Displaying items by tag: henri cartier bresson

Television journalist George Stephanopoulos has donated his extensive photography collection to the Hyde Collection in Glens Falls, New York. The gift includes 128 works by important American and international artists such as Henri Cartier-Bresson, Larry Fink, Karl Struss, and Garry Winogrand. The donation significantly enhances the museum’s existing photography collection.  

Charles A. Guerin, the director of the Hyde Collection, said, “We have been hopeful of making additions to our photography holdings, but did not imagine that such a significant group of work might come into the collection at one time. The great breadth of photography history as well as the variety of national origins represented by this generous gift by Mr. Stephanopoulos makes this a truly exciting and important moment for the growth of our permanent collection.”

Stephanopoulos is the anchor of ABC’s “Good Morning America,” “This Week with George Stephanopoulos,” and the chief political correspondent for the television network. He served as the senior advisor for policy and strategy to President Bill Clinton.

As the world economy began to tank about five years ago, a curious thing happened at the top level of the international art market: It started to boom. At the annual spring art auctions at Sotheby's and Christie's in New York and their branches around the globe, deep-pocketed bidders snapped up Braques and Bacons, Klimts and Kandinskys, often at record prices.

Now with the global recession officially over but the American and European economies still shaky, auction records for blue-chip modern and contemporary art continue to be shattered. Just a few months ago, a pastel version of Edvard Munch’s "The Scream" (1895) fetched an astounding $119.9 million at Sotheby’s, by far the highest price ever paid at auction for a work of art, surpassing the winning bid of $106.5 million for Picasso's "Nude, Green Leaves and Bust" (1932) at Christie’s two years earlier. A week after the gavel fell on the Munch, Mark Rothko's "Orange, Red, Yellow" (1961) went for nearly $87 million, the artist’s personal best at auction.