Ansel Adams' Clearing Winter Storm valued at $500,000

Ansel Adams' Clearing Winter Storm is expected to make $300,000-500,000 in an October 5 photography sale at Christie's New York.

The work is among Adams' most famous images and was taken in his beloved Yosemite National Park.

Ansel Adams Yosemite
Ansel Adams captured the image in 1937

Christie's explains: "The present lot is a mural-sized print and while Adams was cautious about print sizes, he believed a larger format was essential for this extraordinary vista.

"A peerless figure in the history of photography, Ansel's timeless image of New Inspiration Point is alive, impossibly evocative and eternally breathtaking."

The record for a photograph by Ansel Adams stands at $722,000, set for another print of Clearing Winter Storm in 2010.

Irving Penn's Gingko Leaves, New York, 1990 carries an identical estimate of $300,000-500,000.

Penn explained in the preface to his book Flowers (1980) his "preference for flowers considerably after they have passed that point of perfection, when they have already begun spotting and browning and twisting."

The present lot was printed in 1922 in an edition of 22.

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