Magnum's Square Print Sale on Now - for just £100

We love the Square Print sale because it offers an incredible opportunity to acquire original photography by their illustrious roster of photographers, including iconic works by Eve Arnold, Martin Parr and Elliot Erwitt, for just £100 a piece, rather than the thousands these artists’ works usually command in the open market.

This year, though, things are a little different, in a very good way. Magnum Photos are celebrating their 75th anniversary, and to honour the occasion have created three Square Print Sales, titled Precedents, Now, and Vital Signs. 

The only condition for getting involved in this second sale, titled Now  - the third is March 2023 - is not to hang around. It is contained within a strict seven day window, which begins Monday 17th October, at 09.00am EST.

Editions come in signed or estate stamped museum-quality 6x6” prints and they make small but perfectly formed collectible art gifts. Or, if you are anything like us, you’ll see this as the rare chance it is to grow a world class photography collection. Buying three or more prints isn’t such a stretch when they are £100 each, and each sale is themed, allowing for easy curatorial cohesiveness between images.

For Now, Magnum photographers and estates, and an additional 31 photographers invited by The Photographers' Gallery, were asked to select an image from their archive that stands out to them today: an image perhaps that, in retrospect, they feel was pivotal in their career; or an image that reminds them of an experience or a moment that has stood the test of time; or even an image that they feel captures their photographic voice within the storied 75-year old Magnum archive.

The result of this collective thinking includes over 100 inspirational images that span eight decades, from Robert Capa’s D-Day landings in 1944 to a classic Steve McCurry from his trip to India in 2016.

The selection also includes several stand-out images from the photographers’ archives, such as Marilyn Monroe on the set of The Misfits as captured by Eve Arnold in 1960, Leonard Freed’s image of Martin Luther King in 1964, or a beach full of life at the Amalfi Coast shot by Martin Parr in 2014. 

“This is my favorite beach in the world to photograph in," says Parr of his photograph in the Now sale. "It’s very small and packed with young people. Most of the day I was shooting down below, and then I walked up for lunch and could look straight down onto the beach with a telephoto lens. Here in the middle was a young couple in full embrace.”

Perhaps best of all for us at SPHERE, for this sale Magnum Photos have teamed up with London’s Photographer’s Gallery and for the very first time the works in the Square Print Sale can be viewed and ordered in real life, rather than selected from Magnum’s website, though this is an option too.

The exhibition of the full collection of prints opens Friday October 14th, at The Photographers' Gallery 16–18 Ramilies Street, London, W1F 7LW, until the closing of the sale on October 23.

The Square Print Sale is on now until October 23, at Magnum Photos.