The Expert Eye
Aimee Pflieger loves discovering connections between seemingly disparate subjects, and pulling at the threads that photography has woven through culture since its invention.
In this podcast, she talks about photographs she’s handled during her career (as well as ones she hopes to someday), drawing out the hidden stories behind the images and illuminating the hidden histories of photography.
- Update frequency
- every 28 days
- Average duration
- 33 minutes
- Episodes
- 34
- Years Active
- 2021 - 2025
Episode 34: A Conversation with Rick Wester
In my continuing series of conversations with people who have shaped the Photographs market, I move back to focusing on the auction world. I sat down with Rick Wester, who, in addition to being a pr…
Episode 33: Twist Endings
Ralph Eugene Meatyard’s series of photographs featuring his family in unexpected places and costumes are hard to describe but entirely captivating. He found inspiration for a series of photographs fr…
Episode 32: Avery on the Log
In 1853, photographer Platt Babbitt made a chilling daguerreotype of a man named Joseph Avery, who had been stuck on a tree branch in the middle of the rushing rapids near the edge of Niagara Falls …
Episode 31: A Conversation with Leland Rice, Part II
In the second half of my conversation with curator, educator, and photographer Leland Rice, he talks about two major exhibitions that he worked on for two photographers whose work he greatly admired-…
Episode 30: Post-Sale Wrap Up with Aimee and Emily
Despite a raging head cold, Aimee barrels through to give you want you want: a discussion with Emily Bierman that covers the stellar results of the sale of Ansel Adams, A Legacy: Photographs from the…
Episode 29: A Conversation with Denise Bethel, Part II
In this long awaited second interview with former Chairman of Sotheby’s Photographs, Denise Bethel, she and Aimee talk about her long career at Sotheby’s and the many treasures she handled, challen…
Episode 28: A Conversation with Leland Rice
This is the first part of a conversation between Aimee Pflieger and Leland Rice on May 19, 2024. Here, he details his first exposure to photography, his experiences both as a student and as an instru…
Episode 27: The Untitled One
How important are names? How important are titles of photographs? In this episode Aimee identifies 3 major ways that things become mistitled and how they can make a significant difference in the ways…
Episode 26: A Conversation with Susan Kismaric
In this episode, Aimee sits down with Susan Kismaric, who started working in the photography department at the Museum of Modern Art in 1976 after a stint at the LIFE Picture Collection. She has cur…
Episode 25: Shades of Gray
In this episode, Aimee discusses Roy DeCarava’s lyrical photographs with Saul Robbins, who was DeCarava’s studio assistant during graduate school. We talk about one photograph in particular that en…
Episode 24: A Conversation with Denise Bethel, Part I
Denise Bethel joined Swann Galleries in 1980, soon after photographs auctions were inaugurated in New York. After a decade at Swann, she moved to Sotheby's in 1990, where she rose from senior specia…
Episode 23: Layer Cake
The layers within this story are many: Director James Cameron drew a picture of a picture and then gave said picture to an actor to use as a prop in a movie about a real thing that happened but is ac…
Episode 22: A Conversation with Howard Greenberg
Formerly a photographer and founder of The Center for Photography in Woodstock in 1977, Howard Greenberg has been one of a small group of gallerists, curators and historians responsible for the cre…
Episode 21: Post-Sale Wrap with Aimee and Emily
Emily Bierman, SVP and Global Head of Sotheby’s Photographs, comes back to chat with Aimee about the spectacular results of the Sotheby’s Photographs May 1 and 2, 2023 auctions: Pier 24 Photography f…
Episode 20: The Limits of Control: O. Winston Link
O. Winston Link is the King of Steam Train Photography. His mastery of the medium of photography and artistry in creating night shots is unparalleled. But while he was obsessive over trains and light…
Episode 19: Carleton Watkins Detective
Cartleton Watkins is considered by many to be the foremost 19th century photographer of the American West. His ‘mammoth plate’ prints can sell for six figures at auction. How do we rate Watkins pri…
Episode 18: Margaret Bourke-White and the NBC Murals
Margaret Bourke-White was commissioned for what was to be the largest photo-mural in the world for the newly-constructed 30 Rockefeller Plaza. She worked furiously and it was unveiled in December, 1…
Episode 17: Second Chances
In 1930 three people, Edward Weston, Lincoln Steffens, and Jack Black (not THAT Jack Black) have some life-changing experiences and their stories intersect with a woman named Ginny Williams who buys …
Episode 16: Lost and Found Dept.: The One-Man Historical Society
In the early 2000s Alan Pflieger, a photographer in Huntington, Indiana (and my dad), acquired a huge archive of negatives from the Rickert Studio, which had been in operation from 1912 to 1986. He s…
Episode 15: Post Sale Wrap with Emily and Aimee
Emily Bierman, SVP and Global Head of Sotheby’s Photographs, chats with Aimee about the April 13, 2022 Photographs auction. Covered: estimate “Smack Down” sessions, photograph obsessions, missed opp…