2022 will mark the 75th anniversary of MagnumPhotos, one of the world’s most important photo agencies, which over the years has amassed an archive of images of the most important events and personalities in history. To celebrate this milestone, Magnum has announced an unprecedented sale of 70 archive prints in 14×14 size, exclusively from 14 to 20 March. The sale will be called “Precedents” and precedes the June and October sales entitled “Magnum 75” and “Vital Signs”. The Magnum photographers themselves have selected the shots for sale (€100), choosing from symbolic images or starting points for a story that can be completed with other photos from the archive. The faces of Martin Luther King Jr, AudreyHepburn or JoeBiden are just some of the images through which Magnum Photos tells the story of politics, culture and entertainment.
USA. New York City. 1957. Queen ELIZABETH II on her visit to America.SOUTH AFRICA. Johannesburg. Nelson MANDELA, leader of the African National Congress Party, in his office. 1993.BURMA. Shan States. World War II. A leg rower propels his canoe over Inle Lake. 1942.American Baptist minister and civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. (1929 – 1968) gives a press conference regarding an agreement reached on a ‘limited desegregation plan’ outside the A.G. Gaston Motel in Birmingham, Alabama, February 1963. Taking notes behind Luther King is his speechwriter Clarence B. Jones.(Photo by Ernst Haas/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
The agency founded in 1947 by Robert Capa, Henri Cartier-Bresson, David Seymour, George Rodger and William Vandivert will no longer give the opportunity to buy these photographs in this year’s sales. The photographers have chosen for “Precedent” shots symbolic of a beginning, literal or symbolic, understood as the origin of something from which everything has changed, including the artists’ own careers. Among the names are Alec Soth, Matt Black, Cristina de Middel, Inge Morath, Harry Gruyaert, Hannah Price, Sabiha Cimen, Marilyn Silverstone, Khalik Allah, Thomas Hoepker and Olivia Arthur, but also a shot of the Beatles taken by David Hurn or a portrait of MarleneDietrich photographed by Eve Arnold at Columbia Records Studios in 1952.
USA. NYC. 1979.USA. American actress Marilyn MONROE on the set of “The Misfits”, directed by John HUSTON. 1960.SOUTH AFRICA. 1960s. Contract-expired miners are on the right, carrying their discharge papers and wearing “European” clothes while new recruits, many in tribal blankets, are on the left.RUSSIA, Northcaucasus, Daghestan, 1997. Wire Walking Village.AUSTRIA. Vienna. 1944.
From the photo-essay on “Praüscher’s Panoptikum” at the Prater. A grotesque chamber of horrors dating from 1870, it contained wax figures of historical personages, inventions, events, crimes, illenesses, and anatomical depictions. It was already banned at this time, and by the end of the war had been pretty much demolished by the SS.G.B. NORTHERN IRELAND. Londonderry. Ten years after the arrival of British troops in the province. The barricades are once more dividing Catholics and Protestants in areas of Belfast and Londonderry. Children eating their ice creams while soldiers patrol the streets of Londonderry. 1979.WORLD WAR II. The Pacific Campaign. February 1945. The Battle of Iwo Jima (Japanese island). US Marine demolition team blasting out a cave on Hill 382.USA. New York City. Harlem. 2012.TUNISIA. Jendouba. Ain Drahim. 16 November 2019.
A rooster.USA. New York. 1954. Jewish Hassidic wedding.G.B. ENGLAND. LONDON. The BEATLES during filming of ‘A Hard Days Night’. The Beatles film was primarily shot on a moving train. The four Beatles running on train platform. 1964.USA. New York City. Marlene Dietrich at the recording studios of COLUMBIA RECORDS, who were releasing most of her songs she had performed for the troops during World War II, including LILI MARLENE, Miss Otis Regrets.She was 51 years old and starting a come-back in show business.It was a wet and cold November night and work could only begin at midnight, at the advise of Marlene’s astrologer. November 1952.Drum Scans by Laumont, March 17th 2011American Baptist minister and civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. (1929 – 1968) gives a press conference regarding an agreement reached on a ‘limited desegregation plan’ outside the A.G. Gaston Motel in Birmingham, Alabama, February 1963. Taking notes behind Luther King is his speechwriter Clarence B. Jones.(Photo by Ernst Haas/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
