Magnum Photos continues its 75th-anniversary celebrations with the latest in a series of three Square Print Sales looking back over its illustrious history, from 1947 to the present day.
The second sale of the series, Now, will take place from Monday, October 17 to Sunday, October 23. The sale follows Precedents, which took place in March, and precedes Vital Signs, the third and final sale scheduled for next spring.
The October sale is curated in partnership with The Photographers’ Gallery in London, which has invited 31 photographers it works with to join in by contributing their own iconic image, taking the total number to more than 100 signed or estate-stamped, museum-quality 6×6” prints.
The images from each of the three Magnum Square Print Sales form a triptych around the wider theme of ‘Then, Now, Next’, selected by each photographer and estate to tell a story from their archives. Each selection has been curated so that the images work alone or in dialogue with each other. The story behind each image, as written by the photographers and estates themselves, is shared alongside each print, and is signed or stamped by the estate.
For the second sale of the series, photographers and estates were asked to select an image from their archive that stands out to them today: an image perhaps that, in retrospect, they feel was pivotal in their career; or an image that reminds them of an experience or a moment, that has stood the test of time; or even an image that they feel captures their photographic voice within the storied 75-year old Magnum archive.
The result of this collective thinking includes images that span eight decades, from Robert Capa’s D-Day landings in 1944 to Sabiha Çimen’s bathers relaxing at a hammam in Turkey in 2020. The selection also includes several stand-out images from the photographers’ archives, such as Cornell Capa’s impromptu visit to the Bolshoi Ballet in 1958, Marilyn Monroe on the set of The Misfits as captured by Eve Arnold in 1960, or Martin Luther King Jr., as photographed by Leonard Freed in 1964. Others include images that represent a photographer’s unique voice — an iconic Alex Webb image from Cuba in 2000, a beach full of life at the Amalfi Coast shot by Martin Parr in 2014, or a classic Steve McCurry from his trip to India in 2016.
From the selection of 31 prints by The Photographers’ Gallery, Evgenia Arbugaeva — winner of the Leica Oskar Barnack Award in 2013 — contributes an image from her hometown in Tiksi, in the Siberian Arctic. Celebrated Finnish photographer Pentti Sammallahti features with a photograph of a toad on a small island in the Baltic Sea in 1974, alongside British photographer Luke Stephenson with a brightly colored budgie from his 2007 series An Incomplete Dictionary of Show Birds.
An exhibition of the full collection of prints will take place at The Photographers’ Gallery, located at 16–18 Ramilies Street, London, W1F 7LW. The exhibition will run from Friday, October 14 — providing attendees with an exclusive look at the prints on sale — until the closing of the sale on October 23.
The Photographers’ Gallery
Turner House, 16-18 Ramillies St, London W1F 7LW, United Kingdom
