• Andreas Gursky’s Rhine II, C-print mounted to plexiglass in artist's frame 350 x 200cm.
    Andreas Gursky’s Rhine II, C-print mounted to plexiglass in artist's frame 350 x 200cm.
Close×

An anonymous buyer has paid US$4.3 million for an image by German photographer Andreas Gursky, making it the world’s most expensive photograph.

Gursky is an internationally-acclaimed visual artist known for his enormous architecture and landscape colour photographs, often taken from high vantage points.

The image Rhine II, sold at a Christies’ auction in New York last week, is a 1999 variation on one of his earlier photographs of the Rhine.

Before the 1990s, 56-year-old Gursky did not digitally manipulate his images but has since been frank about his use of computers to edit and enhance his large-scale photographs. 

For Rhine II, he digitally removed all extraneous features such as dog walkers, cyclists and a factory building, according to The Guardian.

The previous highest price paid for a photograph was a 1981 print by Cindy Sherman.

RhineII

The world's most expensive photo. In an interview with director Ben Lewis in 2002, Gursky described Rhine II as his favourite image. "It says a lot using the most minimal means … for me it is an allegorical picture about the meaning of life and how things are."

Story first published at www.photoimagingnews.com.au

comments powered by Disqus