LONDON.- Four images of the celebrated Spanish painter, Pablo Picasso (1881-1973), are to be sold at Bonhams, New Bond Street, as part of its Photographs Sale on 19 May 2011. Three of the pictures - Picasso in front of ‘La Chute d’Icare’, Vallauris, 1957; Picasso à Vallauris, October, 1953; and Les Yeux de Picasso, Cannes, 1956 - were taken by French photographer, André Villers, with whom Picasso struck up a great friendship following a chance meeting on a street in Vallauris, France, in 1953, when Villers stopped to take Picasso’s picture. Each photograph has attracted a pre-sale estimate of £1,500 – 2,000. The fourth image was taken by German photographer, Werner Bokelberg. Entitled Picasso at St Tropez, 1965, it is estimated at £1,000 – 1,200.

The sale also features portraits of icons including: Brigitte Bardot by British photographer Terry O’Neill (estimate £2,000 – 3,000); Jean Shrimpton in New York in 1962 by David Bailey (estimate £7,000 – 9,000); Marilyn Monroe in her famous ‘Last Sitting’ by Bert Stern (estimate £1,000 – 1,500); Nelson Mandela revisiting his cell on Robben Island in 1994 by Jürgen Schadeberg (estimate £1,800 – 2,200); Mike Tyson by Albert Watson (estimate £3,500 – 4,500); The Beatles by Robert Freeman – the instantly recognisable image that became the cover for the band’s 1963 album With The Beatles (estimate £4,000 – 6,000); James Dean by Roy Schatt, from the well known ‘Torn Sweater’ series (estimate £1,000 – 1,500); and Marlene Dietrich by Horst P. Horst (estimate £2,000 – 3,000).

Other highlights include: two photographs by legendary American photographer Irving Penn – a stunning platinum print of his Five Dahomey Girls, Two Standing, 1967 (estimate £15,000 – 20,000) and the powerful Tambul Ialibu Warrior, New Guinea, 1970 (estimate £8,000 – 12,000); Dutch artist Ruud van Empel’s World #31, 2008 (estimate £10,000 – 15,000) and Moon #7, 2008 (estimate £7,000 – 9,000); and an impressive collection of 17 photobooks by American pop artist Edward Ruscha, many first editions, spanning the period 1962 to 2005 (estimate £10,000 – 15,000).