Frank Hurley's Photographs of Shackleton's Endurance Expedition Lead Exploration Auction
From the collection of photographs by Frank Hurley during Ernest Shackleton's expedition of 1914–1916
The Ted Benttinen Library of Exploration and Adventure comes to auction next week featuring photographs by Frank Hurley who documented Shackleton's exploits in addition to a huge personal library of travel and exploration books.
Closing on December 9, the Benttinen Library belonged to oceanographer Theodore H. Benttinen (1948–2023) and includes a huge range of texts and images covering the voyages of Captain Cook, Charles Darwin, and Sir John Franklin, as well as familar names from Antarctic exploration such as Robert Falcon Scott and Roald Amundsen. The auction comes a decade after Sotheby's major Franklin Brooke-Hitching collection auction covering the same area.
Leading the Sotheby's sale is a collection of 69 silver gelatin photographs taken by Frank Hurley who travelled on board Ernest Shackleton's Imperial Transantarctic Endurance Expedition in 1914–1916 as official photographer (estimate: $80,000–120,000). He documented the Endurance when it became stuck in the ice as well as the landscape, flora, fauna, and the crew playing chess.
Other highlights include Roald Amundsen's Sydpolen: Den Norske Sydpolsfaerd med Fram 1910-1912 (Kristiania: Jacob Dybwads, [May-September] 1912) in its rare original 40 parts, charting his groundbreaking trip to the South Pole (estimate: $4,000 - $6,000).
