08/02/2002
by Reena Jana

Images of New York City’s twin towers will forever haunt us. With due respect to the victims of the horrendous September 11^th, 2001 attacks, it is clear that photographs of the World Trade Center have increased in value. But will they continue to do so? Or will they eventually be sold at genre-based auctions, such as photographs of the ill-fated luxury ship, the Titanic?

Nine decades after the Titanic sunk, killing more than 1,200 passengers after hitting an iceberg en route from Europe to the U.S., photographs of the ship do have a steady market at minor auction houses such as Henry Aldridge and Sons in Wiltshire, England, which holds bi-annual sales of Titanic memorabilia. Yet images of the ship never surface at sales of important photographs. For example, Sotheby’s most recent sales figures of Titanic photographs point to a 1999 Marine Sale in London, a genre auction. An original photographic archive of the rescue of Titanic passengers, comprising of 20 original negatives signed by the photographer (J. Barker), sold for $9,520 (€10,980). While this sum was well above the estimate of only $1,430–7,140 (€1,650-8,230), their value was established far below the current market rate for images of the comparably doomed World Trade Center, captured by contemporary photographers.

Only two weeks after the World Trade Center attacks, a blurry black and white image, World Trade Towers (1997) by the renowned postmodernist Japanese-born photographer Hiroshi Sugimoto, sold in competitive bidding at Sotheby’s New York for $45,600 (€52,600), way beyond its $12,000-18,000 (€13,800-20,760) estimate, setting a record for the artist’s work. And at Christie’s New York the same month, New York (1979), a black and white self-portrait photographed near the towers by the late Hong Kong-born conceptual self-portrait artist Tseng Kwong Chi, fetched $17,625 (€20,323), far exceeding its $3,000-4,000 (€3,500-4,610) estimate. The net proceeds from this sale were donated to the Twin Towers Fund, which aids attack victims. There is proof that the artists’ respective "stock" has risen by their new association with the towers. A decade ago, an earlier Sugimoto’s photograph, Radio City Music Hall (1979) sold at Christie’s New York for $2,200 (€2,540), below its low estimate of $2,500-3,000 (€2,880-3,450) in October 1992, while Tseng’s New York (1979) sold at Christie’s New York in October, 1995 for $3,450 (€3,980), also slightly under its low estimate of $2,500-3,000 (€2,880-3,450).

After the attacks, New York galleries also saw increased interest in work featuring the towers. The show Looking South: New York City Landscapes 1981-2001 opened at the Ariel Meyerowitz Gallery in early November, 2001, featuring a series of photographs of the World Trade Center shot by noted American photographer Joel Meyerowitz, who gained attention for his straightforward images in the 1970s. Ariel Meyerowitz, the artist’s daughter and owner of the gallery (which represents blue chip photographers such as Henri Cartier Bresson), stated that the pieces sold extremely well. Even in early 2002, photographs from the show, which range in price from $4,000 (€4,610) for a 50 x 70 cm print to $12,000 (€13,830) and higher for a 120 x 150 cm laminated print "are still selling at a steady pace," according to Ms. Meyerowitz.

These prices are remarkably higher than Meyerowitz’s auction figures, which have shown an increase but don’t match his current values. In May, 1997, for example, Meyerowitz’s Longnook Beach (1976) sold for $290 (€330), far below its estimate of $500-700 (€580-810). In April, 2000, the photographer’s Untitled (1979) sold for $940 (€1,080), slightly above its estimate of $800-900 (€920-1,040). Because of the timeliness of Meyerowitz’s haunting World Trade Center photographs, the exhibition at Ariel Meyerowitz was featured in non-art, mainstream media outlets including national broadcast news in the United States – exceptionally widespread exposure for a gallery show. Such exposure clearly translated into new visibility for the photographer’s body of work, thus markedly raising his general market value.

At least for now, as the World Trade Center tragedy remains current and newsworthy, photographs of the twin towers are in demand. Yet as time passes, documents of the dual skyscrapers may not fetch their current high prices and be sold steadily at less-prestigious (in terms of art investment) auctions parallel to Sotheby’s Marine Sales in which Titanic images are offered as nostalgic items. A market-conscious collector willing to part with photographs of the World Trade Center would be wise to sell now, while the immediate impact of the buildings’ terrible destruction is not only fresh in the collective memory, but fresh to the market as well.