Image above: ©Elliott Erwitt, France, Provence, 1955. Donated by the artist.
The 18th annual Friends of Friends Photography Auction was held on October 6, 2015, at the Metropolitan Pavilion in New York City.
The highly anticipated photography event, which raised $166,000, was presented by Friends Without A Border, a non-profit organization that provides urgently needed medical care to children in Southeast Asia. Elliott Erwitt was honored that night as “Artist of the Year.” The live auction featured over 100 works by leading artists including Berenice Abbott, Mike Disfarmer, Elliott Erwitt, Louis Faurer, Lee Friedlander, Bob Gruen, Eikoh Hosoe, Kenro Izu, Annie Leibovitz, Saul Leiter, Leon Levinstein, Mary Ellen Mark, Richard Misrach, Daido Moriyama, Marvin Newman, Robert Polidori, Herb Ritts, Ken Schles, Hiroshi Sugimoto, Weegee, William Wegman, Garry Winogrand, and many more. The silent auction featured over 120 objects including photographs and rare photography books.
Image above: ©Richard Misrach, 9.26.98 6:31PM, 1998, from the series Golden Gate. Donated by the artist courtesy of Fraenkel Gallery, Pace/MacGill Gallery, and Marc Selwyn Fine Art.
Image Above: Ken Schles, Melanie in Veselka, 1986. Donated by the artist, courtesy of Howard Greenberg Gallery.
Image above: ©Herb Ritts, William S. Burroughs - Glasses, Kansas 1990. Copyright the Herb Ritts Foundation. Donated by Herb Ritts Foundation.
Friends Without A Border (FWAB) was founded by New York-based photographer Kenro Izu in 1996 to provide urgently needed high quality and compassionate medical care to children in Southeast Asia. In 1999, Friends Without A Border opened Angkor Hospital for Children in Siem Reap, Cambodia, where more than 1.3 million patients have been treated. Lao Friends Hospital for Children, opened in February 2015 with outpatient services, is growing to become the first full-service hospital in northern Laos where widespread poverty, poor public infrastructure, and highly mountainous terrain have created significant barriers to accessing health care. FWAB is also dedicated to providing continuing education to health care professionals throughout Southeast Asia; improving the health, nutrition, and hygiene of local communities through outreach programs and homecare; and stimulating research to develop sound healthcare practices appropriate for local conditions. More information is available at: www.fwab.org
The Annual Friends of Friends Photography Auction
Since its inception, the annual Friends of Friends Photography Auction has raised more than $2.2 million. More than 900 artists and 40 different galleries from around the world have donated over 1,600 prints. A number of artists and/or their estates have contributed significantly over the years, including Richard Avedon, Walker Evans, Adam Fuss, Eikoh Hosoe, André Kertèsz, William Klein, Daido Moriyama, Irving Penn, Herb Ritts, Sebastião Salgado, and Hiroshi Sugimoto. In addition, more than 50 volunteers contribute their time and talents each year.
