The Snapshot Collection

The collection of snapshots available through banning+Low results from about ten years (roughly the entire nineties) of being at a Flea Market virtually every Sunday or Saturday wherever in the world we found ourselves - New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Berlin, Paris, London, among other places - usually on our knees poring through boxes of prints and discarded family albums. The collection has been supplemented in a small way with purchases from other snapshot enthusiasts around the country over the years.

We first showed our snapshots within the context of collectible or "art" photography at the Photo Show in Los Angeles in 1994. We were the first photograph dealers ever to do so. Today, of course, there are major collectors and collections (both private and institutional) of The Great American Snapshot (most including many examples from our collection) and several specialist dealers both in the U.S. and in Europe (not to mention on-line).

The emphasis in the collection has always been Surrealist in nature, finding "the extraordinary in the everyday." We are proud of our leadership in this field and hope that more collectors will discover the joy of collecting these surprise images.