{"id":1108,"date":"2009-08-13T20:10:40","date_gmt":"2009-08-14T00:10:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nearbycafe.com\/artandphoto\/photocritic\/?p=1108"},"modified":"2009-08-13T20:10:40","modified_gmt":"2009-08-14T00:10:40","slug":"polaroid-collection-status-report-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nearbycafe.com\/artandphoto\/photocritic\/2009\/08\/13\/polaroid-collection-status-report-1\/","title":{"rendered":"Polaroid Collection: Update 1"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Dr.<\/a>

Dr. Edwin Land with SX-70, Life magazine cover, October 27, 1972<\/p><\/div>\n

Courtesy of John Reuter<\/a>, I can now provide you with the primary legal document relevant to the immediate future of the Polaroid Collection. This is a motion dated August 7, 2009 on the part of the current owners of the collection, PBE Corporation (formerly known as Polaroid Corporation),\u00a0asking the U. S. Bankruptcy Court in the District of Minnesota for permission to sell the collection at auction through Sotheby’s in New York. It includes an itemized list of what someone has identified as the cream of the collection, plus a complete list of all the picture-makers represented. (Click here for the PDF file of this motion.<\/a>)<\/p>\n

Inarguably, it’s a unique and unduplicable archive of images with great historical significance, not just in terms of the individual works included but in regard to the aggregation as a whole. The lists read like a Who’s Who of contemporary photography and photo-based art: Ansel Adams, Imogen Cunningham, Walker Evans, Robert Frank, Ralph Gibson, Robert Heinecken, Jan Groover, Gyorgy Kepes, Les Krims, Dorothea Lange, David Levinthal, Robert Mapplethorpe, Mary Ellen Mark, Helmut Newton . . . it just goes on and on.<\/p>\n

\"Polaroid<\/a>

Polaroid 20x24 camera on location<\/p><\/div>\n

The story of how things got to this point has numerous twists and turns. For my previous post on this subject, and substantive comments thereon by readers of this blog,\u00a0click here<\/a>.\u00a0(And click here for “A Brief Timeline of Polaroid”<\/a> through 1992, courtesy of the Photographic Resource Center in Boston.) In brief, the Polaroid Corporation’s long-term financial problems, which led to a bankruptcy filing and reorganization, seemed to have resolved with its 2005 sale to Petters International for $426 million. However, it turned out that Tom Petters was a scam artist; he now faces a multi-count conviction for massive fraud, with trial set to begin in September 2009.<\/p>\n

In April 2009, Petters sold the Polaroid Corporation for a mere $88 million, virtually a fire-sale markdown from its purchase price. The new owners specifically did not want the Polaroid Collections, which now legally belong to PBE Corporation \u2014 which, to put it bluntly, wants to unload them.<\/p>\n

To summarize how things now stand:<\/p>\n