The Expert Eye

Daile Kaplan is a true champion of photography.   As Director of the Photographs Department at Swann Galleries she introduced dedicated sales of vernacular photographs and photobooks, setting numerous world auction records along the way.  In addition to her work at Swann, she's an author, curator, and was a featured appraiser on PBS' Antiques Roadshow for over 20 years.   Listen on to hear...

A trip to Istanbul in 2011 revealed several mysteries, including a portrait of a dark-eyed, scantily clad woman whose true identity has been elusive for over 100 years. Who is Kaloma and why is she in so many antique stores throughout the world?

In the summer of 2025, Aimee participated in the 30th season of PBS’ beloved program, Antiques Roadshow. As a volunteer appraiser, it’s always exciting to see what viewers bring to the show. This time, however, a guest brought some photographs that blew her away… it was a huge collection of portraits of dogs smoking pipes, collected over a period of 20 years. It was the perfect chance to play phot...

In my continuing series of conversations with people who have shaped the Photographs market, I move back to focusing on the auction world.  I sat down with Rick Wester, who, in addition to being a private dealer, consultant, and gallery owner, he has headed up the Photographs departments of 2 of 3 major auction houses, and has put together some of the most memorable sales of the last 40 years.  I...

Ralph Eugene Meatyard’s series of photographs featuring his family in unexpected places and costumes are hard to describe but entirely captivating. He found inspiration for a series of photographs from a book published in 1911 by Ambrose Bierce called ‘The Devil’s Dictionary.’ After handling one of Meatyard’s prints at Sotheby’s, Aimee gets to the bottom of what these two things have in common, wh...

In 1853, photographer Platt Babbitt made a chilling daguerreotype of a man named Joseph Avery, who had been stuck on a tree branch in the middle of the rushing rapids near the edge of Niagara Falls for over 10 hours. Babbitt had unknowingly created the first “action” shot in photojournalism. In this episode, Aimee tells the unbelievable true story of a daring rescue attempt on the Niagara River, a...

In the second half of my conversation with curator, educator, and photographer Leland Rice, he talks about two major exhibitions that he worked on for two photographers whose work he greatly admired-Frederick Sommer and Herbert Bayer. We also talk about the important connections, or “linkages” that have existed in his life.

Despite a raging head cold, Aimee barrels through to give you want you want: a discussion with Emily Bierman that covers the stellar results of the sale of Ansel Adams, A Legacy: Photographs from the Meredith Collection . This auction smashed records and exceeded expectations overall. We discuss white-glove auctions, the Ansel Adams market, estimates, auction development, research, and I ask Emily...

In this long awaited second interview with former Chairman of Sotheby’s Photographs, Denise Bethel, she and Aimee talk about her long career at Sotheby’s and the many treasures she handled, challenges she faced, and things she learned.

This is the first part of a conversation between Aimee Pflieger and Leland Rice on May 19, 2024. Here, he details his first exposure to photography, his experiences both as a student and as an instructor, and finally the genesis and execution of the first major American exhibition of László Moholy-Nagy’s photographic work. This groundbreaking exhibition and accompanying catalogue of gathers around...

How important are names? How important are titles of photographs? In this episode Aimee identifies 3 major ways that things become mistitled and how they can make a significant difference in the ways images are viewed using examples by Henri Cartier-Bresson, Josef Koudelka, Robert Capa, and George Hoyningen-Huene.

In this episode, Aimee sits down with Susan Kismaric, who started working in the photography department at the Museum of Modern Art in 1976 after a stint at the LIFE Picture Collection. She has curated a host of exhibitions and published several books, including her most recent on Garry Winogrand's color work. Listen in on this captivating conversation that covers Susan's earliest involvem...

In this episode, Aimee discusses Roy DeCarava’s lyrical photographs with Saul Robbins , who was DeCarava’s studio assistant during graduate school. We talk about one photograph in particular that encapsulates the photographer’s masterful printing style as well as his efforts to communicate his personal experiences.

Denise Bethel joined Swann Galleries in 1980, soon after photographs auctions were inaugurated in New York.  After a decade at Swann, she moved to Sotheby's in 1990, where she rose from senior specialist to Chairman of the Department in her 25 years there. At Sotheby's, she set records in a host of categories, among them the record for any photographs auction worldwide, at $21.3 million, i...

The layers within this story are many: Director James Cameron drew a picture of a picture and then gave said picture to an actor to use as a prop in a movie about a real thing that happened but is actually completely fabricated, and he talks about a woman who actually existed but no one knew who she was although she was photographed by someone whose pictures were sometimes fabrications.

Formerly a photographer and founder of The Center for Photography in Woodstock in 1977, Howard Greenberg has been one of a small group of gallerists, curators and historians responsible for the creation and development of the modern market for photography. Howard Greenberg Gallery—founded in 1981 and originally known as Photofind—was the first to consistently exhibit photojournalism and 'stree...

Emily Bierman, SVP and Global Head of Sotheby’s Photographs, comes back to chat with Aimee about the spectacular results of the Sotheby’s Photographs May 1 and 2, 2023 auctions: Pier 24 Photography from the Pilara Family Foundation Sold to Benefit Charitable Organizations . Covered: Sale strategy, lot order, exhibitions, and what we learned about the Photo market in the first half of 2023.

O. Winston Link is the King of Steam Train Photography. His mastery of the medium of photography and artistry in creating night shots is unparalleled. But while he was obsessive over trains and lighting, he left a lot of details to chance when it came to what his wife and business manager was up to. What happened seems like something straight out of a Lifetime movie.

Cartleton Watkins is considered by many to be the foremost 19th century photographer of the American West.  His ‘mammoth plate’ prints can sell for six figures at auction.  How do we rate Watkins prints when they come through the Sotheby’s Photographs department? How do we judge what is a “good” and “bad” print, and what are the metrics that we use to decide?  I’ll give you all of t...

Margaret Bourke-White was commissioned for what was to be the largest photo-mural in the world for the newly-constructed 30 Rockefeller Plaza.  She worked furiously and it was unveiled in December, 1933.  At the opening ceremony, what someone had done to her work would upset her so badly she omitted the whole affair from her autobiography.

In 1930 three people, Edward Weston, Lincoln Steffens, and Jack Black (not THAT Jack Black) have some life-changing experiences and their stories intersect with a woman named Ginny Williams who buys a portrait 60 years later.

In the early 2000s Alan Pflieger, a photographer in Huntington, Indiana (and my dad), acquired a huge archive of negatives from the Rickert Studio, which had been in operation from 1912 to 1986. He saved the negatives from being destroyed. My parents stored these negatives in their house for years until, through a funny series of events, they ended up making their way to the Huntington County Hist...

Emily Bierman, SVP and Global Head of Sotheby’s Photographs, chats with Aimee about the April 13, 2022 Photographs auction.  Covered: estimate “Smack Down” sessions, photograph obsessions, missed opportunities, and the health of the market from two people who should know.

Lee Marks, a photography dealer and consultant, heads Lee Marks Fine Art, established in New York City in 1981 and now located in Shelbyville, Indiana.  Lee has served in many roles in the photographic field, including gallery employee, writer, curator, President of the non-profit organization AIPAD, and business owner.  This talk was conducted by Zoom in January 2022.

In 1914, Mary Wigman created a dance that would shatter the rules about what dance was supposed to look like.  A trio of images by Charlotte Rudolph of Wigman came through the Photography department at Sotheby’s recently. Aimee gets to the bottom of what these images had to do with the Suspiria remake and why everyone was so upset about modern dance.