Mark Morrisroe 'Nyph-o-maniac' 1983 WestLicht Collection

Between 1972 and 1990 the Polaroid company, working in collaboration with over 800 artists around the world, amassed a collection of about 4,400 prints. Artists such as Ansel Adams, Robert Mapplethorpe, Mary Ellen Mark, Robert Rauschenberg, William Wegman, Stephen Shore, Sally Mann, David Levinthal and Andy Warhol. For 20 years the collection was lost in the archives of Musée de l'Elysée in Lausanne in Switzerland. After the Polaroid company dissolved, liquidators sent their hounds to look for assets. The fate of the polaroids was uncertain, sitting on the auction block piecemeal, until the last moment when Peter Coeln, owner of the museum WestLicht, in conjunction with the Impossible Project acquire the collection. The collection will be on view this summer from June 17 to August 21 2011. www.westlicht.at

Helmut Newton '1976' WestLicht Collection