Pier 24 to sell famed collection worth more than $15 million
The Pilara Family Foundation will be selling its internationally famous photo collection this spring in auctions at Sotheby’s, the auction house announced Friday, March 3.
The collection — which includes works by 500 photographers from Richard Avedon and Lee Friedlander to Dorothea Lange — has been exhibited at Pier 24 Photography in San Francisco since 2010. Founder Andy Pilara, whose foundation also runs the waterfront art space, announced in January that the family plans to close the 27,000-square-foot gallery, one of the largest photography exhibition venues in the world, in July 2025 following a long battle over its lease with the Port of San Francisco. The foundation is shifting its focus to funding in the fields of health care research, arts and education.
Sotheby’s estimates proceeds will be in excess of $15 million, calling the sale “one of the most significant private collections of photography to ever come to auction.”
While auctions of the collection will take place throughout 2023, the marquee day and evening sales are scheduled for May 1-2 in New York.
“Pier 24 has undoubtedly had a significant impact on the cultural scene in San Francisco, as it quickly established itself as one of the premier destinations for photography in the world,” said Emily Bierman, Sotheby’s global head of photographs. “The Pilaras’ commitment to education and giving back to San Francisco will only continue, as proceeds from the auctions of the collection will support the Pilara Foundation, with education as one of its primary focuses.”
The Pilara Family Collection is among the most extensive surveys of 20th century and
“[I]n sharing this collection, I hope others might similarly be inspired to rethink the way they see the world.” Andy Pilara, founder of Pier 24 Photography
postwar photography in the world, encompassing more than 5,000 images. Pilara and his wife, Mary, started the collection in 2003 after seeing the retrospective exhibition of photographer Diane Arbus, “Revelations,” at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. The foundation’s first purchase was a work from Arbus’ “Untitled” series, and since then built its collection with an emphasis on the work of American photographers such as Robert Adams, Imogen Cunningham, Walker Evans, Garry Winogrand, and Larry Sultan.
“Growing up in San Francisco, I watched my father become excited by and obsessed with the various objects he collected, whether they were paintings, photographs or baseball memorabilia,” said Pilara in a release from Sotheby’s. “Looking at and collecting photographs enabled me to use the other side of my brain, to be involved in something creative. Photography changed my way of seeing, and in sharing this collection, I hope others might similarly be inspired to rethink the way they see the world.”
Over more than two decades, Pier 24 Photography has debuted 11 exhibitions, all free to the public, and published more than 20 books. The foundation also partnered with California College of the Arts on the Larry Sultan Visiting Artist Program and worked with Magnum Photos on the “Postcards from America” project documenting contemporary life across the country.
Among the works in the sale are images from Avedon’s famed series “The Family” for Rolling Stone magazine in 1976 and works from Friedlander’s “The Little Screens” and “America by Car.” Among the photos by Lange is a large print of the famed “Migrant Mother, Nipomo, California” from 1936, one of the most iconic images of the Great Depression.
Among the vernacular photography offered in the sale is a photo-booth portrait of a young woman named Norma Jeane Baker, from 1940: That teenager would go on to be actor Marilyn Monroe, one of the most famous photo subjects in the world in the 1950s.
Ahead of the auction, Sotheby’s noted that 112 photographs were already acquired from the collection by the Glenstone Museum in Potomac, Md. Among the key purchases is an edition of Arbus’ “A box of ten photographs” from 1970, of which just eight boxes were produced. Glenstone acquired portfolio “1/50,” signed by Arbus and dedicated to Avedon, which includes an 11th image.
Other acquisitions by Glenstone include Hiroshi Sugimoto’s “The Last Supper: Acts of God,” a five-panel silver gelatin print spanning more than 24 feet, created from a life-size wax reproduction of Leonardo da Vinci’s masterpiece “The Last Supper” that was damaged in 2012 during Hurricane Sandy.
Pilara called it “an honor that a group of significant photographs from Pier 24 Photography will now be included in Glenstone’s collection,” especially as his organization shares key philosophies including “prioritizing free admission, community engagement, scholarship and arts education.”
The Glenstone Museum, established in 2006 by American businessman Mitchell Rales and his wife, curator Emily Wei Rales, focuses on collecting and exhibiting art post-World War II to the present. The museum credited the acquisition partly to the guidance of San Francisco gallerist Jeffrey Fraenkel, whose Fraenkel Gallery is among the foremost photography galleries in the world.
Pier 24’s current show, “Looking Forward: Ten Years of Pier 24 Photography,” is on view through the end of the year.