William Egglestone's Greenwood, Mississippi, 1973 is valued at $220,000-280,000 ahead of a photography auction at Phillips New York on April 10.
Egglestone is among the most respected American photographers of his generation and proved highly influentual in his promotion of colour photography as an art form throughout the 1960s and 1970s.
 Greenwood, Mississippi, 1973 is among Egglestone's best known works |
The image, also known as The Red Ceiling, is infamous for the indefinable sense of menace that it projects - despite being taken in the decidedly unthreatening environs of a TGI Friday's in Memphis.
Egglestone himself said of his most iconic work: "The Red Ceiling is so powerful, that in fact I've never seen it reproduced on the page to my satisfaction.
"When you look at the dye it is like red blood that's wet on the wall.... A little red is usually enough, but to work with an entire red surface was a challenge."
In 2012, three large format works by the artist were sold at a charity auction at Christie's New York for a combined $5.2m. The record for a single print was set at $578,500 for Untitled, 1970 in the same sale.
Hiroshi Sugimoto's The Music Lesson (1999) is estimated to make $200,000-250,000.
 Sugimoto's photograph is based on a painting by Vermeer |
The work is based on Vermeer's enduring masterpiece Lady at the Virginals with a Gentleman (1662-1665) and is taken from Sugimoto's Portraits series - which features life-size wax works of figures from history arranged before the camera.
We have this rare signed copy of legendary portrait photographer Yousuf Karsh's Fifty Year Retrospective for sale.
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