Ansel Adams photo sells at auction for more than $1.3 million

A print by photographer Ansel Adams has sold for $988,000 USD ($1.3 million AUD), setting a new auction record for one of the iconic photographer's prints.

The mural-sized print of Adams’ The Grand Tetons and the Snake River, Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming was valued at between $400,000 and $600,000 USD prior to the auction ($528,000 to $790,000 AUD). The print is believed to be one of less than 10 mural-sized prints of the image in existence and, according to auction house Sotheby's, was acquired directly from Adams’ descendants.

It was just one of more than 100 prints by Adams sold in the recent Sotheby's auction A Grand Vision: The David H. Arrington Collection of Ansel Adams Masterworks, with the combined sales totalling a staggering $6.4 million USD ($8.44 million AUD).

The David H. Arrington Collection of Ansel Adams Masterworks is a personal collection of collector David Arrington, an American collector who currently serves as President of Arrington Oil & Gas Operating LLC.

According to Sotheby's, Arrington began collecting Adams prints in his late twenties, and over the decades gathered one of the largest and most important privately-held collections of work by the photographer.

A print of Adams' iconic Moonrise, Hernandez, New Mexico, sold for $685,500 USD ($905,000 AUD), with Half Dome, Merced River, Winter, also selling for the same figure.

You can see some of the other prints, and their sale prices, below, and check out all the prints that went under the hammer here. 

All images courtesy of Ansel Adams/Sotheby's Auction House.