Although it didn’t quite reach the $4,338,500 mark Andreas Gursky’s Rhine II fetched at auction, an image coined as the world’s most expensive photo, Canadian photographer Jeff Wall’s Dead Troops Talk (shown above) came pretty darn close this past Wednesday at Christie’s latest Post-War and Contemporary Art Evening Sale.
The esteemed New York City auction house estimated that Hall’s simulated scene of the 1986 Soviet-Afghan war, a shot depicting an isolated Red Army patrol post ambush at the hands of Mujahedeen rebels, would take home around $1.5 – $2 million at final sale. However, as is the case with many high profile auctions, Dead Troops Talk raked-in a realized price of $3,666,500, doubling the already staggering pre-sale estimates.
The sale has officially set a new record among Canadian-born photographers, and the image has catapulted itself to the third position overall in the list for the highest prices ever paid for a photograph.
The auction marks the sale of one of only two Dead Troops Talk copies that exist today.
Via: The Vancouver Sun | Via: PP
