingston, Daile Kaplan
