Bewegungsstudie by Rudolf Koppitz from a copy of Pictures from the Tyng Collection – £750 at Stride & Son.
A copy took £750 in a Stride & Son (18% buyer’s premium) sale on April 7.
Though Czech-born, Koppitz studied, worked and taught in Vienna for much of his life and this photograph of dancers from the Vienna State Opera & Ballet is his most famous work.
In the original brown card wrappers, and with an image of ‘Mrs Violet Gordon Woodhouse at the Harpsichord’ on the cover, this copy retained the original stapled card case but lacked the loose-leaf list of the subjects.
The work appears rarely at salerooms but American Book Prices Current (ABPC) auction records show that in 2012 a copy offered at auction by Swann in New York sold for $8000. That one was described as having an introductory leaf laid-in.
Comic groups
One of 150+ assorted comics, almost every one of them illustrated – among them the Swamp Thing seen here – sold for £1650 at Stride & Son.
There were also a great many comics in the Chichester sale, some of them well-known commercially published titles, others defined as ‘Underground’.
One lot, billed as three folders of original art and mock-ups, but identifying only Amazing Love Stories #3, bore no estimate at all but sold at £650, while a lot offering 150+ assorted comics, almost every one of them illustrated – among them the Swamp Thing seen above – made £1650.
