USA: A nude photograph of film director Roman Polanski and his wife Sharon Tate goes under the hammer in New York City

Record ID: 807263

  • Title: USA: A nude photograph of film director Roman Polanski and his wife Sharon Tate goes under the hammer in New York City
  • Date: 10th December 2009
  • Summary: NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK, UNITED STATES (DECEMBER 7, 2009) (REUTERS) (SOUNDBITE) (English) PHILIPPE GARNER, INTERNATIONAL HEAD, PHOTOGRAPHS, CHRISTIE'S, SAYING: "I suspect that that news have made people think a little more about him and the story and perhaps pay a little more attention to the picture than they might have done in normal circumstances." VARIOUS PEOPLE AT
  • Embargoed: 25th December 2009 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Usa
  • Country: USA
  • Reuters ID: LVADGKS037LMT91TUMWHFWNYJRO
  • Story Text: A nude photograph of film director Roman Polanski and his wife Sharon Tate taken shortly before she was brutally murdered, sold at auction for $11,250 (USD) with premium in New York City on Monday (December 7).
    The large-scale gelatin silver print, from an image taken by English photographer David Bailey in 1969 just months before actress Tate and four others were brutally slain by followers of Charles Manson, was printed in 1988 for a traveling exhibition.
    The 33-inch by 33-inch portrait depicts the couple from the waist up. Tate poses in profile to the camera with her right arm over Polanski's shoulder, and Polanski's arms are wrapped around his wife's torso. Both are gazing into the lens.
    "Bailey knew Polanski very well, not least because Bailey had ambitions himself to be a filmmaker and indeed in 1966 he ended up making a 30 minute short which I think rarely gets seen, it's a real art-house movie which Polanski had financed for him, so they were very close through those years," says Philippe Garner, International Head of Photographs at Christie's auction house.
    "This picture of Polanski with his bride is one which I think is very poignant obviously because it was taken earlier in 1969 - in the summer of that year she was murdered so it has a particular emotional resonance which was certainly not intended when it was taken but it is a haunting picture for that reason," he says.
    Polanski, 76, is currently under house arrest at his chalet in the Swiss resort of Gstaad pending a decision on a U.S. extradition request. He fled the United States in 1978 while awaiting sentencing for having unlawful sex with a 13 year old girl.
    He never returned to Los Angeles, where Tate, pregnant with their child, was murdered.
    Garner says recent global media attention on the Polanski case had generated a certain level of interest in the print.
    "I suspect that that news have made people think a little more about him and the story and perhaps pay a little more attention to the picture than they might have done in normal circumstances," Garner says.
    Polanski, the director of hit films such as 'Rosemary's Baby' and 'Chinatown' won the best director Oscar for 'The Pianist' in 2002.
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