10 most expensive photographs in the world, sold for crazy amounts of money

Sometimes photographers amaze us with their art, their ability to uniquely reflect the world around us and make us look at it from a different angle. And sometimes they do something completely disgusting or so ordinary that it is impossible to understand why the work is recognized as a masterpiece. One way or another, these photographs were sold for millions of dollars.

Author - Andreas Gursky Price - $4,338,500

Andreas Gursky is a famous German photographer; he has many photographs that were later sold for incredible amounts of money. In 1999, he took the photograph "Rhine II", which shows the Rhine River between two dams under a majestic overcast sky. In total, Gursky created six images of the Rhine, and “Rhine II” is the largest photograph in the series.

The most amazing thing about the photo is that it was made using Photoshop: initially the background was “spoilt” by a power plant, port facilities and a passerby walking his dog - all of this was removed by Gursky, leaving only the Rhine itself and the dams.

Gursky commented on his actions: "Paradoxically, this view of the Rhine could not be obtained in situ; modification was necessary to provide an accurate image of the modern river."

After finalization, the photographer printed a photograph measuring 185.4 x 363.5 cm, mounted it on acrylic glass and placed it in a frame. The photograph was sold at Christie's in New York for $4,338,500 in 2011 - the buyer was the Monika Sprüth gallery in Cologne, and the photograph was subsequently resold to an unknown collector.

Author - Cindy Sherman Price - $3,890,500

American photographer Cindy Sherman works in the technique of staged photographs. Her work is widely known among the arts community, and she is ranked seventh on ArtReview's 2011 list of the 100 Most Influential People in the Art World. Sherman herself calls herself a performance artist and categorically refuses to recognize herself as a photographer.

One of her most famous and expensive works is photograph #96, taken in 1981: the picture shows a girl, freckled, with red hair and wearing bright orange clothes, lying on her back and looking into the distance. According to Sherman, the photograph carries a deep meaning - a teenage girl, both seductive and innocent, holds in her hand a piece of newspaper with dating advertisements, which means that the still fragile female essence is looking for a way to break out.

The photograph was purchased at a Christie's auction in 2011 by an unknown collector.

Authors - Gilbert Prosch and George Passmore Price - $3,765,276

British artists Gilbert Prosch and George Passmore work in the genre of performance photography. Their works in which they acted as living sculptures brought them worldwide fame.

Their collage of photographs, taken back in 1973, was sold for a lot of money at auction in 2008: the black and white photographs depict men in expensive suits combined with interior items. Buyer unknown.

Author - Jeff Wall Price - $3,666,500

Canadian photographer Jeff Wall is known for his large-format photographs: the artist’s “calling card” is the technique he developed for printing photographs on a transparent basis.

His most famous work, “Dead Warriors Speak,” was created under the influence of the war in Afghanistan. Despite the realism, this is a staged photograph: all the people in the picture are guest actors. When working on it, Wall used makeup and costumes, and the photo itself was taken in a photo studio and later processed on a computer.

The finished image, measuring 229x417 cm, was printed on a transparent base and placed in a plastic box.

Author - Richard Prince Price - $3,401,000

Richard Prince is considered one of the most celebrated American artists of his generation. The main themes of his works are stylization of the period of so-called “American antiquity” and the modern world of consumption. Three photographs brought him world fame, including “Cowboy”.

The photograph was created specifically for the Marlboro advertising campaign: the cowboy in the picture, according to the artist, appears not as a typical standard of American courage glorified in Westerns, but as some kind of illusory sex symbol, the unattainable ideal of a real man.

The painting was sold in 2007 at Christie's auction.

Author - Andreas Gursky Price - $3,346,456

The aforementioned "Rhine II" is not Gursky's only million-selling photograph: his two-photo work "99 Cents II" sold for less, but still brought in several million more dollars for its creator.

The photographs show a supermarket displaying consumer goods. In general, the two photographs are strikingly similar and differ only in angles. Of course, Gursky resorted to computer processing to remove unnecessary details from the photographs - customers, low-hanging lamps and wires.

The photograph was purchased in 2007 by Ukrainian businessman Viktor Pinchuk. The high cost of the photographs is due, first of all, to the name of the author, which by the time of sale had already acquired enormous fame.

Author - Andreas Gursky Price - $2,941,755

Another photograph by Gursky depicts the night landscape of Los Angeles - the city from a bird's eye view looks like a field of distant artificial lights. Photography symbolizes the modern world and man’s place in it. According to the artist’s idea, man is the main character of this photograph: everyone lives in a huge world of universal globalization, where he takes the place of just one of millions of the same inhabitants.

Author - Edward Steichen Price - $2,928,000

Impressionist artist Edward Steichen worked in the first half of the 20th century: he created a famous series of portraits of Hollywood celebrities, and later took up documentary filmmaking, for which he received several Oscars.

His most famous photographic work, “Lake in the Moonlight,” is an autochrome photograph: originally a black and white photograph, “Lake” acquired color thanks to Steichen’s use of light-sensitive jelly. No one had used this technology before, so the picture can be considered the world's first color photograph.

In 2006, “Lake in the Moonlight” was sold at Sotheby’s for a huge amount of money. The price can be considered reasonable - the photograph is more than a century old, and it is an excellent preserved illustration of the history of photography.

Author - Cindy Sherman Price - $2,770,500

Another example of Cindy Sherman’s work is untitled photograph #153. It depicts a dead, mud-stained woman with bluish-gray hair, glassy eyes looking up at the sky, her mouth half-open, and a bruise visible on her cheek. The photo leaves behind an eerie feeling, but, nevertheless, it was sold at auction for a seven-figure sum.

Author - unknown Price - $2,300,000

Billy the Kid was an American outlaw accused of killing 21 people. The governor of one of the states of the Wild West offered a large reward for his capture, and Kid was killed by Sheriff Pat Garrett, who then wrote a biography of the thug.

The uniqueness of this photograph is that it is the only image of Billy the Kid; no other photographs exist. It was sold in 2011 at the 22nd annual Brian Lebel's Old West Show & Auction in Denver. Collector William Koch bought it for more than $2 million, although initially the organizers did not expect to receive more than $400 thousand for the photo.

The authorship is attributed to Kid's friend Dan Dedrick, but it is no longer possible to determine exactly who took the photo. The photograph was taken using the ambrotype method, using a metal plate, and the image on it is reflected in a mirror.