E.O. Hoppé: Outside the Stock Exchange, London, 1937

Hoppé Print Prices on the Rise

PASADENA, CALIFORNIA — Now and again the work of a forgotten artist reappears and takes the art world by storm. E.O. Hoppé, an early Modernist photographer active in America and Europe in the 1920s and 1930s, whose work fell into obscurity in the second half of the 20th century, is now regaining his previously achieved status and recognition as one of the greatest masters of his time.

Recent sales by galleries and at auction have demonstrated the strengthening value of Hoppé’s prints. Average print prices have grown from $2,063 in 2000, to $3,770 in 2005. In 2006 the Michael Hoppen Gallery, London, sold nineteen prints for an average of $7,178, representing an 80% increase in print prices from 2005, and between April 2007 and December 2008 Bruce Silverstein, New York, sold twenty prints at an average of $14,375, a 100% increase over 2006 prices. From 2005 to 2008 average Hoppé prime vintage print prices rose 273%.

The following chart demonstrates actual (to date, 2000 through 2007) and current projections (2008 and 2009) of internal rates of return and average print price at dealers and major auction houses:

The photographic art market's apparent delay in recognizing the value of Hoppé's work is the result of curious circumstances. In 1954, the then-famous artist sold his collection to a massive antiquarian picture library in London—essentially entombing his work from both the histories and the market. Time’s passing all but forgot the artist until the mid-1990s, when Hoppé's work was rediscovered both in London and in a family member’s attic in Germany. It took a decade to reconstitute the Hoppé estate collection and to organize this major artistic treasure. Several new publications now in production, coordinated with major international exhibitions, will make the work of this pioneering photo-Modernist available to the public.

Forthcoming Titles (2012–2013):

E.O. Hoppé: Nudes, 1909–1936 (Curatorial Assistance, 2012)
One Hundred Photographs: E.O. Hoppé and the Ballets Russes (Curatorial Assistance, 2012)
E.O. Hoppé: The German Work, Photographs 1925–1938 (Steidl, 2012)
E.O. Hoppé: Indian Subcontinent of the Cusp of Change (2012)
E.O. Hoppé: The British Machine, Photographs of Industrial Britain Between the Wars (2013)

Current Titles:
Hoppé Portraits: Society, Studio, and Street, Photographs 1909–1945 (National Portrait Gallery, 2011)
E.O. Hoppé’s Bombay: Photographs from 1929 (Marg Publications, 2010)
E.O. Hoppé’s Santiniketan: Photographs from 1929 (Marg Foundation, 2010)
E.O. Hoppé’s Amerika: Modernist Photographs from the 1920s (W.W. Norton, 2007)
E.O. Hoppé’s Australia (W.W. Norton, 2007)
Hoppé’s London (Guiding Light, London, August 2006)