[Einstein, Albert]

4 silver gelatin photographs (three approximately 14 x 11 in., and one 7 7/8 x 9 3/4 in.), one with the photographer's stamp on the verso. Some scattered minor edgewear and creasing, minor accretion to upper right corner of one print. 

Sanford & Beulah Roth — Francesca Robinson Sanchez — Private Collection, acquisition: Christie's London (13 December 2006, Lot 128) 

4 silver gelatin photographs (three approximately 14 x 11 in., and one 7 7/8 x 9 3/4 in.), one with the photographer's stamp on the verso. Some scattered minor edgewear and creasing, minor accretion to upper right corner of one print.
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Sanford was a well-known portrait photographer, who achieved a kind of intellectual reputation, owing in part to his work photographing Albert Einstein and other eminent figures across disciplines, such as Edwin Hubble, Irène and Frédéric Joliet-Curie, Picasso, James Dean, Jean Cocteau, Georges Braque, and more. These poignant photographs capture an elderly Einstein near the end of his life as a member of staff at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton University.

One of the photographs included in this group was published in Portraits of the Fifties. The Photographs of Sanford Roth (San Francisco and New York: 1987, p. 33), where the photographer's wife Beulah Sanford recounted his experience photographing Einstein in detail: "Before they began, I was told, Professor Einstein cautioned Sandy to take no more than six pictures. Three hours passed as [the cultural anthropologist Ashley] Montagu and Einstein had a lengthy discussion about nuclear power and the world ... Finally Einstein turned to Sandy and said, "Roth, you are a naughty boy. You took more than six!" "Yes, I did," said Sandy, "but Professor, you should know that in order to get six good ones I had to take one hundred." Sandy was expecting Einstein's wrath. Instead he got the response, "You are right, Roth. It figures mathematically."'