Sam Wagstaff, partner to the eminent photographer Robert Mapplethorpe, put contemporary photography on the map when he sold his collection to the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles for millions of dollars in 1984.
Since then, photographs have become highly collectable globally, and some works fetch up to $200,000.
Credit:
Photographic work by big names such as Tracey Moffatt, an Indigenous Australian artist, Bill Henson, Polly Borland and Petrina Hicks are prized.
Prices for works by Moffatt or Henson can reach tens of thousands of dollars, and Robin Beeche’s fashion and art photography is represented in major collections, including London’s Victoria and Albert Museum.
Other images by lesser-known Australian photographers provide an opportunity to start a collection – before their work starts to increase in value.
The Centre for Contemporary Photography (CCP), in Melbourne’s suburban Fitzroy, regularly hosts photography exhibitions – from Australia and abroad.
US photographer Paul Mpagi Sepiya, who showed work at the Whitney Biennial in New York, is on the rise, according to those in the know, as are photographers such as Ruth Maddison, whose images from the 1970s and ’80s are in demand.
When Maddison – based in Eden, NSW – came to Melbourne, she photographed late artist Keith Haring against the now protected mural at Collingwood Yards.
“Ruth’s work starts at $5000, but a photograph from one of her limited gelatin silver prints [one of six] can cost $12,000,” says Hugh Hirst, gallery manager for the CCP. The work of other photographers, such as Shea Kirk, who also exhibited at the CCP, can be purchased for “as little” as $900.