This Photo of a Potato Sold for Over $1,000,000


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You might not think much about this photo of a potato (maybe you do?), but it’s one of the most expensive photos in the world, selling for in excess of $1,000,000 last year.

The work, titled “Potato #345 (2010),” is from photographer Kevin Abosch’s, latest series called ‘iconic black backdrop’. This series has captured the interest of famous business people in the Silicon Valley tech industry in particular, with the rich and famous regularly paying in excess of $150,000 for a single photo shoot with Abosch.

“Kevin likes potatoes because they, like people are all different yet immediately identifiable as being essentially of the same species,” Kevin’s studio writes. “He has photographed many potatoes. This one is one of his favorites.”

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[Above: Self Portrait by Kevin Abosch]

According to Kevin, the sale came about when a wealthy buyer who collects Abosch’s work was visiting the photographer’s Paris home in 2015. They saw the photo — a 162 x 162cm print mounted on dibond — hanging on the wall and inquired about purchasing it for their collection.

Apparently, the price was non-negotiable: €1,000,000, or about $1,083,450USD with today’s exchange rate. The buyer agreed to the price and purchased the photo, making it Abosh’s largest sale of a single image to date.

The price is a far cry from the $6.5 million that was allegedly paid for Peter Lik’s “Phantom” photo, but the sale price places this photo in the top 20 of most expensive photos of all time: it’s almost exactly the same price that was paid for Edward Weston’s “Nautilus (1927)” at a Sotheby’s New York auction in April 2010.

(via PetaPixel)


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