Over the past decade, as select photographs by modernists and postmodernists alike were earning million-dollar prices at auction—witness the records for prints by Edward Steichen and Richard Prince—a less celebrated movement was transforming the market for photographic literature. Dealers and collectors, aided by the publication of several recent histories, are recognizing what the late MoMA curator John Szarkowski observed 20 years ago: Certain photographers are best appreciated in—and do their best work for—books rather than gallery shows.

Serious collectors, as well as speculators, are snapping up prized editions from the past and present as never before. They are rushing to acquire canonical photographic books for many of the same reasons that connoisseurs began buying photographs 30 years ago: the realization that even multiples are in limited supply, and some are more precious than others.

The photograph and photo-book markets have grown up together. The first auction for either category in the U.S., the 1952 Marshall sale of Americana, held at Swann Auction Galleries, in New York, included many lots of both. Made up of items from the estate of the Rhode Island chemical engineer and businessman Albert E. Marshall, it attracted spirited bidding, although the prices seem laughable today: A copy of William Henry Fox Talbot’s A Pencil of Nature, 1844–46, among the first and greatest photographic books ever published, sold for $200.

Swann has devoted a separate catalogue to photographic literature since 1981 and has enjoyed steady success. In October of last year, the house sold a partial set of Edward S. Curtis’s epic ethnographic study, The North American Indian (16 complete portfolios with photogravure prints and 16 illustrated text volumes) for more than $1 million. A copy of the first U.S. edition of the Zurich-born Robert Frank’s melancholic view of his adopted country, The Americans, from 1959, went for $13,800 in May 2006. In that same sale, a signed copy of Edward Ruscha’s Twenty six Gasoline Stations, one of his Minimalist documentary masterworks, sold for a record $20,700.

“It’s a robust market,” says Daile Kaplan, who directs Swann’s photographs department. “But when you consider its youthful nature, photo books in general are still undervalued. It’s the artists who, in a sense, make the market. A number of photographers who began working in the ’60s and ’70s saw the book as an appropriate venue.” Its flexibility and the potential for creating structured narratives as the pages turn were hard to ignore.

The wide appeal for collectors is evident as well. “The book is a perfect format to look at photographs,” says Sven Becker, a Christie’s specialist based in London. “The images, the layout, the materials, the bindings—all these elements come together to create a specific experience. Unlike a work of literature that you may read once or twice, you can keep photo books on your shelf, take them down and remind yourself what you like about them. The response is immediate.”

Becker is putting his opinion on the line this month with the April 10 sale of Rare Photographic Literature at Christie’s New York, which he organized. “This is the first time photographic books of such uniformly high quality have been offered for sale,” he says. The estimates support his appraisal: The total sale is expected to bring $1.5 million to $2.2 million, and individual items could fetch upwards of $90,000.

The collection, put together over 10 years for an anonymous American connoisseur, comprises two hundred 20th-century books—from Alvin Langdon Coburn’s 1909 London (est. $10–15,000) to Richard Prince’s 1995 Adult Comedy Action Drama (est. $20–30,000)—that are not only in prime condition but are all inscribed by the artists. A New York edition of Henri Cartier-Bresson’s The Decisive Moment, from 1952, for instance, carries an estimate of $20,000 to $30,000 because of its handwritten message to Edward Weston: “à Édouard avec l’amitié de Hank.” Brassaï’s Paris de Nuit, 1933, his second book and a sensual celebration of Paris in all its dark and dirty glory, is represented in the sale by a copy signed to his friend the Hungarian photographer André Kertész (est. $30–50,000).

A 1962–66 set of Ruscha’s five hugely influential books—serial images of gas stations, small fires, parking lots and buildings on the Sunset Strip—is priced at $60,000 to $90,000, as is a copy of Hans Bellmer’s 1949 exercise in sadomasochism with mannequins, Les jeux de la poupée, which is autographed to his psychiatrist. A copy of Facile, the elegant 1935 collaboration that joined Man Ray’s solarized and double-exposed images of nudes with Paul Éluard’s love poems to his wife, is inscribed by both to Bellmer, thus closing a cozy Parisian Surrealist circle (est. $40–60,000).

Becker oversaw successful sales of rare photographic books in 2006 and 2007 at Christie’s London; the 2006 auction brought in $1.2 million. He chose New York this time in part because Americans compose nearly half the market (Europeans account for most of the other half, with the difference made up by Asians). But he also believes that Americans “respond to quality and to unique signatures.”  In fact, such inscriptions may be more important in determining price than how well the photos are reproduced. The reproduction quality in the Ruscha books and in The Americans, for instance, is mediocre, yet they have commanded significant sums.

The New York art and book dealer Andrew Roth, who advised and bought for the collector whose works will be auctioned on April 10, confirms the price-enhancing power of signatures with unique associations. More anonymously inscribed copies appear in such numbers that they have “devalued the signature,” says Roth. However, he adds, “Just as the unique vintage print is more valuable than the editioned print, the copy of a book inscribed from one significant individual to another should be more valuable.” A first edition of Larry Clark’s Tulsa, the native Oklahoman’s scary joyride through a teenage world of guns, sex and injected drugs, for instance, “is rare enough,” Roth notes, but add an inscription from Clark to his buddy, publisher and fellow photographer Ralph Gibson, and it becomes “more meaningful.”

Many observers credit Roth’s 2001 The Book of 101 Books: Seminal Photographic Books of the 20th Century, with inspiring collectors and scholars to take photographic books more seriously. (Published by PPP Editions in association with the gallery once owned by Roth and book dealer Glenn Horowitz, it has itself become a rare book, with signed copies selling for more than $2,000 on Amazon.) The field received another boost from The Photobook: A History, by photographer Martin Parr and critic Gerry Badger, an even more comprehensive study published in two volumes (2004 and 2006) by Phaidon.

Those weren’t the only entries in the genre. In 2005 the Hasselblad Center published The Open Book: A History of Photographic Books from 1878 to the Present to accompany a traveling exhibition. The Stephen Daiter Gallery published From Fair to Fine: 20th-Century Photography Books that Matter in 2006.

The potential for dealers and collectors to be self-enriching in producing ostensibly scholarly tomes that promote works they own or have bought for clients troubles many in the photography world, none of whom want to go on the record. Others are less concerned about the possible conflict of interest. “I don’t have a problem with [Parr’s book],” says the New York dealer Howard Greenberg, who specializes in 20th-century and contemporary photographs. “Museums do it, too. The truth is, Martin loves his books. He’s done all this research. He’s contributed to the enthusiasm in the field.”

Among the new enthusiasts are speculators, such as those who, after the publication of the first Parr-Badger volume, eagerly bought up titles they guessed would be selected for the second. The authors tried to cross up these gamblers by continually revising their list, which may explain its eccentricity and British slant. For example, Ansel Adams and Edward Weston did not make it into either volume. The writing is so persuasive, however, that it’s hard not to be caught up in the authors’ taste for avant-garde books from Japan and Germany.

“There are hundreds of people who are buying based solely on what is in Parr and Badger,” says the Chicago dealer Stephen Daiter. “It’s an analogue to coin collecting. They check off titles as if each one is a variant. They’re ‘completists,’ who want to have everything.”

Photography books are almost as old as photography itself—as demonstrated by Talbot’s mid-19th-century Pencil of Nature—and production has never slacked. Editioning varies widely, from a handful to a truckful, with rarity boosting value. The tide of new fine-art titles from publishers in Europe, the U.S. and Asia has reached such heights that the quarterly magazine Photoeye, in Santa Fe, a chief reviewing source, can no longer keep up. Even if Web sites are essential for the careers of artists, most photographers still feel the need to showcase their works in a three-dimensional object.

A number of acclaimed contemporary photographic artists, including Paul Graham and John Gossage, owe their high profiles in the art market as much to their books as to their gallery shows. A deluxe edition of Graham’s A-1: The Great North Road, 1981, part of a printing of 75, sold with a signed print for $24,000 (est. $12–18,000) at Swann Galleries in December. Graham is pushing the boundaries of bookmaking and book pricing.

Last year Steidl published 1,000 copies of his brilliant A Shimmer of Possibility, 12 slim hardcovers containing open-ended narratives about anonymous American lives. The set comes in a plain white box and retails for $250. Graham is not alone. Richard Misrach’s On the Beach—so enormous, at 20 by 15 inches and 7 pounds, that most bookshelves can’t accommodate it—was published only last fall by Aperture, and the first edition of 4,500 has already sold out at a list price of $85 a copy.

David Strettell, who opened Dashwood Books, in New York, in 2005, has seen his photographic-book business grow “exponentially” since, he says, adding that his clients are collectors of contemporary titles as well as art directors and “people just looking for cool photographs.” Specializing in small-edition artist books from Japan and Europe, some of which can’t be found elsewhere in New York, he has noticed that prices even for recent and once commonly available books have shot up. Alec Soth’s Sleeping by the Mississippi, a collection, published in 2004, of pictures of oddball people and sites Soth encountered during his Midwest wanderings, now sells for more than $500. Tokyo Suburbia, 1998, by Takashi Homma, goes for $1,000.

Strettell is currently building a collection for a European banker who wants it to represent photography’s history from the 1970s to the present. Photographic books’ relatively low cost, when measured against the prices of other collectibles, is attractive for many. “If you have half a million to spend, you can have a pretty serious and complete collection of photography books,” says Strettell. “Whereas, for the same money you could only buy maybe half a dozen important photographs.”

How far a half or even a whole million dollars will go in this hot market five years from now is hard to say. Book dealers such as David Bauman and Andrew Roth, in New York; Harper Levine, in East Hampton; Jeff Hirsch, in Chicago; and Simon Finch, in London, are pushing up prices—and creating demand—for unusual items. “It’s easier to sell a $10,000 book than a $300 book,” says Daiter.

This market has its quirks, and the future of photography itself may be dematerializing into digital pixels and cyberspace. But for the moment, the inked image on the page has never been more prized.

"Bound for Glory" originally appeared in the April 2008 issue of Art+Auction. For a complete list of articles from this issue available on ARTINFO, see Art+Auction's April 2008 Table of Contents.