This week Latest Sale uncovers Photography for the luxury Business Directory. We focus on some of the most expensive photography of all time and explain why. German visual artist Andreas Gursky is behind the 1999 enigmatic piece Rhein II. The 2011 print was auctioned for $4.3 million (then £2.7m), and was recorded at that time as the most expensive photograph to ever be sold.
The Rhein II photograph, the second in the series of six depicts the River Rhine as it flows in between bright green fields, with the cloudy skyline in view. Although the original image was famously manipulated to create the photograhic piece as it, Gursky justified this decision by declaring, “Paradoxically, this view of the river Rhine cannot be obtained in situ, a fictitious construction was required to provide an accurate image of a modern river.”
The print auctioned at Christie’s New York on 8 November 2011 sold for $4,338,500 (then about £2.7m).
Image and references from Wikipedia