Straight to the gut

Tina Modotti | Roses, Mexico (1924)

IT ALWAYS SEEMED a bit incongruous, at the very least, to walk into Susie Tompkins Buell’s penthouse atop the 2500 Steiner Street tower in San Francisco — a full-floor flat with 360-degree views of the city and the bay — and be confronted by images of the Depression.

She was a serious photography collector for decades, and the collection she built has been called “one of the finest and most select collections of photography in private hands.” Back in 1996 she said: “I wanted to collect photos with real social significance — I didn’t want to collect just pretty flowers.” And she did, acquiring straight-to-the-gut images by Dorothea Lange, Edward Weston, Tina Modotti and other revered photographers, just as photography was becoming a more respected and collectible art form. She helped to make the market for fine art photography.

Now her collection has been dispersed into other hands, in other neighborhoods.  On April 4, the Phillips auction house in New York offered 58 images from her collection, including these three by Tina Modotti. View the collection and the auction results here.

Read more: “Susie Tompkins Buell: A Collector’s Story ”

Tina Modotti | Woman Carrying Olla (1926)

Tina Modotti | Campesinos (1926)