photo: Jeff Wall | Adrian Walker, artist, drawing from a specimen in a laboratory in the Dept. of Anatomy at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver
Canadian photographer Jeff Wall is about to join a very select group of photographers. His 1992 photo of an artist sketching a forearm could fetch more than $1 million at auction in New York next month, according to an expert.
Jeff Wall (1946) is a master of contemporary photography, known for carefully composed scenes with a deceptively ordinary appearance. His images are rich in atmosphere, leaving viewers to wonder what exactly is happening. Moreover, Wall uses a visual language that invites reflection on art and philosophy.
His 1.2-by-1.6-meter photograph of the artist, matter-of-factly titled Adrian Walker, artist, drawing from a specimen in a laboratory in the Dept. of Anatomy at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, is considered a masterpiece of modern art and is praised by Christie's auction house as a photographic tour de force.
It is the first of a series of photographs in which Wall uses un profil perdu (lost profile), a pose in which the subject turns his head away from the viewer, in such a way that no expression is visible.
That pose, combined with the minimalist, scholarly character of the laboratory where the scene takes place, creates a sense of detachment and mystery.
If the photograph fetches more than the estimated 1.2 million dollars, it would not be Wall’s first seven-figure sale. In July 2008, his photograph The Well, showing a woman digging a deep hole, sold for nearly 1.3 million dollars at Sotheby’s in London.
